On-line Education and Cross –Cultural Problems (下)

I also use the Internet to prepare students for my seminar’s trips to the US. I often take my seminar students to the United States to study various cultural aspects. I have taken them to places like the Navajo Nation, Chicago, New York and San Diego among other areas. To prepare for these trips the students lists things they are interested in doing or seeing. Then I have had groups work separately on the Net to gather information on things like the Blues, Jazz and the Holocaust. The groups had to report to the rest of the class on their discoveries. For example, last February one group of students reported on the Blues and made a list of Blues clubs they wanted to visit when we reached Chicago, another group reported on the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC, and still another group reported on Broadway. In this way, the Internet was extremely valuable in preparing my students for their cultural experience in the United States making the whole experience much more valuable for them. Granted, this is not really distance eductions through the phone link. Granted, the visual was not of a high quality and the visual window was small, but our students were able to see the excitement and interest of the Angeles University students. This experiment also seems to disprove criticism that computers can not build patience in students. Of course, this was only a short test series of lectures and discussions, but the results were encouraging for distance education I believe.

Although Bunkyo is not involved in an ongoing on-line education program itself, other universities report great success in the field. The Open University of the United Kingdom, the University of Wisconsin, and the University of Nebraska, among others report excellent results from their programs. At the Conference on Distance Teaching and Learning, hosted by the University of Wisconsin, Madison, I was able to talk with other participants who had been successful with their own on-line distance education programs. I was very impressed with several of the presentations, like the Dr. Robert Bill’s report about Purdue University’s successful conversion of a traditional clinical veterinarian medical program to a web based program. Dr. Bill informs us that one of the main problems that faces such a conversion is the accreditation of the program by the American Veterinary Medical Association. Essentially the Web based course had to meet the same high standard as the campus based program. A teaching engine was designed that posed questions to the students that could only be answered by knowing the textbook material thoroughly. In one section, the students were asked to explain the expected reaction of each of several drugs like vomiting or slowing of the heart rate and why it would happen. Evidently, this was found to be very similar to classroom situations. A harder problem to bridge was how the various physical skills need by a veterinarian like giving injections, administering medicine in a variety of ways and properly applying pressure in order to stop bleeding among other motor skills were to be taught and tested at a distance. The solution was to use a Clinical Mentorship where each student would find his or her own approved mentor and perform all of the skills prescribed in the curriculum. This is of course mixing on-line with an on sight mentor, but it does offer an adequate program for accreditation and offers hope for other difficult subjects like other medical and dental courses or engineering courses. It also persuasively deflects the criticism of on-line education as a viable alternative to campus based education. (Distance Learning & Teaching, 2000, p.51)

The overwhelming consensus of the distance educators is that all this new technology can be useful for educational programs. The main concern of educators seems to be that steps must be taken to insure that the technology plays a subservient role to content. This means that we educators must be clear in our objectives and design courses that meet all of the requirements and the high standards of the campus based courses. The Purdue’s veterinary course developed a model where the content was decided on by the staff and the technology that was to be utilized for teaching it was tightly screened for effectiveness of delivering the desired knowledge or skill. Finally, Purdue decided to use onsite testing conducted by selected proctors, as the most secure way in which to evaluate the students along with the mentor’s evaluation.

Learning Styles and Cross-cultural Awareness
It is in the area of course design that I see the need for caution. Once you have decided on the content of the course, one must be careful of the design of your delivery machine. We all know that students are different and each of them has his own or her own style of learning. These differences are hard enough to handle in a live classroom, but in a Web based program educators and course designers must be very concerned with satisfying the needs of every learner by including a large variety of effective teaching tools in the course. Nancy Anderson, of SCING Distance Learning Network, opinions that, “imaginative students need to feel empowered and involved; analytic students prefer traditional methods and sequential presentation of facts; common sense learners prefer to have precise plans and time tables to follow; dynamic learners need challenges and new ideas to stay involved.” (Distance Teaching a& Learning 1999 p.4) It is imperative that course designers meet the needs of these various learning styles as well as others. It is a formidable task for sure, but one which has to be met. Ms Anderson offers the software Inspiration as an effective tool because of its mindmapping capabilities and visual diagramming features, but one can use other programs that meet the needs of a particular course. Also, many distance educators would agree with Ms Anderson’s idea that participation or interaction between the students should be implemented at an early stage of any distance learning course design. After all, this is the way I, as well as many other teachers, start our traditional classes and it stands to reason that on-line courses provide this same element. This can be done through interactive chat rooms, group assignments with the professor and/or assistants, or live, synchronous, video or audio conferencing among other choices. Likewise, courseware must include feedback sections throughout, so that the students will feel close to the professor as well as fellow participants.

In addition to learning styles, I believe that on-line educators must be aware of the possibility of cross-cultural educational problems that might arise. Granted, many educators are aware of cross-cultural problems that occur in our regular classes and have become effective cross-cultural teachers. However, if one’s programs are to be broadcast over international or cultural boundaries, I think one has to be very careful inthinking about the design of the courseware. Simple things like the color combinations may be distracting from the content of the course for students of some cultures. We all know of red-green color blindness, but what cultural significance does blue, black or white have for certain cultures which may make them less effective in conveying a given idea to students of various cultures? In the United States these are considered neutral colors, but is that true of all cultures? I know that color is very cultural sensitive from tests of people from various cultures arranging colors that they think would make a good combination for a dress or shirt. The results showed a great variance in what people consider clashing colors and those that are harmonious. I think that course designers should be careful in the color that they use in their courseware and perhaps more research is needed in this area. Likewise, course designers should be careful about animals that they may use in their graphics as people of a culture like the United States, where dogs and horses are considered almost human, may be offended by depictions of them being eaten or maimed. Other cultures may be offended by scenes of cows or pigs being treated in ways inconsistent with their culture.

Cross-cultural problems may also arise from teaching styles. Professors involved in inter-cultural teaching should also be aware of habits that may be distracting for on-line students of various cultures. For example, I have the habit of wearing lot of Navajo jewelry, silver bolo ties, bracelets and rings to class. I find that these items often encourage students to ask questions about the designs and what they mean. They have been effective tools for the small classroom, but I doubt if they would be effective tools on the Net. The designs would have to be presented by photos on the Web page or in a video presentation and backed up in a reference section for the students to review at their leisure. Also, even one‘s attire may cause students to be distracted from the content of a video presentation. I have several sport coats that have leather patches on the elbows, a typical style for American colleges and society in general. However, Japanese students often joke that they associate the patches only with poverty. Perhaps other students from other culture feel the same way. In the real life classroom, I can use all of these ideas as ways to discuss culture or cultural values, but in a Web based course the ideas must be presented to the students in a different style. Perhaps through pictures, videos and written explanations about how and/or why elbow patches are considered a traditional style in America. Now, whether or not these sport coats are acceptable for teachers to wear when teaching on-line, is up to the individual. However, the teachers should be made aware that clothing style might be culturally sensitive. Some people do not wish to listen to a man dressed in what they consider to be rags.