This article is from the EMU News Archive. Current EMU new is available at www.emu.edu/news
Web-based Program Connects Across Cultures
Vo Vo Tong Xuan, president of An Giang University, talks with EMU President Loren Swartzendruber and EMU history professor Dan Wessner during his recent campus visit. Dr. Swartzendruber paid a reciprocal visit to An Giang University in March, 2005.
Photo by Jim Bishop
The potential for learning in a virtual classroom setting is taking giant steps forward even as several courses are reshaping students' world views at Eastern Mennonite University.
Associate Professor of International and Political Studies Dan Wessner has been crafting computer-based course work to interact with and learn from students at two universities in Vietnam. He terms the approach "IC3" - Inter-Cultural Communicative Competence.
Dr. Wessner, associate professor of international and political studies in the history department, arranged for EMU students to converse by computer with Vietnamese students on a regular basis at An Giang University and Can Tho University, both in the Mekong Delta.
Wessner drew from his earlier experience as a MacArthur Foundation Fellow in Vietnam and his connections with Mennonite Central Committee personnel serving at An Giang University. This collaborative learning was augmented by Mr. Tran Quoc Thang and Ms. Nguyen Hoang Bich Ngoc, both Vietnamese students in EMU's MA in education program.
Kevin Docherty, an EMU senior history/sociology major from Harrisonburg, and Erica Kraybill, a junior history major from Columbus, Ohio, use the Blackboard computer program to carry on in-depth conversation with students in Vietnam and Iran. Docherty plans to attend EMU's cross-cultural study seminar to Vietnam in May.
Photo by Jim Bishop
The first day of class, each Vietnamese and American student, none of whom was born during the Vietnam-U.S. War, was asked to write a paragraph of "first impressions" of the other‚s country. Students at both ends of this dialog imagined the reality of a distant and former "enemy" nation. Most confessed that what little they knew of the other had grown out of media presentations and was overshadowed by the past war.
Students on all three campuses used the "Blackboard" system, an on-line communications module, to post and respond to five sustainable development questions that are shared by superpower and developing countries, alike: cultural identity, war and reconciliation, poverty reduction and economics development, art and culture and gender equity.
Using neither a chat room nor instant messaging approach, students were allowed to post short essays only after a rigorous reading schedule, in-class discussions, and draft work. "Students at each end were encouraged to post only their Œbest answers‚ for their overseas coursemates' consideration," Wessner explained.
Wessner is leading a spring semester class, "History of Middle/Near East: Iran," using the same I3C learning model. This time, his students first discuss questions that are also broached in two other EMU courses - "Strategic Non-Violence" in the Conflict Transformation Program and "Politics: Conceptions of Common Good" in the Bible and religion department.
The dialog has expanded to include 30 students in EMU's graduate-level Conflict Transformation Program (CTP), 10 in an undergraduate philosophy course, 20 in Wessner's Middle East class and 12 Eastern Mennonite Seminary students.
The EMU students are posting their essays to students at An Giang University and a new partner institution, The Imam Khomeini Education and Research Institute in Qom, Iran. This triangular arrangement of EMU students conversing with Iranian and Vietnamese coursemates is expected to stretch their inter-cultural learning across strained political boundaries.
"You can only go so far with books and even off-campus study abroad programs," Wessner said. "This IC3 approach, I believe, provides an affordable and deep cross-cultural immersion. It's a start in reshaping how we view the dialog possible in many of our classrooms, let alone how we consider our voice in the larger world."
"I've discovered that what I read and believed about the Vietnam War severely limited my knowledge of the actual history of that country," said Philip D. Minnich, a sophomore undeclared major from Boston, Mass.
"Through this different format, with dialog to promote better understanding being a priority, I've become more aware of my own beliefs and assumptions as I interacted with students in Vietnam about their culture and history," Minnich said. "I desire more deep conversations like these that critique underlying assumptions and outward expressions of how I and others view and relate to the world."
EMU senior Kevin D. Dochterty, a senior history and sociology major from Harrisonburg, said his participation in the IC3 classroom process "really brings subject matter alive . . . I'm amazed at how much self-reflection is required and the extent to which I'm seeing my own culture in new ways."
Also during both semesters, students at all participating universities are viewing the same 10 foreign films, one each week at approximately the same time. Titles being shown spring semester are from Iran, India, Argentina, Iraq, Iran, Tibet, South Africa and other countries. After each screening, the inter-cultural themes are discussed through an on-line forum. Attendance this semester is averaged 175 persons, including members of the local community, at each film showing.
On Dec. 6, 2004, EMU hosted Vo Tong Xuan, president of An Giang University. He met with the academic deans, information systems personnel, faculty members in the Conflict Transformation Program, international agriculture and environmental science professors, education department, Intentional English Program (IEP) faculty, and President Loren E. Swartzendruber.
From March 23-26, 2005, Dr. Swartzendruber paid a reciprocal visit to An Giang University to discern the extent to which IC3 serves the educational needs of students at EMU as well as in the Greater Mekong region. Swartzendruber's visit is an attempt to deepen the virtual on-line efforts already under way between the schools, to strengthen personal relationships and to discuss what more can be done in long-term international learning between the campuses.
This spring, the EMU history department will sponsor its first cross-cultural study trip to Vietnam, Thailand and Hong Kong, May 2 to June 2 with eight students enrolled. Also, EMU faculty will participate in an international human rights conference hosted by its Iranian partner institution in Qom.
Wessner believes the IC3 learning venture is "being intentional about a ministry of reconciliation, with students interacting with countries that have been declared 'former or present enemies' of the U.S.
"We want students to be rigorous scholars on campus, but more importantly, to be rigorous discussants with people whose world view is different than ours," he said.
"The EMU campus is ideally situated for a deeper exploration of international issues, due to the makeup of its student body, its emphasis on cross-cultural learning, and its commitment to Anabaptist mission and world views," Wessner noted.
"We're not doing the ordinary, that's for certain," Wessner added. "The students are the ones making the curriculum better through deep levels of dialog on serious, basic life issues. There's so much potential here for broadening this pedagogy style to courses in many disciplines."
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