Fun Times in AEE 530

Guest Blogger Series: Internationalizing Your Classroom Without Leaving It – Dr. James P. Lassoie, Cornell University

Jim Lassoie is an International Professor of Conservation in the Department of Natural Resources, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Cornell University. He was educated as a forest ecologist at the University of Washington and joined the Cornell faculty in 1976. The applied perspectives he gained as New York’s Extension Forester (1976-1990) and during the development of an interdisciplinary research program focused on conservation and sustainable development during the 1990s are deeply reflected in his accomplishments as an educator and applied scholar. Jim has received a number of grants and awards for his innovative approaches to experiential learning and has been especially successful integrating international perspectives on sustainable food, forage, and fiber production into conservation and environmental management courses. Most recently, this involved designing collaborative case studies on agroforestry, conservation, eco-agriculture, and sustainable agriculture for an educational website and developing a service learning course supporting sustainable community-based enterprises in a mountainous region of Ecuador. He has advised over 80 graduate students and has a long list of research and extension publications. Jim and his forest ecologist spouse, Dr. Ruth Sherman, have worked together in Latin America and Asia for many years and share a variety of extracurricular interests including travel, eco-tourism, hiking, photography, and ‘managing’ 175 acres of woodlands outside Ithaca. 

For over 50 years, my institution has formally supported international educational opportunities for undergraduates though Cornell Abroad (https://www.cuabroad.cornell.edu/), the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies (http://www.einaudi.cornell.edu/), and International Programs in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (https://ip.cals.cornell.edu/about). Early in 2012, then President David Skorton challenged the university community to significantly enhance the internationalization of the undergraduate curriculum to assure that at least half of our students had a “meaningful” international experience before they graduated. As an International Professor I was pleased to see that this call resulted in a faculty task force, enhancement of the Office of the Vice Provost for International Affairs, the recent Engaged Cornell initiative (http://engaged.cornell.edu/), and the availability of funding for new courses and curricula focused international engaged learning. This is steadily increasing the number and diversity of opportunities to study abroad; including a service learning course I developed where students work with community organizations in rural Ecuador to promote sustainable development (http://cuabroad.cornell.edu/index.cfm?FuseAction=programs.ViewProgram&Program_ID=10379.

But, let’s do the math. Cornell has a ‘capped’ undergraduate population of about 14300, so President Skorton wanted about 7000 to have gained a “meaningful” international experience by Commencement Day. Before his call to action it was estimated that about 25% of our students had “some type” of international experience as undergraduates; this means we need to add about 3500 students to reach 50%. Of course, transfer students, guaranteeing “meaningful”, and the fact that most students seek international experiences as juniors or seniors further complicate my simple arithmetic. But, I ‘m left wonder if we have the student body capacity to put that many more juniors and seniors on airplanes.

To my knowledge we lack an estimate of the number of our students hoping to study abroad, either for a semester or during winter or summer intersessions (i.e., demand side). It has been my experience that many undergraduates forgo studying aboard because of financial constraints; language concerns; on-campus curricular demands; and/or personal, campus-life, and social priorities. Most certainly, Cornell’s new internationalization initiative is increasing the options available (i.e., supply side), but I posit that we might be competing for approximately the same pool of students – rather than greatly growing its size. This is currently an untested hypothesis, but antidotal evidence is around. For example, as my Ecuador course grew in in popularity and student numbers during the past 3-years, enrollment in a similar course focused on Mexico steadily declined and likely will be discontinued next year.

In a world facing rapid changes no one can logically dispute the value of modifying college curricula to provide students with “meaningful” opportunities for the self-reflection and enhanced understanding of socio-environmental complexities that are associated with international travel and study, especially in developing countries. However, are we confident that ‘enough’ students are using and benefiting from the large and growing number of international study opportunities on my camps and elsewhere? I could easily argue that in a modern world far more than 50% of college graduates should have an international perspective on their chosen course of study. How do we reach so many students? I’ve been working for a number of years to approximate a “meaningful” international experience for those unwilling or unable to study abroad.

However, before summarizing a couple of approaches I’ve used to internationalize my courses I expect some of you are wondering what I consider to be a “meaningful” international experience. Well, it’s basically an Oreo cookie, but hopefully more healthy! Students and many service providers logically focus on the frosting – the in-country milieu. We can quickly list essentials such as travel and lodging logistics; health and safety; associated costs and the availability of scholarships; and in-country coursework, fieldwork, and extra-curricular excursions and adventures. In addition, I believe that pedagogies that emphasize ‘engagement,’ such as authentic/experiential and service learning, greatly enhance the relevance of international experiences, thereby leading to greater understanding, motivation, and professional confidence among participating students. This requires developing opportunities for students to engage in close interpersonal interactions with collaborating partners to gain accurate and insightful specifics about local culture and lifestyles, social and economic dynamics, governing structures, civil society, and/or environmental and sustainability issues. In non-English speaking countries, of course, the level and resulting take-home values of engagement is greatly dependent on the language skills of participating students.

To finish my analogy, I’ll sandwich the frosting between two critical on-campus elements, which further define “meaningful” – pre-experience preparation and post-experience reflection. Since most of our students study aboard during their junior or senior years, the initial pre-experience step is to help first- and second-year students scrutinize the variety of international opportunities available and identify those meeting their personal and professional goals. Then students need be given the guidance and time needed to adequately prepare for their chosen experience, such as through appropriate geopolitical, eco-environmental, and/or language study. The second step focuses directly on preparing students for the specific international experience, which includes details about the socio-environmental setting. This builds the knowledge, insights, and sensitivities that underpin a student’s ability to work and learn while immersed in another culture. For example, building-up to a 3-week January fieldtrip, my fall semester service learning course uses readings, multi-media, guest lectures, and facilitated discussions to gain a ‘sense of place’ environmentally and socially; the latter involves exploring and deconstructing questions of power and privilege, social responsibility, environmental responsibility, civil disobedience, and social equity specific to our study region in Ecuador. Of course, travel and health issues and safety logistics also need to be addressed before students leave campus.

As noted in Prof. Courtney Meyers’ Guest Blog in early February, post-experience relfelction is the “…trademark of service learning” – and I’d argue that it is absolutely necessary for fulfilling a “meaningful” international experience. Facilitated post-experience reflection allows students to assess what they have gained personally and professionally from the experience and how these insights will influence their futures. This is where students often emphatically espouse on the academic uniqueness of such “life-changing experiences” in helping them focus their lives and careers. Unfortunately, many international experiences, especially those developed independently by students, lack the opportunity for facilitated post-trip reflection.

Not surprising, students consistently report the success of the “Oreo cookie” approach to study abroad in enhancing their academic experiences. Likewise, disaster stories abound that can be traced to “cookie failure.” However, this comprehensive approach is also the “Gold Standard” with respect to faculty and staff time and financial costs to students and sponsoring institutions. Hence, courses that include international travel are difficult to initiate and often harder to maintain, especially in competitive settings where supply and demand are in flux. Hence, a ‘safer’ and less costly approach in time and money is to stay home! So, after this long preamble, I’ll close by providing a couple suggestions about Internationalizing Your Classroom Without Leaving It.

As researchers we commonly build networks of colleagues with whom we collaborate, individuals both on and off our home campuses. For those working internationally, this network is worldwide. While team-teaching is a common practice among on-campus colleagues, videoconferencing technology makes it relatively cheap and easy to team-teach across vast distances. Beginning in the mid-90s Cornell has offered the 3-credit Global Seminar (I was involved 1999-2015) – a dynamic, collaborative learning course involving five other academic institutions in Australia, China, Costa Rica, Honduras, and Sweden and collectively over 125 students each term. Annually, the multi-institutional faculty team identifies the theme for the semester (e.g., 2015: Building Sustainable Environments and Secure Food Systems for a Modern World) and develops an appropriate curriculum using Skype chats. During the semester, students simultaneously examine faculty-developed case studies on sustainable agriculture and environmental conservation (e.g., Water and Food Security, GMOs, Climate Change, Land Grabs, Indigenous Knowledge, Global Responsibility), each supported by information provided via a common Blackboard course site and culminating in a videoconference ‘stakeholder’ debate among student teams from each institution. Post-conference discussion boards further addressed issues left unresolved during the debate. To account for tuition discrepancies, the Global Seminar is offered independently at each school, and grading and supplemental assignments are left to the respective institutions, which eliminate inter-institutional comparisons and allow internal standards to be maintained. With the declining cost of videoconferencing only a few inherent challenges remain, such as time zone differences, non-responsive students (and faculty!), and the occasional technical meltdown at one of the schools. Despite these problems students consistently value the opportunity to discuss complex interdisciplinary global topics with an international student body. This provides a diversity of geopolitical perspectives on sustainable development and our students gain sometimes-abrupt insights into how the rest of the world perceives the ‘privileged stature’ of the United States in general and Cornell students in specific. Global Seminar is certainly not a semester abroad, but how close is it to providing similar learning outcomes?

I began teaching an upper-division 4-credit International Conservation course in 2004 and was soon frustrated by my inability to bring reality into the classroom. Like many applied science courses my students wanted, and needed, concepts and principles underpinning conservation science, but they were in the course because they wanted to do international conservation. Students happily suggested fieldtrips to Kenya or Costa Rica as breaks from Ithaca’s typical winters! Instead, I successfully used published case studies, team projects, international guest speakers, and Internet resources to approximate ‘real-world’ conservation, but a lingering feeling of irrelevance remained because the problems we addressed were always abstract (a.k.a., “book-learning”) and often contrived by me. Working with one of my then PhD students, Dr. R. Jamie Herring, in 2007 we hatched an idea to link students directly with practitioners working on ‘real’ conservation problems around the world, including the United States. This led to external support from various sources to develop a portfolio of collaborative, multi-media case studies focused on environmental conservation and sustainable agriculture, plus an innovative, open-access website, www.conservationbridge.org. Currently, additional ‘domestic’ cases are being developed in collaboration with Cornell Cooperative Extension.

As cases were developed, I began using them in my various courses: for TA-led discussions in an introductory environmental science course, as 3-week collaborative learning modules in the Global Seminar, and for a senior ‘capstone’ course where student teams work directly with collaborating practitioners via Skype and e-mail to address specific questions identified within their specific case studies. In all situations this has provided an authentic learning experience because students are addressing ‘real’ issues that affect ‘real’ people. The capstone course provides engagement and service learning opportunities for students and assists practitioners in addressing problems they are currently facing. Students in all courses consistently agreed that cases were valuable, improved their understanding of key course concepts, and increased their motivation (see below). I have no idea how these learning outcomes would compare with courses offering fieldtrips, but I do know this approach is cheaper and enhances access for a larger and more diverse group of students.

Increased interdisciplinary understanding of sustainability

“We discovered the link between environmental and social issues.”

“The case was presented very pleasantly and it was fine, but looking more into it,

I realized there's a political issue here and I became morally opposed.”

“[We had] biologists, sociologists and economists working together.”

Increased in motivation

“The video makes it feel a little more real, a little more engaging.”

“You can see the people. You can see the landscapes. Sometimes that's hard

to extract from a journal article.”

“The videos did a good job of bringing interesting issues in an accessible way.”

“We are talking with real people who are facing these problems.”

“Meeting the practitioner builds a greater sense of accountability.”

Increased self-efficacy and influence their future course and career choices

“I feel more confident expressing my opinion.”

“It was kind of like eye opening.”

[Our team realized] students can actually make a difference.”

“It's been great. [This class] made me realize what I wanted to do.”

“Strengthened that feeling that I wanted to take more courses [in marine systems].”

“I recognize the importance of interdisciplinary studies.”

“I was forced to learn more about the social sides of things.”

In closing, I expect that many universities are struggling with the supply-demand challenges associated with providing “meaningful” international experiences that I identified at Cornell. We’re attempting to ‘internationalize’ many curricula, which may eventually increase the pool size for those seeking international travel and study. But, I believe there may be a ceiling inherent in the realities of educating over 14,000, 18-to-22-year-olds from diverse family backgrounds. I’d certainly like to see some research on the demand-side of the internationalization equation. I also expect that I’m not alone in my attempts to simulate “meaningful” international experiences in a classroom setting. How close can we get to achieving the learning outcomes expected from study abroad experiences? This too calls for a clever research project.

April 13th - Teaching with your mouth SHUT!

Guest Blogger: I have this fantastic new collaborative learning classroom. Now what?

Walt Hurley is a Professor Emeritus in the Department of Animal Sciences at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. He has taught courses, including his Lactation Biology course, at Illinois for over 30 years. He flipped that course long before the concept of a flipped classroom came into the mainstream of academia. His online Lactation Biology website has been used world-wide since the mid-1990s and is used as a resource by many teaching similar courses. His contributions to teaching have been recognized through teaching awards from the University of Illinois and from national and international professional organizations. 

I have taught an upper level undergraduate course in lactation biology for over 30 years at the University of Illinois. Long ago, my approach was to emulate those who had taught me as an undergraduate by lecturing. By all accounts, I was not a bad lecturer, but nothing special.  Eventually I got bored with hearing myself lecture and thought how uninteresting it must be for my students. I thought that there must be a better way. I have the advantage of having two 2-hour weekly class sessions, giving me plenty of time to have class meet at the campus dairy farm, which is only a mile south of campus, or develop other in-class activities. I experimented with a range of student activities over the years. Over 15 years ago I revamped the course to one where most of the content material is online and students spend 75-80% of the in-class time working in groups on case studies, discussions, projects, and various types of presentations. I have done only limited lecturing in recent years. Since the mid-1990s I have taught in a traditional class room with bolted-down tables, with chairs in rows facing the front of the room, a chalk board, LCD projector and resident computer. The room was designed long before students were bringing laptops or cell phones to class.

Room 131 Animal Sciences Laboratory - then

To conduct the in-class group work in that room meant that the students had to figure out how to arrange themselves in a fashion where they could accomplish the goals of the activity. I would start each semester with a map of the room showing where each group was to form a circle. Some would have to turn their chairs around and face the back of the room, or cluster up at the ends of the tables. Inconvenient, but they did it with little effort and after a couple of weeks automatically would sit with their group members and quickly arrange into their group area when we started the discussion or activity. My role typically was to act as a resource for their group efforts. I would continually walk around the perimeter of the room answering questions, listening to their conversations to make sure they were on track, or offering suggestions. Any group that sat in the center of the room was always hard to get to.

Some of their presentations of solutions to various types of cases involved developing what I call mosaics. They would make drawings illustrating the elements of the case, their interpretation of the information, and their solutions to the case. We would tape the pictures on the walls around the classroom and they would be expected to walk up to the wall and explain their drawings and conclusions to the rest of the class. This required some logistical planning on my part to minimize the time it took for the class to tape about 150 drawings on the walls.  For their project presentations, the groups typically would stand at the front of the room and talk to the class. 

Then something happened. A couple of years ago I was in a campus meeting where they started talking about remodeling some classrooms.  In addition, there was discussion on making some of the existing classrooms into flexible collaborative learning spaces. The campus has since then called these iFLEX rooms. Although there are several types of iFLEX rooms that are being developed at Illinois, most of them have movable chairs and tables, lots of white boards, lots of technology around the room, and less emphasis on there being a “front” to the room.   

Room 131 Animal Sciences Laboratory - now

As it turned out, our classroom was already on the list to be renovated. I immediately volunteered it to be turned into an iFLEX room. Reconstruction started in the summer of 2015 and we were able to start holding classes in the room in January, 2016. We were able to expand the space a little allowing us to maintain room capacity similar to the old room. There are 12 pods of 6 tables and chairs each. All tables and chairs are on wheels. Ten pods are around the perimeter of the room and associated with flat screen monitors. Nearly every inch of wall space between the monitors is covered with glass whiteboards. There is a main screen at what is considered the “front" of the room. The instructor can control all the screens with the potential for a group on one side of the room to be able to display their work to another group on the other side, and all other combinations of displaying around the room.

So now I have this fantastic collaborative learning space. I was already doing a lot of collaborative learning in the old space.  Have things changed? Absolutely yes. Many of the activities are very similar to what I had been doing before. Now I encourage students to bring their laptops/cell phones to use in their activities. For example, on the first day of class I had an unplanned visitor from South Africa who conducts study tours of Kruger National Park and other wildlife preserves. Students were already sitting in groups. I assigned each table one of the African Big Five animals to quickly lookup anything related to lactation or reproduction and develop a brief presentation. Then I had our guest share his personal knowledge and experiences about those animals with the class. The new room made such an effort considerably more streamlined, efficient and meaningful for the students. And, it was something that I could do to take advantage of a last-minute opportunity with minimal pre-planning.

As for those mosaics, there no longer are blank walls on which to tape their drawings.  I now have them gathering images from the web to develop a digital mosaic that we can display around the room as they explain their conclusions about the case. One observation that I made was that many students would make notes on their laptop. Then when they were called on to talk to the class they used those notes as their reference. While this limits their impromptu discussion, they do feel much more confident in making their presentation and include more detailed information. 

Gathering material for a presentation

I still do not lecture much, however, I often share information with them about their projects and activities. It is much easier for me to move around the room to engage with each of the groups.  Easier to hand out materials. Easier for the students to work on projects that require developing some physical outcome. By default, students are sitting in a circle and therefore no one in a group gets left out from the discussions. 

What about their group presentations?  To date they have only given one presentation. I had them stand in the middle of the room while talking and making their presentation. After the presentations they were challenged to move around the room to view more closely the work of the other groups. I continue to develop ideas on how we can use the room and the technology even more effectively, and engage the students even more fully in sharing their work.

At this point, the responses of the students to the new room has been very positive. Initially some had to get use to the idea that there was no front of the room and that they could not just sit mindlessly and stare at a point at the front of the room. They could choose to look at the various screens, the projector screen or the instructor on the move. Some are still disconcerted by the expectation that they actually move their heads to look around the room.

How have other instructors managed? Aside from some initial minor technical concerns of making sure the laptop that they brought in to run the projector and monitors worked in that room, they too seem to like the room. I feel that many of them who traditionally only lectured are starting to see other pedagogical approaches that they might use in such a flexible learning environment. And those who were already incorporating group work and other activities into their courses are coming up with interesting ways to enrich those experiences even more in this new environment.

What can I say! This is great after so many years of being bolted to the floor. Every class session, I am coming up with new ideas on how to take advantage of the room. I look forward to having those ideas keep coming.