Dear Colleague,
Here follows an interesting report on an innovative
cooperation between Tufts University, University of
Dar es Salaam, and Makere University.
This kind of program might be used to good
effect among a group of design research programs.
One of the genuine difficulties we face is gathering
serious communities of learning for extended dialogue,
collegial research, and interaction.
So far, none of our lists have managed this for more
than a few weeks at a time, or -- in one case -- for
a concentrated debate lasting three months.
Perhaps a serious project involving tutors, supervisors,
doctoral candidates, and selected external scholars
might attempt a project to explore a specific issue
or theme in a way that permits each school to use
the course at the local level while allowing all
schools to interact.
Given the JISCMAIL technology, this would not
require special funding or external support.
There are many possible models. Makere, Dar es Salaam,
and Tufts offer one good example.
Best regards,
Ken Friedman
Wednesday, February 27, 2002
Tufts Students Study Sociology and Politics Online With
Students in Africa
By SCOTT CARLSON
This spring, a group of students at Tufts University has a
rare opportunity to study with African students -- without
ever leaving Boston.
Pearl T. Robinson, a professor of political science at the
university, has worked to set up online forums shared by
sociology and political-science classes at Tufts; the
University of Dar es Salaam, in Tanzania; and Makerere
University, in Uganda. Together, the students on two
continents will study issues surrounding African labor
migration and refugees, and will discuss the issues online.
The shared forums are the second such project organized by Ms.
Robinson. A year ago, she worked with the two African
universities on a course on regionalism in African relations.
In these "metacourses," as Ms. Robinson calls them, each of
the university classes follows its own syllabus and reading
materials, but the instructors work out a common nexus, and
hold online discussions and post materials around that
connection.
In last year's course, the connections between cultures
yielded revelations for students on both sides of the ocean.
The American students have far more access to online materials
and database research, and are able to share what they learn
with the African students. Ms. Robinson is able to track the
number of times that the students log on to the course site;
she found that the students in Africa were online more often
than the students in America. "It was because for them it was
new, it was this resource, and it opens up their minds, their
lives, their worlds."
The African students, meanwhile, have a direct contact with
the culture being studied and have access to materials and
points of view that they can share with the Americans. In one
discussion, Ms. Robinson asked the students to imagine that
they were going back in time to talk to Africans, but with the
knowledge of all the problems that Africa has today --
warfare, genocide, AIDS, and so on.
"The American students were reluctant to be critical," whereas
the African students weren't, she says. "You end up being able
to have a conversation to have a greater understanding about
why someone has a different perspective. ... That's the kind
of dialogue that can change the way we think about
international studies."
The idea for the metacourses came out of a sabbatical year
that Ms. Robinson spent in Uganda. "It was an attempt to try
to make it possible to maintain professional relations with
the people in Africa and have our students engaged in
dialogues that take you beyond what you would study with
people in your classroom," she says. Although others had
explored ideas of bringing Internet technology to work in
Africa, most had concentrated on the technical setup, Ms.
Robinson says.
"Almost nobody had focused on curriculum development. So my
project got funding because it was seen as a way of linking
the notion of bringing more computers to these universities
and doing more than just basic computer skills." The Ford
Foundation gave her a $265,000 grant for the project; the U.S.
Agency for International Development and the Carnegie
Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching have also given
smaller grants.
This year, some of the grant money paid for new computers at
the African universities and subsidized the cost of Internet
service there. During last year's course in Uganda, 25
students had to share six computers among them. "They put this
thing together with bubble gum and shoestring," Ms. Robinson
says.
Ms. Robinson will return to Africa this spring while the
courses are running. She says she will try to encourage the
African professors to post more material on the courses'
sites, and will look for African policy makers and other
experts to participate in chats with the students.
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Copyright 2002 by The Chronicle of Higher Education
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