Fulbright–Hays Group Projects Abroad 2010China: The Place and the People

Fulbright–Hays Group Projects Abroad

• 13 Texas middle and high school teachers + 2 leaders

• 31 days in China

• 8 cities -- Beijing, Hohhot, Nanjing, Suzhou, Nanjing, Kunming, Lijiang & Shangri-la

• Traversed by planes, trains, automobiles, buses, camels, horses & YAKS

This program was developed by the Department of Teaching, Learning and Culture, in conjunction with the Institute for Pacific Asia and the Office of International Outreach at Texas A&M University, the Texas Educational Agency, the Texas Council for the Social Studies, and in China, the National Association of Educational & Administration.

To develop educators’ intercultural competence and enhance social studies curriculum and instruction on China in middle and high school classrooms in the Texas.

Overarching goal of the project

International experience helps teachers by increasing …

• Competence, confidence and flexibility• Ability to observe, ask questions, and listen • Skills needed to navigate through unfamiliar cultural barriers• Global mindedness• Teaching from “real world” experience• Ability to “go sensitively and gracefully” into a new culture• Perception consciousness --- we know our views, beliefs

and experiences of the world are not universally shared Decreased ethnocentricism Reduction of ethnic and cultural stereotypes

• Empathy with students from other backgrounds and abilities, having been “the other” in a foreign country

Activities in China: Design and present US educational pedagogy units to teachers in Chinese schools

Participate in research projects associated with the Seminar, including• The Intercultural Development Inventory• Maintain a daily personal journal• Respond to questions in a group journal• Individual interviews at the end of the trip• Design a digital story based on a meaningful experience during the China trip

Post- seminar activities:• Develop a China curricular unit & participate in a teachers workshop on China• Disseminate accurate and relevant information about China to peers through a series of through conferences and multi-media products•Participate in a China workshop for teachers from throughout the state. •Design/implement an action research project in your classroom during the 2010-11 school year

Project requirements:

What We Did

Toured major historic and cultural sites

What We Did

Visited schools (all #1) and observed classrooms

Met with teachers and administrators and shared lessons about content, pedagogy, assessments, classroom management, assignments used in U.S. & Chinese social studies middle & high school courses

Attended lectures given by experts in some aspect of Chinese life --- focus on the role of minority cultures

Attended cultural performances

Gathered artifacts, visuals, stories for our classrooms

Became a tourist attraction in China

Enjoyed local culture

Went shopping, took lots of photos

Individual reflective journals

Experience, reflection, learning

Group discussion sessions

Questions, conflicts, impressions

Experience, reflection, learning

What is the impact of an international immersion experience?

Seeing Culture With New EyesThe real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes. Marcel Proust A Remembrance of Things Past, 1913-1927

Participants in the study

Philosophers Garden at the National Academy for Education and Administration, Beijing China

Participants included thirteen middle school and high school social studies and Mandarin language teachers who voluntarily applied and were accepted into a Fulbright-Hays Group Study Abroad seminar in China in summer 2010. All participants were Caucasian (male=4, female = 9) with an age range between 28 and 68.

During the thirty-one day tour of China, participants recorded daily events in individual journals. Upon return, researchers scanned the journals and returned the journals to participants.

Teachers were asked to constructed individual digital stories based on a meaningful personal experience over the next four months. Teachers did not receive any training on digital story design beyond a one page instruction sheet.

At a post trip conference teachers shared their digital stories and responded to reflection questions related to change in perception of self as a cultural being and what it meant to tell a digital story.

Procedures, Data Sources, Analysis Methods

Researchers used emergent coding and the causal comparative method to analyze the journal entries, the reflection responses, and the digital stories to look for patterns and evolving theme that related to an increased level of intercultural competence.

To triangulate data, the digital stories are also being assessed using Bradley's criteria for assessing levels of reflection (Bradley, 1995).

The researchers wanted to evaluate the impact of cultural immersion through analysis of journals and compare them to themes in the reflection responses and the digital stories to assess the impact of reflection on experience and determine if the digital stories actually became reflection artifacts that provided a window into the level of individual change.

Emergent coding of the journal transcripts resulted in identification of seven broad conceptual categories and related sub-categories related to understanding of China and impact on teachers:

• Chinese culture: attitude toward life, food, housing, crowding, bargaining

• Ethnic diversity and collectivism

• Philosophy and religion

• Socialist market economy: government control, huco system, land control, censorship

• Education: schools, discrimination, test pressure

• Social welfare: retirement age, health care, disability

• Pollution, sanitation, progress and the environment

• Urban/rural disconnect: agriculture and lack of technology

Analysis of Journals

Analysis of the Reflection Statements

Ten out of thirteen teachers who responded to the survey felt that the China experience

changed their view of self as a cultural being.

The China experience greatly broadened my mind and allowed me to realize that I thought about everything from a purely Western perspective.

Taking my knowledge of China out of the realm of facts and figures and making contact with Chinese people reminded me of how very tiny I am in the grand scheme of things.

I have found that perhaps I do have more of my own culture than perhaps I thought.

I haven't had much experience with cultures other than my own, so being around a different culture for four weeks make me take a closer look at both what unites and divides us for "others."

Three participants indicated that the China experience did not change their view of

self as a cultural being.

One said I know who I am. Another stated I can now describe the vast physical and cultural

diversity better than I could before I want on the trip.

Responses to what it meant to tell a digital story indicated that eight out of twelve participants indicated that designing a digital story served as a medium for reflection on a meaningful experience

My digital story has become a way to preserve and re-visit the strong sense of connection I felt as I met and observed people on our trip.

It was an incredible way of putting so many of my thoughts and feelings on paper.

I relive my experience every time I see it.

The digital story allowed me to look back at my fear and see how it was overcome to make me a stronger person.

Analysis of Reflection Statements

Analysis of the Digital Stories

Bradley (1995) developed a three level framework for evaluating levels of reflection. The researchers modified this model to better reflect the evaluation of an intercultural learning experience and used the framework to rank the digital stories into three levels of reflection.

Level 1: Descriptive, observations without insightLevel 2: Interpretive and emotive, single perspectiveLevel 3: Active approach, multiple perspectives, understands actions are dependent on context

Three raters ranked the digital stories focusing particularly on the evidence of insights about China and Chinese culture, indications of multiple perspectives, and suggestions of new meaning derived from the reflective process.

Level 1 Level 2 Level 3

Another PathThe Pecking OrderTo China with LoveRice

Chopsticks and BrotherhoodLost in ChinaMy Unexpected ChinaPaparazziThe Squatty Potty StoryWhat China is Like Now

China's WallsFriend or FoeMusic of the People

Evaluation of the journals provided some insight into what the China Seminar participants experienced on a daily basis and allowed us to derive some categories of interest.

• Memorable meals such as a Peking Duck feast in Beijing and a Hot Pot dinner in Huhehot. • The incredible traffic jam on a highway in Inner Mongolia• The night we spent in tourist style yurts• The horrors of the Nanjing Massacre Museum• The extravagance of Expo• Ethnic musical performances in Lijiang • Shopping at the Pearl Market in Beijing.

None of these things were mentioned in the digital stories. The journals were for the most part catalogues of daily events while the digital stories focused on participants interactions with Chinese people and Chinese culture.

One participant ended her journal by saying ……

Now the real work begins. Somehow I must find the connections that can change this from an ocean of facts, events, and impressions into some sort or coherent, cohesive unit of instruction. Hopefully as I catalog the pictures and sort out notes the right pattern will emerge.

Discussion

ConclusionJournals provided an account of what happened. The digital stories at all levels of reflection were more indicative of the impact of an international immersion experience on teachers’ level of intercultural competence than the journals.

While the journals recorded a catalogue of events, the digital stories told about participants interactions with Chinese people and Chinese culture.

The digital stories provide a window into individual change and cultural experiences and visually illustrate border crossings.

The digital stories stand as permanent artifacts available for further reflection and for sharing with an audience.

Reflection on events leads to re-evaluation of experience; seeking relationships, finding patterns and meaning, relating new ideas to prior knowledge (Boud, 2001, p. 14).

I am not the same, having seen the moon shine on the other side of the world.

~ Mary Anne Radmacher

ReferencesBarrett, H. (2005). Researching and evaluating digital storytelling as a deep learning tool. The REFLECT Initiative. Retrieved on January 2, 2007,

from http://helenbarrett.com/portfolios/SITEStorytelling2006.pdf.Behmer, S., Schmidt, D. & Schmidt, J. (2006). Everyone Has a Story to Tell: Examining Digital Storytelling in the Classroom. In C. Crawford et

al. (Eds.), Proceedings of Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education International Conference 2006 (pp. 655-662). Chesapeake, VA: AACE.

Blocher, M. (2008). Digital storytelling and reflective assessment. In K. McFerrin et al. (Eds.), Proceedings of Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education International Conference, pp. 892-901. Chesapeake, VA: AACE.

Boase, C. (2008) Digital storytelling for reflection and engagement, a review of the potential for digital storytellng .  Report produced as part of the Phase 1 of The Higher Education Academy / JISC Higher Education e-Learning Pathfinder Program, pp 1-17. Retrieved on September 10, 2010 from http://resources.glos.ac.uk/tli/lets/projects/pathfinder/index.cfm

Boud, D. (2001). Using journal writing to enhance reflective practice. New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education. 90, (9-18). New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education. 90, 9-17.

Bradley, (1995). A model for evaluating student learning in academically based service. Connecting Cognition and Action: Evaluation of Student Performance in Service Learning Courses, ed. Marie Troppe. Denver: Education Commission of the States/Campus Compact.

Bringle, R. & Hatcher, J. (1999). Reflection in service learning: making meaning of experience. Educational Horizons, 111-117. Dewey, J. (1933). How We Think, New York: D. C. Heath. Lathem, S. (2005). Digital storytelling and professional development: new media for ancient tradition. Society for Information Technology and

Teacher Education. March 1-5, 2005, Phoenix, Arizona. Retrieved on September 10, 2007, from http://www.uvm.edu/pt3/?Page=papers.html&SM=researchsub.html.

Lathem, S., Reyes, C. & Qi, J. (2006). Literacy autobiography: digital storytelling to capture student voice and reflection. In C. Crawford et al. (Eds.), Proceedings of Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education International Conference 2006 (pp. 700-704). Chesapeake, VA: AACE.

Leeman & Ledoux. (2003). Preparing teachers for intercultural education. Teaching Education. 14 (3), 279-291 National Commission on Asia in the Schools. (2001). Asia in the Schools: Preparing Young Americans for Today’s Interconnected World, New

York: Asia Society, p. 6 - 7. Renda, C. (2010). Beyond Journals: Using digital storytelling encourage meaningful teacher reflection. In D. Gibson & B. Dodge (Eds.),

Proceedings of Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education International Conference 2010 (pp. 1165-1170). Chesapeake, VA: AACE.

Taylor, E. (1994). Intercultural competency: a transformative learning process. Adult Education Quarterly. 44(3), 154-174.