Annual reports are available online and as PDF files
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Annual reports are available online and as PDF files
Annual Report 2004-2005
Introduction
In US cities, in the 1990s the population of Hispanics grew by 72%, Asians by 69% and Blacks by 22.5%, but Whites by only 5%. Nationally by 2000, Hispanics, Blacks, Asians and Native Americans made up 13%, 13%, 4% and 1% of the population, respectively. Further, the number of languages spoken in the US has become very diverse and the descriptor “foreign” is coming into question. For instance, who was here first, the Spanish or French speaker or the English speaker? What was our colonial heritage? Despite homogenization of languages globally with the pervasiveness of English, events, such as the break up of the Soviet Union, have led to revival of many indigenous languages, such as Kazakh instead of Russian in Kazakhstan, Mongol instead of Mandarin in north central China or Pitjinjara instead of English in Australia. That is not to say that all Australians will speak Pitjinjara, but some will rediscover their cultural heritage, which is closely intertwined with their indigenous language. The education systems of these countries are switching from just Russian, Mandarin or English to including indigenous and more foreign languages to ensure that no child is left behind as globalization proceeds. Perhaps our culture needs to be like the English language and absorb new words from other languages? Is it wise to discard linguistic or cultural characteristics from the melting pot of migrant and indigenous cultures that make the United States such a great nation?
Modern communication technology, such as web-based discussion areas, chat-rooms and Internet-based videoconferencing, is now making it possible to form virtual communities of practice on a global scale, spanning continents, time zones and many cultures. This is leading to disintermediation on a scale equal to if not bigger than that of the introduction of the printing press in the 1400s, by allowing people to communicate directly with others anywhere in the world. This further underlines the need for effective intercultural communication strategies in the classroom, workplace or even at home. This new possibility is made more challenging because participants may never meet face-to-face, and will have to rely on text-based interactions to collaborate in achieving common objectives.
While the world is becoming smaller in terms of the speed of communication, it is becoming larger in terms our realization of the enormity of cultural diversity. The global learning program at Wichita State University is an example of the provision of opportunities for intercultural communication between students and faculty living in different countries around the world. It provides opportunities for conversations with people from a myriad of different cultures and is opening our eyes to the limitations of stereotypes, media-based misconceptions, and other outmoded or over-generalized views of other cultures. The need for a robust conceptual framework and metaphor emerged from reflection on global learning experiences in a range of programs. Last year, we presented a conceptual framework for the dialogic co-construction of intercultural understandings through the cage painting metaphor. We have documented its application to the analysis of text-based communication between students living in different countries. This year, we can report that we have developed a cage painting prototype simulation that serves both as a learning object and as a research tool so we can study in more detail the process of developing intercultural communication strategies.
The Cage Painting Metaphor
“The United States falls short on virtually all indicators of international knowledge, awareness and competence.” NASULGC Task Force on International Education 2004
Like a fish in an aquarium, unaware of the significance of the effect of the aquarium or the water on the way the world appears, most people, especially those living in homogeneous groups, are not aware of their cage. Only by becoming aware of our cages, can we improve our communication, especially interculturally. The concept of cage painting is the process of making explicit, one’s cultural background, life experiences and current context. In so doing, we are then better able to compose outgoing messages and interpret incoming messages during intercultural communication. Our cages are painted through intercultural interaction as a result of critical self- and co-reflection.
The cage painting metaphor captures “characteristics” of an individual (see below) as bars. This approach is flexible; it allows for the selection of characteristics relevant to a particular context. The number and combination of characteristics will vary from one context to another. Some characteristics will relate to life experience, culture or current context. Two people from different backgrounds will paint different bars depending on their current context and on their backgrounds. Some characteristics of their background may have a significant effect on collaboratively achieving a goal and some may have less or no effect.
The collaborators need to understand how the life experience, language, history, geography, religion, politics, culture and context constitute each other’s cage as well as their own. Then they can paint the cage bars to ensure that messages will pass through them without distortion. In other words, the recipient will be able to interpret the message as the sender intended. This often involves first recognizing and then unlearning misconceptions and stereotyping before relearning the reality of the recipient’s world. Ultimately, the intention is to develop the ability to send and receive messages that facilitate the emergence of autonomous learning skills thereby supporting the necessary conditions for co-construction of new knowledge and recognition of multiple perspectives. The foundation for this resides in the values of honour and respect for and curiosity about other cultures as well as the courage to try communicating and to critically appraise one’s own culture. They understand their own perspective and they understand that of others, thus improving intercultural communication.
We must think more deeply about ourselves and whether the objectification of our cage ensures that the recipient is receiving the intended message. We can never entirely paint our own cage bars or those of the recipient; like the ongoing, never ending process of co-constructing cultural identity. But, through self-reflection, if we become aware of that, we can continue efforts for mutual understanding, keeping in mind existing constraints, some obvious/painted and some invisible. Our continued painting may reveal differences in the visibility of our bars both over time and depending on context. We may even recognize some incongruities within and among observed characteristics. We are “painting” our own cage to make it visible to others and to ourselves so that we are cognizant of our life experiences, cultural background, and current context and their effect on our perspective.
“To understand another person’s utterance means to orient oneself with respect to it, to find the proper place for it in the corresponding context. For each word of the utterance that we are in the process of understanding, we, as it were, lay down a set of our own answering words. …the greater their number and weight, the deeper and more substantial our understanding will be... Any true understanding is dialogic in nature. Understanding is to utterance as one line of dialogue is to the next…” (Bakhtin, 1986, Speech genres and other late essays p.102).
Previous and other approaches to intercultural communication, such as “cultural lenses” have sought to distil cultures into some minimalist description. This distillation carries with it three risks: cultural agnosia, loss of cultural acuity and the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.
The first is the risk is the failure to assign meaning to some artifact of culture as a result of the biases of the cultural background of the person making the cultural lens. For example, alcohol consumption can figure prominently in business negotiations in some parts of China or Australia. On the contrary, in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia it would be wise not to consume alcohol. However, attitudes toward consumption of alcohol do not appear to be covered in many approaches.
The second risk arises, when we try to reduce culture to some small number of dimensions. This allows only a very coarse resolution of some aspect of culture. For example time can be dissected into many meanings, some of which may be more important than others, depending on the context. Some meanings include punctuality, requirement of planning, division of work and family time and tolerance for unexpected variations in schedules, to name a few.
The third and perhaps most important risk of using the cultural lens metaphor is that the lens itself affects the user’s perception of a culture. For example in anthropology fieldwork, the presence of the anthropologist/observer affects the behaviour of the people under observation as described by Margaret Mead in 1928. Bookshelves abound with tomes in which authors delude themselves in the presentation of their own culture and then present distorted stereotypes of others.
In our experiences interacting with people from other cultures, two things are apparent. First, it is nonsense to assume that a country has just one culture and second, it is nonsense to assume that “culture” is the same in different contexts. For example, in China, there are 56 distinct ethnic groups each with their own linguistic and cultural characteristics. Further, the “culture” changes depending on whether an interaction is “official” i.e. involving Chinese Communist Party executives or “unofficial” involving others. Globally, because of immigration, it is possible to meet a person of almost any ethnic background living in a given country and who exhibits characteristics of their original ethnicity and those of the host country and for this to vary from individual to individual.
We therefore argue that the quest for a “lens” as described above does not provide for refinement of intercultural understanding through interaction between the people from different cultures. We need a new approach that provides for revision of meaning, finer resolution and dialogic interpretation; an approach based on an interactive process not on one-way interpretations. Throw the “Learn Cultures of the World in 10 days” books away. Meet someone from another culture. Have a conversation and paint your cages. You will learn a lot more.
Course Redevelopment Projects
The following are descriptions of the six projects funded in 2004-2005.
Project: Cage Painting Simulator; Department: Curriculum & Instruction Education,
Project: Post-conflict Nation Building; Department: Political Science Liberal Arts & Sciences; Collaborators: Canada, Australia
Project: Mechanical Engineering Senior Design Project Department: Mechanical Engineering; Collaborators: Russia, India
Project: Enterprise Engineering Department: Industrial & Manufacturing Engineering; Collaborators: France, Mexico, Italy, Australia
Project: Global Forum on Educational Research Department: Educational Leadership Collaborators: Denmark, UK, Spain, Australia
Annual Conference
“We live in a truly global age … to solve most of the major problems facing our country today … will require every young person to learn more about other regions, cultures and languages." Former US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, Aug. 2001
The 3rd Annual Global Learning Conference, eclipsed previous conferences in terms of attendance and the quality and excitement of the sessions. In our new venue, the CAC Theatre, we had 175 registrants, plus presenters, chairs and keynote speakers and the audience swelled to over 500 with standing room only, when String Improvisation students from across Kansas, joined us during the morning. We enjoyed and learned a great deal from two excellent keynote presentations by President Michael Adams of Fairleigh Dickinson University and from Vice President Ron Engelbrecht of Engenio Information Technologies. The theme was “Students” and this was reinforced by President Donald Beggs during his welcome address, when he reminded us that this is all about learning. It was time for faculty and teachers to listen and learn from our global learning students.
Students from middle and elementary schools in Wisconsin, Florida, Kansas and their project leader, “Canopy” Meg Lowman, who was at Princeton University at the time, participated in a 4-way exchange about a project to see if trees can tell us the temperature. We were privy to an actual global learning class, when we participated in a connection between the Women in Africa class, led by Dr Chinyere Okafor, and Dr Chioma Opara at the Rivers State University of Science and Technology in Port Harcourt, Nigeria. Students of Women in the Middle East shared their experience in producing a broadcast quality documentary about the lives of women living in the West Bank after learning about this directly from people, who live there.
Other features of the day included a live string performance with Dr Jacque Dillon, Esther Noh and students and John Harrison at MIT’s Media Laboratory, a peek at the Canadian group “Barrage” as they conducted a master class for the String Improvisation Day students in another part of the University, a demonstration of low-cost, wireless, multi-site video conferencing with Apple’s iSight camera by Dr Ian Gibson, a discussion about the new International Business course with Dr Sam Beldona of the Barton School of Business, and Dr Desh Gupta at the University of Canberra, Australia, and a presentation about global learning for future scientists in the field of Communicative Disorders by Drs Kenn Apel and Ro Scudder and their collaborators.
A highlight of the day and a breakthrough for the program was the presentation about the “Rwanda Alive!” project in which senior high school students in Maize and Rwanda interacted to exchange knowledge and perspectives about life in the respective countries, the 1994 genocide, the AIDS epidemic, the Ba’Twa people and the Mountain Gorilla. Dr Sherry Goodvin and Stan Bergkamp were joined by Jonathan Giesen from the Global Nomads Group (www.gng.org ), based in New York City. This included a video production made by the Maize high school students.
Cage Painting Simulator
“Our students are trapped in a kind of educational isolationism, which may have suited the Industrial Age but leaves students desperately underprepared for the demands of the 21st-century global economy … we must integrate knowledge of world history, geography, science and technology, world languages, literature and international affairs into the school day." Former North Carolina Governor, James B Hunt Jr.,
The purpose of the project is to prepare learners for effective communication in diverse environments. This will be achieved by developing a digital library of CD/Web-based multimedia scenarios for our students. They will interact with a simulation agent (Simea) from “another” culture. The learner will need to interact with Simea in order to achieve a specified goal. This will involve the learner gaining insights into the perspective of Simea so that they can communicate well enough to achieve that goal. This is also known as “cage painting.”
Cage Painting as a metaphor is a creative construct for conceptualizing the process of understanding other perspectives. This process is essential for success, when communicating in any given context. It captures the initial and ongoing intercultural socialization that underpins effective communication and enables successful team work. The vehicle for cage painting is reflective and co-reflective online journaling that is scaffolded by the faculty using guiding questions to trigger critical thinking. The “cage” is a metaphor through which we see the world, but its richness as a metaphor comes from the fact that we can paint the invisible bars. We do this in order to represent ourselves to others more clearly while communicating. We often don’t realize the cage is there because it is initially invisible; but it is affecting how we interact or communicate with others. It is like grammar and punctuation, which we take for granted until we try to learn a foreign language. Cage painting is like the noise the fax machines make as they “talk” to each other and negotiate a communication protocol before they send our data. Without it our data could be scrambled. It is like the courtship that precedes a close relationship, leading to marriage. Without it, a long term, sustainable relationship is unlikely. Cage painting as a concept is proving helpful to faculty and students alike to meet the challenge of intercultural communication. In fact, a good teacher will spend time painting cages with their students to find out what they know so they can shape the lessons to suit their needs.
The cage painting simulation will enable users to practice on a computer and learn the basic strategies of intercultural communication in a virtual environment before they proceed with real people. They will learn to quickly identify critical aspects of cultural background, life experience, language, religion, climate, history and political systems that influence the other person’s perspectives on the course content. For example, in gifted education, the definitions of giftedness and types of intervention practiced in a particular country will depend on its culture and government policy, so asking questions about these will immediately start the process of painting cages. In an engineering design class, the students will share their cultural and other characteristics with project sponsors in another country. In a music class, they will share links between culture and musical traditions. In a business class, they will share information about legal, ethical and cultural issues as they affect the process of doing business in their respective countries. The simulation will also be helpful for faculty to better understand and therefore teach cage painting as they facilitate global/diverse learning in their courses. Each simulation scenario presents the user with a social environment in which he or she will interact with a character (Simea) who has unique cultural characteristics. During a given scenario, the user needs to apply knowledge gained in the instructional content to identify the bars in his or her and Simea’s cages. By taking into account these bars, the user is able to minimize message distortion and have a positive communication experience with Simea, which is the primary goal of global learning. Graphical elements are employed throughout the simulation to show the visibility of the bars in both Simea’s and the user’s cages, throughout a simulation. During the process, the user is provided with coaching and real-time feedback.
Modern communication technology enables students to participate in direct dialog with their counterparts in many other parts of the world. However, due to constraints, such as time zone differences and being able to match classes between institutions in different countries, it is important that our students are well prepared ahead of the interaction, so the make the best use of the available time. A cage painting simulator has been developed to fill this need. Our intention is not for students just to understand a particular culture, but rather we want them to be able to derive strategies for cultivating intercultural communication. This is achieved by having them repeatedly interact with characters from randomly synthesized cultures within the simulator. The prototype simulator first introduces the user to the challenge of collaborating with people from other cultures. The user can then try a scenario within the simulation (Fig. 5.1) (See PDF). It will become apparent to the user that they need to develop strategies to improve their performance when they typically do not achieve the desired outcome. The idea of painting cage bars is then described. Subsequently, they can try more simulation scenarios in which they apply the cage painting approach. Each scenario is different in terms of the goal, context and culture of the simulated character, Simea.
The prototype simulation offers three different scenarios, in random order, in which the user needs to work with Simea to achieve some goal. Each scenario begins with a description of the context and the goal to be achieved. Communication with Simea is by instant message (IM). Simea offers a greeting. Then the user chooses from a number of possible contributions to the IM session (Fig. 5.1) (See PDF). Depending on the choice, Simea will respond according to her cultural background and the nature of the goal that is to be achieved. The IM conversation proceeds with the user making choices at each step. A graphical representation, in green (thick) arrows, of the path that a user can take is shown in Fig. 5.2 (See PDF). Although the figure shows only three reaction/responses at each step, the number of choices varies from 3 to 8 in the actual simulator.
Research Publications
1. Alagic, M., Doyle, C. Gibson, K., Yeotis, C. & Kear, D. (2005). Redefining learning activities: ICT-generated paradigm change. Proc. SITE 2005 16th Annual IT in Teacher Education Conference. Phoenix AZ. 1252-1258.
2. Gibson, K.L., Vialle, W. & Rimmington, G.M. (2005). Reflection on Gifted Education: Gaining Multiple Perspectives through Global Learning. Paper presented at the 16th Biennial Conference of the World Council for Gifted & Talented Children. New Orleans. August 6-10.
3. Gibson, K.L., Vialle, W. & Rimmington, G.M. (2005). Gaining multiple perspecitves through global learning reflections. Paper to be presented at the 52nd Annual Convention of the National Association for Gifted Children. Louisville, Kentucky, November 9-13. (accepted).
4. Gibson, I.W. (2005). Leading and teaching in schools for the future: Using interactive video connectivity and networking in educator preparation programs. Proc. SITE 2005 16th Annual IT in Teacher Education Conference. Phoenix AZ. 1790-1797.
5. Gibson, I.W. (200x). Deep thinking, reflection, and the construction of meaning in an authentic, technology rich, global learning environment: The Global Forum on School Leadership, a Type II application of interactive computing technology suitable for the 21st century. Computers in the Schools, Special Edition. (in press).
6. Gibson, I.W. (2005). Technology, Learning, and Leading: Educational imperatives for a 21st century global context (p. 118-133). In Sue Trinidad and John Pearson (Eds.) (2005). Using Information and Communication Technologies in Education. Singapore: Pearson/Prentice Hall.
7. Rimmington, G.M. Alagic, M. & Gibson, K. (2005). Global learning: The blending "lived" and "unlived" scenarios to facilitate cross-cultural communication through "cage painting". Proc. 3rd Carfax International Conference on Reflective Practice. Institute of Reflective Practice. Gloucester, UK. June 23-24.
8. Rimmington, G.M., Alagic, M. & Gibson, K.L. (2006). The Cage-painting Metaphor: Dialogic co-construction of intercultural understandings. Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association. San Francisco. April 7-11. (Submitted)
9. Rimmington, G.M. & Bever-Goodvin, S. (2005). Global learning for developing intra- and inter-personal intelligences. Proc. 16th Int. Conf of Soc. for IT in Teacher Education. Phoenix. March. 1750-1758
10. Rimmington, G.M. & Gruba, P.A. (2005). Global Learning: Cross Cultural Communication for Diverse Settings. (In Prep.)
11. Whitman, L.E., Malzahn, D.E., Chaparro, B.S., Russell, M., Langrall, R. & Mohler, B.A. (2005). A comparison of group processes, performance and satisfaction in face-to-face versus computer mediated engineering student design teams. Journal of Engineering Education. (Accepted)
Global Trivia Night - Africa
“…people … are dangerously uninformed about the rest of the world, subject to a kind of educational isolationism that ill-equips them to meet the demands of an international, interconnected century” Former Secretary of Education, Roderick Paige, June 2001
More than 60 members of the Wichita community competed in this year’s Global Trivia Night, which focused on Africa.Now an annual fund-raising event for the Global Learning Center of Wichita www.glcwichita.org the Global Trivia Night attracted a keen audience. Participants, grouped in competing tables, worked as teams to complete each of 10 rounds in the competition. The rounds dealt with geography, entertainment, sport, history, political leaders, flags, national capitals and general trivia about the African continent. Some teams where studying for weeks ahead. The winning team for the night was a table of Nigerian students, sponsored by the Nigerian Women’s Association of Wichita. Other tables were kindly sponsored by Dr Manfred Menking, Dr Howard Johnston, founder of the Global Learning Center in 1987, Billie McCrae and Lisa Dodson. It was pleasing to see such enthusiasm for learning about another part of the world and involvement of so many young people.
The mission of the Global Learning Center is to raise the awareness of global issues of the Wichita community through monthly educational programs. Another Global Trivia night is planned for March 2006 and will focus on central Asia.
Empire or Interdependence
“If young Americans are to take on challenging leadership roles in the future and help the United States maintain its competitive edge, they must have not only an education well grounded in the technology of the 21st Century, but also a deep understanding of other cultures, geography, history, and languages. The world will demand it of them—we must demand it of our educational system.” President of Goldman Sachs Foundation, Stephanie Bell-Rose, 2003
The “Empire or Interdependence?” conference at Friends University was held on April 1-3 and was an outstanding success. The more than 100 attendees were treated to panel discussions involving 23 visiting Fulbright Fellows from 20 different countries. The Keynote Speaker was Dr Catharine Stimpson from New York University. She issued the challenge of the conference to consider which sort of future we want—one that is dependent on maintaining an empire or one that involves achieving peace and prosperity through interdependence. Her case example was in international higher education. She painted a bleak picture of current trends of declining interest by students from developing nations in attending universities in the US. While US enrolments decline, those students are gleefully being picked up by universities in the UK, Australia and in China. This has important implications for research and development in the US, which depends on having science and engineering graduates, who are largely from India and China. The current model of international education needs to be reviewed. What does the model of interdependence in higher education look like? Can we collaborate instead of trying to compete? Can we concentrate on enriching the learning experience with international perspectives? Can we offer joint degrees with our international partners?
Global Learning in Gifted Education
“The decline of support for public diplomacy versus official diplomacy has a damaging effect on perceptions of the US…” Thomas Gouttierre, Dean International Studies and Programs at the University of Nebraska, Omaha at Fulbright Conference, Washington DC 2001
The Gifted Education global learning project, led by Dr Kay Gibson, has spawned the start of some global learning activity, thanks to Marjorie Landwehr-Brown, from Douglass, in collaboration with Ann Lundy at Udall High School and Dr Wilma Vialle at the University of Wollongong in Australia.. Marjorie Landwehr-Brown. Masters of Curriculum & Instruction student, winner of the Global Learning Student award for 2004, herself a beneficiary of global learning classes at WSU, is in the process of creating a global learning opportunity between her students in Douglass and a class in the city of Wollongong on the south-east coast of Australia. Undaunted by the lack of adequate bandwidth in Douglass, she is collaborating with Anne Lundy at Udall High School. Anne is kindly sharing her school’s Internet-based videoconferencing facilities to make this a reality. In collaboration with Dr Wilma Vialle at the University of Wollongong, the Douglass students will interact with peers in Wollongong.
Enhancements to gl.wichita.edu
Early in 2005, Computer Science Masters Student, Yashwant Phatak, the Global Learning Graduate Research Assistant and Web Master, added a number of new features to the Global Learning web site http://gl.wichita.edu . Among them is a K-12 Resources area to help K-12 educators with the process of adding global learning experiences to their classes. Another feature is an archive of digital photographs and PowerPoint slideshows on Global Learning. The World News link has been updated to link to thousands of online news sources around the world. A new feature is a page with helpful links for International students and for people wanting to try different ethnic foods. It will provide a list of local suppliers of grocery items and restaurants for preparing and enjoying the delights of a multicultural cuisine. Yashwant graduated in the Spring and has just moved to silicon valley in California, where a local company will take advantage of his talents. Our new Global Learning Graduate Research Assistant and Web Master, Muhammad Yassir, is converting the site to an SQL database and ASP.net interface and is building in many new features, such as RSS news feeds and automated monitoring of site usage.
Plans for 2005 - 2006
“To defeat terrorism, our global military, law enforcement and intelligence capabilities must be complemented with positive initiatives and programs aimed at young people in developing nations, who will guide their countries in the future. No policy has proved more successful in making friends for the United States, during the cold war and since, than educating students from abroad at our colleges and universities.” Robert M Gates President of Texas A&M University
The Global Learning program has been underway at Wichita State University for four years. During that time, faculty initiatives to integrate global learning into their courses and programs have been supported with seed grants and the results have been presented at annual conferences.
It is becoming clearer in both higher education and in K-12 education that there is a need to include more international content and exposure in the curriculum. A number of studies of education in the United States have uncovered grave deficiencies in knowledge of and exposure to other cultural perspectives (e.g. by NASULGC October 2004). Plans are afoot to change this situation. In this regard, WSU has been ahead of the curve. A strong foundation for further internationalization of the curriculum and provision of global learning experiences has been built. In K-12 there are many initiatives that are already underway. Indeed some, like the Jason Project, have been going for a decade or more. Similarly, some universities are giving a much higher priority to this issue to ensure that no student is left behind in terms of global awareness and intercultural communication skills.
The focus of the Global Learning program is likely to change from supporting small initiatives of individuals to focussing on larger and more concentrated efforts that will provide wider benefit. In the context of academia, a strong research focus will also be important. It is less difficult to attract large external grants for specific discipline areas and more precisely defined goals than for numerous small efforts. Colleges and departments need to examine progress made in the individual projects and the benefits of those for students with a view to identifying priority areas that a larger group of faculty can work on collaboratively. In concert with this, the activities of the Global Learning program will become more strategic.
Goal One: Support current projects and seek funding for future projects
Current Projects:
P15: “Cage Painting Simulation” – Alagic & Gibson – Education
To benefit all other global learning projects
P16: “ME Senior Design” – Soschinske – Engineering Russia, India
P17: “Post-Conflict Rebuilding” – Shaw – LAS Canada
P18: “Online Grad. Research Community” – Turk – Education Canada, Denmark, UK, Spain, Australia
P19: “Enterprise Engineering” – Whitman – Engineering France, Mexico, Italy, Australia
Future Projects:
With only one more year of internal funding to be made available to support global learning projects and with that amount likely to be very small, there will be a need to concentrate efforts in a small number of key areas where external grants or foundation funds are available. By now, a number of faculty members have taken the initiative to incorporate global learning activities into their courses without any funding, which is an encouraging sign.
Among the keys to success in global learning projects is a commitment by faculty to providing global learning experiences for students that translate into additional learning outcomes. For instance, improvement in intercultural communication skills is increasingly important for future graduates as all aspects of life become globalized. Successful faculty will typically already have a long-standing relationship with international collaborators, usually associated with research activities. Economies of effort in global learning arise when the collaborators can continue research efforts and share teaching in a virtual, global classroom for their students. Travel and acquisition of the communication technologies can benefit both research and teaching. Among the faculty, the most likely candidates are people, who have migrated or people, who have collaborated with international partners over an extended period.
Goal Two: Organize the 4th Annual Global Learning Conference
This year’s conference will showcase the results of current projects. Some findings from the Cage Painting Simulator will be shared as a model for how to automate the collection of data for research into global learning activities. The conference serves to promote global learning to students and faculty in higher education and in K-12. It is an opportunity for faculty development. In future conferences, the focus is expected to change from demonstration to research outcomes and from WSU presentations to presentations by faculty from other institutions.
Goal Three: Work with Faculty Advisory Council, Student Advisory Council, External Advisory Board and overseas collaborators to ensure Stakeholder involvement in Program
One strength of the Global Learning program has been a high level of consultation with faculty, students and external stakeholders. This will continue with regular opportunities for members to receive updates and to contribute suggestions and advice on the directions and strategies of the program. This consultation also raises awareness of global learning among students, faculty and external stakeholders.
Goal Four: Develop and conduct a workshop on implementing Global Learning for K-12 and Higher Education
A 2-credit hour graduate workshop will be offered in which attendees will be led through the process of integrating global learning experiences into an existing course. The workshop will consider issues, such as learning activities, teamwork, cage painting, technology, assessment, evaluation and continuous improvement. In the Fall, this workshop will be offered on 5 consecutive three-hour sessions on Saturday mornings in October. In association with each session, participants will progressively build a complete and detailed plan for integration of global learning into a class, which they can take away at the end to implement in their context. Faculty can take advantage of this to learn more about how to provide global learning opportunities for their students.
Goal Five: Further develop the Cage Painting Simulator as a Research and a Learning Tool
The cage painting metaphor and model provides a powerful conceptual framework for helping teachers and students alike to understand intercultural communication. The simulator has the potential to be a very useful tool to prepare for global learning and to prepare for learning in a culturally diverse group. It automatically collects very useful information that will help us understand how users develop strategies to improve their intercultural communication skills. We will seek further funding to build a full version of the simulator. This is a tool that can be applied to global and intercultural communication, dealing with culturally diverse classrooms and for faculty development and student learning.
Goal Six: Encourage research activities and scholarly publication of findings
Consistent with the evolution of the Global Learning program described above, emphasis on the output of scholarly publications will be further increased. Future projects will need to include a strong research component. This will benefit both the emerging field of Global Learning and the participating faculty. A growing number of tenure-track faculty, who have participated in the global learning program have now successfully gained tenure and promotion, in part, due to some additional publications from associated research.
Goal Seven: Extend Global Learning into K-12 and other Institutions
In collaboration with the College of Education, some Global Learning projects for K-12 students have emerged as initiatives of former and current students in its programs. Our plan is to build on this with a small number of strategic projects. This may involve providing opportunities to learn about parts of the world with no Internet, but making use of portable satellite communication equipment.
Introduction
In US cities, in the 1990s the population of Hispanics grew by 72%, Asians by 69% and Blacks by 22.5%, but Whites by only 5%. Nationally by 2000, Hispanics, Blacks, Asians and Native Americans made up 13%, 13%, 4% and 1% of the population, respectively. Further, the number of languages spoken in the US has become very diverse and the descriptor “foreign” is coming into question. For instance, who was here first, the Spanish or French speaker or the English speaker? What was our colonial heritage? Despite homogenization of languages globally with the pervasiveness of English, events, such as the break up of the Soviet Union, have led to revival of many indigenous languages, such as Kazakh instead of Russian in Kazakhstan, Mongol instead of Mandarin in north central China or Pitjinjara instead of English in Australia. That is not to say that all Australians will speak Pitjinjara, but some will rediscover their cultural heritage, which is closely intertwined with their indigenous language. The education systems of these countries are switching from just Russian, Mandarin or English to including indigenous and more foreign languages to ensure that no child is left behind as globalization proceeds. Perhaps our culture needs to be like the English language and absorb new words from other languages? Is it wise to discard linguistic or cultural characteristics from the melting pot of migrant and indigenous cultures that make the United States such a great nation?
Modern communication technology, such as web-based discussion areas, chat-rooms and Internet-based videoconferencing, is now making it possible to form virtual communities of practice on a global scale, spanning continents, time zones and many cultures. This is leading to disintermediation on a scale equal to if not bigger than that of the introduction of the printing press in the 1400s, by allowing people to communicate directly with others anywhere in the world. This further underlines the need for effective intercultural communication strategies in the classroom, workplace or even at home. This new possibility is made more challenging because participants may never meet face-to-face, and will have to rely on text-based interactions to collaborate in achieving common objectives.
While the world is becoming smaller in terms of the speed of communication, it is becoming larger in terms our realization of the enormity of cultural diversity. The global learning program at Wichita State University is an example of the provision of opportunities for intercultural communication between students and faculty living in different countries around the world. It provides opportunities for conversations with people from a myriad of different cultures and is opening our eyes to the limitations of stereotypes, media-based misconceptions, and other outmoded or over-generalized views of other cultures. The need for a robust conceptual framework and metaphor emerged from reflection on global learning experiences in a range of programs. Last year, we presented a conceptual framework for the dialogic co-construction of intercultural understandings through the cage painting metaphor. We have documented its application to the analysis of text-based communication between students living in different countries. This year, we can report that we have developed a cage painting prototype simulation that serves both as a learning object and as a research tool so we can study in more detail the process of developing intercultural communication strategies.
The Cage Painting Metaphor
“The United States falls short on virtually all indicators of international knowledge, awareness and competence.” NASULGC Task Force on International Education 2004
Like a fish in an aquarium, unaware of the significance of the effect of the aquarium or the water on the way the world appears, most people, especially those living in homogeneous groups, are not aware of their cage. Only by becoming aware of our cages, can we improve our communication, especially interculturally. The concept of cage painting is the process of making explicit, one’s cultural background, life experiences and current context. In so doing, we are then better able to compose outgoing messages and interpret incoming messages during intercultural communication. Our cages are painted through intercultural interaction as a result of critical self- and co-reflection.
The cage painting metaphor captures “characteristics” of an individual (see below) as bars. This approach is flexible; it allows for the selection of characteristics relevant to a particular context. The number and combination of characteristics will vary from one context to another. Some characteristics will relate to life experience, culture or current context. Two people from different backgrounds will paint different bars depending on their current context and on their backgrounds. Some characteristics of their background may have a significant effect on collaboratively achieving a goal and some may have less or no effect.
The collaborators need to understand how the life experience, language, history, geography, religion, politics, culture and context constitute each other’s cage as well as their own. Then they can paint the cage bars to ensure that messages will pass through them without distortion. In other words, the recipient will be able to interpret the message as the sender intended. This often involves first recognizing and then unlearning misconceptions and stereotyping before relearning the reality of the recipient’s world. Ultimately, the intention is to develop the ability to send and receive messages that facilitate the emergence of autonomous learning skills thereby supporting the necessary conditions for co-construction of new knowledge and recognition of multiple perspectives. The foundation for this resides in the values of honour and respect for and curiosity about other cultures as well as the courage to try communicating and to critically appraise one’s own culture. They understand their own perspective and they understand that of others, thus improving intercultural communication.
We must think more deeply about ourselves and whether the objectification of our cage ensures that the recipient is receiving the intended message. We can never entirely paint our own cage bars or those of the recipient; like the ongoing, never ending process of co-constructing cultural identity. But, through self-reflection, if we become aware of that, we can continue efforts for mutual understanding, keeping in mind existing constraints, some obvious/painted and some invisible. Our continued painting may reveal differences in the visibility of our bars both over time and depending on context. We may even recognize some incongruities within and among observed characteristics. We are “painting” our own cage to make it visible to others and to ourselves so that we are cognizant of our life experiences, cultural background, and current context and their effect on our perspective.
“To understand another person’s utterance means to orient oneself with respect to it, to find the proper place for it in the corresponding context. For each word of the utterance that we are in the process of understanding, we, as it were, lay down a set of our own answering words. …the greater their number and weight, the deeper and more substantial our understanding will be... Any true understanding is dialogic in nature. Understanding is to utterance as one line of dialogue is to the next…” (Bakhtin, 1986, Speech genres and other late essays p.102).
Previous and other approaches to intercultural communication, such as “cultural lenses” have sought to distil cultures into some minimalist description. This distillation carries with it three risks: cultural agnosia, loss of cultural acuity and the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.
The first is the risk is the failure to assign meaning to some artifact of culture as a result of the biases of the cultural background of the person making the cultural lens. For example, alcohol consumption can figure prominently in business negotiations in some parts of China or Australia. On the contrary, in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia it would be wise not to consume alcohol. However, attitudes toward consumption of alcohol do not appear to be covered in many approaches.
The second risk arises, when we try to reduce culture to some small number of dimensions. This allows only a very coarse resolution of some aspect of culture. For example time can be dissected into many meanings, some of which may be more important than others, depending on the context. Some meanings include punctuality, requirement of planning, division of work and family time and tolerance for unexpected variations in schedules, to name a few.
The third and perhaps most important risk of using the cultural lens metaphor is that the lens itself affects the user’s perception of a culture. For example in anthropology fieldwork, the presence of the anthropologist/observer affects the behaviour of the people under observation as described by Margaret Mead in 1928. Bookshelves abound with tomes in which authors delude themselves in the presentation of their own culture and then present distorted stereotypes of others.
In our experiences interacting with people from other cultures, two things are apparent. First, it is nonsense to assume that a country has just one culture and second, it is nonsense to assume that “culture” is the same in different contexts. For example, in China, there are 56 distinct ethnic groups each with their own linguistic and cultural characteristics. Further, the “culture” changes depending on whether an interaction is “official” i.e. involving Chinese Communist Party executives or “unofficial” involving others. Globally, because of immigration, it is possible to meet a person of almost any ethnic background living in a given country and who exhibits characteristics of their original ethnicity and those of the host country and for this to vary from individual to individual.
We therefore argue that the quest for a “lens” as described above does not provide for refinement of intercultural understanding through interaction between the people from different cultures. We need a new approach that provides for revision of meaning, finer resolution and dialogic interpretation; an approach based on an interactive process not on one-way interpretations. Throw the “Learn Cultures of the World in 10 days” books away. Meet someone from another culture. Have a conversation and paint your cages. You will learn a lot more.
Course Redevelopment Projects
The following are descriptions of the six projects funded in 2004-2005.
Project: Cage Painting Simulator; Department: Curriculum & Instruction Education,
Project: Post-conflict Nation Building; Department: Political Science Liberal Arts & Sciences; Collaborators: Canada, Australia
Project: Mechanical Engineering Senior Design Project Department: Mechanical Engineering; Collaborators: Russia, India
Project: Enterprise Engineering Department: Industrial & Manufacturing Engineering; Collaborators: France, Mexico, Italy, Australia
Project: Global Forum on Educational Research Department: Educational Leadership Collaborators: Denmark, UK, Spain, Australia
Annual Conference
“We live in a truly global age … to solve most of the major problems facing our country today … will require every young person to learn more about other regions, cultures and languages." Former US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, Aug. 2001
The 3rd Annual Global Learning Conference, eclipsed previous conferences in terms of attendance and the quality and excitement of the sessions. In our new venue, the CAC Theatre, we had 175 registrants, plus presenters, chairs and keynote speakers and the audience swelled to over 500 with standing room only, when String Improvisation students from across Kansas, joined us during the morning. We enjoyed and learned a great deal from two excellent keynote presentations by President Michael Adams of Fairleigh Dickinson University and from Vice President Ron Engelbrecht of Engenio Information Technologies. The theme was “Students” and this was reinforced by President Donald Beggs during his welcome address, when he reminded us that this is all about learning. It was time for faculty and teachers to listen and learn from our global learning students.
Students from middle and elementary schools in Wisconsin, Florida, Kansas and their project leader, “Canopy” Meg Lowman, who was at Princeton University at the time, participated in a 4-way exchange about a project to see if trees can tell us the temperature. We were privy to an actual global learning class, when we participated in a connection between the Women in Africa class, led by Dr Chinyere Okafor, and Dr Chioma Opara at the Rivers State University of Science and Technology in Port Harcourt, Nigeria. Students of Women in the Middle East shared their experience in producing a broadcast quality documentary about the lives of women living in the West Bank after learning about this directly from people, who live there.
Other features of the day included a live string performance with Dr Jacque Dillon, Esther Noh and students and John Harrison at MIT’s Media Laboratory, a peek at the Canadian group “Barrage” as they conducted a master class for the String Improvisation Day students in another part of the University, a demonstration of low-cost, wireless, multi-site video conferencing with Apple’s iSight camera by Dr Ian Gibson, a discussion about the new International Business course with Dr Sam Beldona of the Barton School of Business, and Dr Desh Gupta at the University of Canberra, Australia, and a presentation about global learning for future scientists in the field of Communicative Disorders by Drs Kenn Apel and Ro Scudder and their collaborators.
A highlight of the day and a breakthrough for the program was the presentation about the “Rwanda Alive!” project in which senior high school students in Maize and Rwanda interacted to exchange knowledge and perspectives about life in the respective countries, the 1994 genocide, the AIDS epidemic, the Ba’Twa people and the Mountain Gorilla. Dr Sherry Goodvin and Stan Bergkamp were joined by Jonathan Giesen from the Global Nomads Group (www.gng.org ), based in New York City. This included a video production made by the Maize high school students.
Cage Painting Simulator
“Our students are trapped in a kind of educational isolationism, which may have suited the Industrial Age but leaves students desperately underprepared for the demands of the 21st-century global economy … we must integrate knowledge of world history, geography, science and technology, world languages, literature and international affairs into the school day." Former North Carolina Governor, James B Hunt Jr.,
The purpose of the project is to prepare learners for effective communication in diverse environments. This will be achieved by developing a digital library of CD/Web-based multimedia scenarios for our students. They will interact with a simulation agent (Simea) from “another” culture. The learner will need to interact with Simea in order to achieve a specified goal. This will involve the learner gaining insights into the perspective of Simea so that they can communicate well enough to achieve that goal. This is also known as “cage painting.”
Cage Painting as a metaphor is a creative construct for conceptualizing the process of understanding other perspectives. This process is essential for success, when communicating in any given context. It captures the initial and ongoing intercultural socialization that underpins effective communication and enables successful team work. The vehicle for cage painting is reflective and co-reflective online journaling that is scaffolded by the faculty using guiding questions to trigger critical thinking. The “cage” is a metaphor through which we see the world, but its richness as a metaphor comes from the fact that we can paint the invisible bars. We do this in order to represent ourselves to others more clearly while communicating. We often don’t realize the cage is there because it is initially invisible; but it is affecting how we interact or communicate with others. It is like grammar and punctuation, which we take for granted until we try to learn a foreign language. Cage painting is like the noise the fax machines make as they “talk” to each other and negotiate a communication protocol before they send our data. Without it our data could be scrambled. It is like the courtship that precedes a close relationship, leading to marriage. Without it, a long term, sustainable relationship is unlikely. Cage painting as a concept is proving helpful to faculty and students alike to meet the challenge of intercultural communication. In fact, a good teacher will spend time painting cages with their students to find out what they know so they can shape the lessons to suit their needs.
The cage painting simulation will enable users to practice on a computer and learn the basic strategies of intercultural communication in a virtual environment before they proceed with real people. They will learn to quickly identify critical aspects of cultural background, life experience, language, religion, climate, history and political systems that influence the other person’s perspectives on the course content. For example, in gifted education, the definitions of giftedness and types of intervention practiced in a particular country will depend on its culture and government policy, so asking questions about these will immediately start the process of painting cages. In an engineering design class, the students will share their cultural and other characteristics with project sponsors in another country. In a music class, they will share links between culture and musical traditions. In a business class, they will share information about legal, ethical and cultural issues as they affect the process of doing business in their respective countries. The simulation will also be helpful for faculty to better understand and therefore teach cage painting as they facilitate global/diverse learning in their courses. Each simulation scenario presents the user with a social environment in which he or she will interact with a character (Simea) who has unique cultural characteristics. During a given scenario, the user needs to apply knowledge gained in the instructional content to identify the bars in his or her and Simea’s cages. By taking into account these bars, the user is able to minimize message distortion and have a positive communication experience with Simea, which is the primary goal of global learning. Graphical elements are employed throughout the simulation to show the visibility of the bars in both Simea’s and the user’s cages, throughout a simulation. During the process, the user is provided with coaching and real-time feedback.
Modern communication technology enables students to participate in direct dialog with their counterparts in many other parts of the world. However, due to constraints, such as time zone differences and being able to match classes between institutions in different countries, it is important that our students are well prepared ahead of the interaction, so the make the best use of the available time. A cage painting simulator has been developed to fill this need. Our intention is not for students just to understand a particular culture, but rather we want them to be able to derive strategies for cultivating intercultural communication. This is achieved by having them repeatedly interact with characters from randomly synthesized cultures within the simulator. The prototype simulator first introduces the user to the challenge of collaborating with people from other cultures. The user can then try a scenario within the simulation (Fig. 5.1) (See PDF). It will become apparent to the user that they need to develop strategies to improve their performance when they typically do not achieve the desired outcome. The idea of painting cage bars is then described. Subsequently, they can try more simulation scenarios in which they apply the cage painting approach. Each scenario is different in terms of the goal, context and culture of the simulated character, Simea.
The prototype simulation offers three different scenarios, in random order, in which the user needs to work with Simea to achieve some goal. Each scenario begins with a description of the context and the goal to be achieved. Communication with Simea is by instant message (IM). Simea offers a greeting. Then the user chooses from a number of possible contributions to the IM session (Fig. 5.1) (See PDF). Depending on the choice, Simea will respond according to her cultural background and the nature of the goal that is to be achieved. The IM conversation proceeds with the user making choices at each step. A graphical representation, in green (thick) arrows, of the path that a user can take is shown in Fig. 5.2 (See PDF). Although the figure shows only three reaction/responses at each step, the number of choices varies from 3 to 8 in the actual simulator.
Research Publications
1. Alagic, M., Doyle, C. Gibson, K., Yeotis, C. & Kear, D. (2005). Redefining learning activities: ICT-generated paradigm change. Proc. SITE 2005 16th Annual IT in Teacher Education Conference. Phoenix AZ. 1252-1258.
2. Gibson, K.L., Vialle, W. & Rimmington, G.M. (2005). Reflection on Gifted Education: Gaining Multiple Perspectives through Global Learning. Paper presented at the 16th Biennial Conference of the World Council for Gifted & Talented Children. New Orleans. August 6-10.
3. Gibson, K.L., Vialle, W. & Rimmington, G.M. (2005). Gaining multiple perspecitves through global learning reflections. Paper to be presented at the 52nd Annual Convention of the National Association for Gifted Children. Louisville, Kentucky, November 9-13. (accepted).
4. Gibson, I.W. (2005). Leading and teaching in schools for the future: Using interactive video connectivity and networking in educator preparation programs. Proc. SITE 2005 16th Annual IT in Teacher Education Conference. Phoenix AZ. 1790-1797.
5. Gibson, I.W. (200x). Deep thinking, reflection, and the construction of meaning in an authentic, technology rich, global learning environment: The Global Forum on School Leadership, a Type II application of interactive computing technology suitable for the 21st century. Computers in the Schools, Special Edition. (in press).
6. Gibson, I.W. (2005). Technology, Learning, and Leading: Educational imperatives for a 21st century global context (p. 118-133). In Sue Trinidad and John Pearson (Eds.) (2005). Using Information and Communication Technologies in Education. Singapore: Pearson/Prentice Hall.
7. Rimmington, G.M. Alagic, M. & Gibson, K. (2005). Global learning: The blending "lived" and "unlived" scenarios to facilitate cross-cultural communication through "cage painting". Proc. 3rd Carfax International Conference on Reflective Practice. Institute of Reflective Practice. Gloucester, UK. June 23-24.
8. Rimmington, G.M., Alagic, M. & Gibson, K.L. (2006). The Cage-painting Metaphor: Dialogic co-construction of intercultural understandings. Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association. San Francisco. April 7-11. (Submitted)
9. Rimmington, G.M. & Bever-Goodvin, S. (2005). Global learning for developing intra- and inter-personal intelligences. Proc. 16th Int. Conf of Soc. for IT in Teacher Education. Phoenix. March. 1750-1758
10. Rimmington, G.M. & Gruba, P.A. (2005). Global Learning: Cross Cultural Communication for Diverse Settings. (In Prep.)
11. Whitman, L.E., Malzahn, D.E., Chaparro, B.S., Russell, M., Langrall, R. & Mohler, B.A. (2005). A comparison of group processes, performance and satisfaction in face-to-face versus computer mediated engineering student design teams. Journal of Engineering Education. (Accepted)
Global Trivia Night - Africa
“…people … are dangerously uninformed about the rest of the world, subject to a kind of educational isolationism that ill-equips them to meet the demands of an international, interconnected century” Former Secretary of Education, Roderick Paige, June 2001
More than 60 members of the Wichita community competed in this year’s Global Trivia Night, which focused on Africa.Now an annual fund-raising event for the Global Learning Center of Wichita www.glcwichita.org the Global Trivia Night attracted a keen audience. Participants, grouped in competing tables, worked as teams to complete each of 10 rounds in the competition. The rounds dealt with geography, entertainment, sport, history, political leaders, flags, national capitals and general trivia about the African continent. Some teams where studying for weeks ahead. The winning team for the night was a table of Nigerian students, sponsored by the Nigerian Women’s Association of Wichita. Other tables were kindly sponsored by Dr Manfred Menking, Dr Howard Johnston, founder of the Global Learning Center in 1987, Billie McCrae and Lisa Dodson. It was pleasing to see such enthusiasm for learning about another part of the world and involvement of so many young people.
The mission of the Global Learning Center is to raise the awareness of global issues of the Wichita community through monthly educational programs. Another Global Trivia night is planned for March 2006 and will focus on central Asia.
Empire or Interdependence
“If young Americans are to take on challenging leadership roles in the future and help the United States maintain its competitive edge, they must have not only an education well grounded in the technology of the 21st Century, but also a deep understanding of other cultures, geography, history, and languages. The world will demand it of them—we must demand it of our educational system.” President of Goldman Sachs Foundation, Stephanie Bell-Rose, 2003
The “Empire or Interdependence?” conference at Friends University was held on April 1-3 and was an outstanding success. The more than 100 attendees were treated to panel discussions involving 23 visiting Fulbright Fellows from 20 different countries. The Keynote Speaker was Dr Catharine Stimpson from New York University. She issued the challenge of the conference to consider which sort of future we want—one that is dependent on maintaining an empire or one that involves achieving peace and prosperity through interdependence. Her case example was in international higher education. She painted a bleak picture of current trends of declining interest by students from developing nations in attending universities in the US. While US enrolments decline, those students are gleefully being picked up by universities in the UK, Australia and in China. This has important implications for research and development in the US, which depends on having science and engineering graduates, who are largely from India and China. The current model of international education needs to be reviewed. What does the model of interdependence in higher education look like? Can we collaborate instead of trying to compete? Can we concentrate on enriching the learning experience with international perspectives? Can we offer joint degrees with our international partners?
Global Learning in Gifted Education
“The decline of support for public diplomacy versus official diplomacy has a damaging effect on perceptions of the US…” Thomas Gouttierre, Dean International Studies and Programs at the University of Nebraska, Omaha at Fulbright Conference, Washington DC 2001
The Gifted Education global learning project, led by Dr Kay Gibson, has spawned the start of some global learning activity, thanks to Marjorie Landwehr-Brown, from Douglass, in collaboration with Ann Lundy at Udall High School and Dr Wilma Vialle at the University of Wollongong in Australia.. Marjorie Landwehr-Brown. Masters of Curriculum & Instruction student, winner of the Global Learning Student award for 2004, herself a beneficiary of global learning classes at WSU, is in the process of creating a global learning opportunity between her students in Douglass and a class in the city of Wollongong on the south-east coast of Australia. Undaunted by the lack of adequate bandwidth in Douglass, she is collaborating with Anne Lundy at Udall High School. Anne is kindly sharing her school’s Internet-based videoconferencing facilities to make this a reality. In collaboration with Dr Wilma Vialle at the University of Wollongong, the Douglass students will interact with peers in Wollongong.
Enhancements to gl.wichita.edu
Early in 2005, Computer Science Masters Student, Yashwant Phatak, the Global Learning Graduate Research Assistant and Web Master, added a number of new features to the Global Learning web site http://gl.wichita.edu . Among them is a K-12 Resources area to help K-12 educators with the process of adding global learning experiences to their classes. Another feature is an archive of digital photographs and PowerPoint slideshows on Global Learning. The World News link has been updated to link to thousands of online news sources around the world. A new feature is a page with helpful links for International students and for people wanting to try different ethnic foods. It will provide a list of local suppliers of grocery items and restaurants for preparing and enjoying the delights of a multicultural cuisine. Yashwant graduated in the Spring and has just moved to silicon valley in California, where a local company will take advantage of his talents. Our new Global Learning Graduate Research Assistant and Web Master, Muhammad Yassir, is converting the site to an SQL database and ASP.net interface and is building in many new features, such as RSS news feeds and automated monitoring of site usage.
Plans for 2005 - 2006
“To defeat terrorism, our global military, law enforcement and intelligence capabilities must be complemented with positive initiatives and programs aimed at young people in developing nations, who will guide their countries in the future. No policy has proved more successful in making friends for the United States, during the cold war and since, than educating students from abroad at our colleges and universities.” Robert M Gates President of Texas A&M University
The Global Learning program has been underway at Wichita State University for four years. During that time, faculty initiatives to integrate global learning into their courses and programs have been supported with seed grants and the results have been presented at annual conferences.
It is becoming clearer in both higher education and in K-12 education that there is a need to include more international content and exposure in the curriculum. A number of studies of education in the United States have uncovered grave deficiencies in knowledge of and exposure to other cultural perspectives (e.g. by NASULGC October 2004). Plans are afoot to change this situation. In this regard, WSU has been ahead of the curve. A strong foundation for further internationalization of the curriculum and provision of global learning experiences has been built. In K-12 there are many initiatives that are already underway. Indeed some, like the Jason Project, have been going for a decade or more. Similarly, some universities are giving a much higher priority to this issue to ensure that no student is left behind in terms of global awareness and intercultural communication skills.
The focus of the Global Learning program is likely to change from supporting small initiatives of individuals to focussing on larger and more concentrated efforts that will provide wider benefit. In the context of academia, a strong research focus will also be important. It is less difficult to attract large external grants for specific discipline areas and more precisely defined goals than for numerous small efforts. Colleges and departments need to examine progress made in the individual projects and the benefits of those for students with a view to identifying priority areas that a larger group of faculty can work on collaboratively. In concert with this, the activities of the Global Learning program will become more strategic.
Goal One: Support current projects and seek funding for future projects
Current Projects:
P15: “Cage Painting Simulation” – Alagic & Gibson – Education
To benefit all other global learning projects
P16: “ME Senior Design” – Soschinske – Engineering Russia, India
P17: “Post-Conflict Rebuilding” – Shaw – LAS Canada
P18: “Online Grad. Research Community” – Turk – Education Canada, Denmark, UK, Spain, Australia
P19: “Enterprise Engineering” – Whitman – Engineering France, Mexico, Italy, Australia
Future Projects:
With only one more year of internal funding to be made available to support global learning projects and with that amount likely to be very small, there will be a need to concentrate efforts in a small number of key areas where external grants or foundation funds are available. By now, a number of faculty members have taken the initiative to incorporate global learning activities into their courses without any funding, which is an encouraging sign.
Among the keys to success in global learning projects is a commitment by faculty to providing global learning experiences for students that translate into additional learning outcomes. For instance, improvement in intercultural communication skills is increasingly important for future graduates as all aspects of life become globalized. Successful faculty will typically already have a long-standing relationship with international collaborators, usually associated with research activities. Economies of effort in global learning arise when the collaborators can continue research efforts and share teaching in a virtual, global classroom for their students. Travel and acquisition of the communication technologies can benefit both research and teaching. Among the faculty, the most likely candidates are people, who have migrated or people, who have collaborated with international partners over an extended period.
Goal Two: Organize the 4th Annual Global Learning Conference
This year’s conference will showcase the results of current projects. Some findings from the Cage Painting Simulator will be shared as a model for how to automate the collection of data for research into global learning activities. The conference serves to promote global learning to students and faculty in higher education and in K-12. It is an opportunity for faculty development. In future conferences, the focus is expected to change from demonstration to research outcomes and from WSU presentations to presentations by faculty from other institutions.
Goal Three: Work with Faculty Advisory Council, Student Advisory Council, External Advisory Board and overseas collaborators to ensure Stakeholder involvement in Program
One strength of the Global Learning program has been a high level of consultation with faculty, students and external stakeholders. This will continue with regular opportunities for members to receive updates and to contribute suggestions and advice on the directions and strategies of the program. This consultation also raises awareness of global learning among students, faculty and external stakeholders.
Goal Four: Develop and conduct a workshop on implementing Global Learning for K-12 and Higher Education
A 2-credit hour graduate workshop will be offered in which attendees will be led through the process of integrating global learning experiences into an existing course. The workshop will consider issues, such as learning activities, teamwork, cage painting, technology, assessment, evaluation and continuous improvement. In the Fall, this workshop will be offered on 5 consecutive three-hour sessions on Saturday mornings in October. In association with each session, participants will progressively build a complete and detailed plan for integration of global learning into a class, which they can take away at the end to implement in their context. Faculty can take advantage of this to learn more about how to provide global learning opportunities for their students.
Goal Five: Further develop the Cage Painting Simulator as a Research and a Learning Tool
The cage painting metaphor and model provides a powerful conceptual framework for helping teachers and students alike to understand intercultural communication. The simulator has the potential to be a very useful tool to prepare for global learning and to prepare for learning in a culturally diverse group. It automatically collects very useful information that will help us understand how users develop strategies to improve their intercultural communication skills. We will seek further funding to build a full version of the simulator. This is a tool that can be applied to global and intercultural communication, dealing with culturally diverse classrooms and for faculty development and student learning.
Goal Six: Encourage research activities and scholarly publication of findings
Consistent with the evolution of the Global Learning program described above, emphasis on the output of scholarly publications will be further increased. Future projects will need to include a strong research component. This will benefit both the emerging field of Global Learning and the participating faculty. A growing number of tenure-track faculty, who have participated in the global learning program have now successfully gained tenure and promotion, in part, due to some additional publications from associated research.
Goal Seven: Extend Global Learning into K-12 and other Institutions
In collaboration with the College of Education, some Global Learning projects for K-12 students have emerged as initiatives of former and current students in its programs. Our plan is to build on this with a small number of strategic projects. This may involve providing opportunities to learn about parts of the world with no Internet, but making use of portable satellite communication equipment.
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