Cross Cultural Issues in Education: Learning Through

Listening ES 499 SOC 599

Course Directors: Robert Thompson and Dwaine Plaza

Course Facilitator: Sriyanthi Gunewardena

Office: Ethnic Studies Department 225 Strand Agricultural Hall

Office: Sociology Dept. 302 Fairbanks Hall

Office Phone numbers: 737- 5742 737-5369

Course Web Page Address: http://osu.orst.edu/instruct/soc437/plazad/educ/educ.htm

Office Hours: Anytime throughout the scheduled six days of the course. After the course is completed by appointment only.

Email addresses: rthompson@orst.edu dplaza@orst.edu gunewars@ucs.orst.edu

This course is supported in part by the InterACTION! project, a W.K. Kellogg Foundation sponsored grant at Oregon State University

Class Meetings

On Sunday March 19 we will meet in Strand Agricultural Hall Room 226. at 8:30 am. From Tuesday March 21 to Friday March 24 we will meet in the parking lot directly in front of the Strand Agricultural building at 7:45 am. The vans will depart at 8:00 am each morning so as to arrive by 9:00 am at our stakeholder meetings. It is imperative that you be on time as we have a very tight schedule.

During the course there may be some unforseen circumstances which arise that alter the schedule below. In this case it will be YOUR responsibility to find out what those adjustments might be.

Course Goals:

To bring stakeholders from diverse backgrounds together to learn about cross cultural issues in the education system in Oregon. Through listening, analysis and collaboration with (superintendents, legislators, principals, teachers, students, parents, and community advocates) students will gain a better understanding of the complex education issues Oregon is likely to encounter in the new millennium especially as it tries to serve an increasingly diverse primary and high school population. The course embodies a non-traditional approach to learning that blurs the boundaries between teacher/ student/ community/ researcher. Stakeholders with vested interests in education will be invited to tell their stories to students who will then have the opportunity to reflect upon this information in a collective setting. Shared reflection of the information obtained through intense listening experiences will contribute to the students understanding of issues presented from different social positions and perspectives.

Required Course Materials:

**Jimenez, Francisco (1997) The Circuit: Stories from the Life of a Migrant Child, Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.

**Course Reading Kit

One notebook (i.e. binder/ spiral) to be used as a reflection journal

**Note: The course reading kit and book will be handed out on the first day of class.

Summary of the Final Grade Calculation

Intellectual Engagement/Participation 30 percent

Group Presentation 15 percent

Personal Journal/ Writing To Learn 25 percent

Book Review 15 percent

Web Page Production 15 percent

***Due to the intense nature of this course full attendance for the week is critical. Please note that missing any day of the class will jeopardize your final grade considerably.

** Throughout the week we will also be using a video camera and digital camera to record the discussions and experiences that we engage in. Your cooperation in this matter is greatly appreciated.

****Graduate students enrolled in the course are required to make their personal journal, book review and participation in the course more extensive than undergraduate students.

Services For Students with Disabilities

Students with documented disabilities who may need accommodations, who have any emergency medical information the instructors should know of, or who need special arrangements in the event of an evacuation, should make an appointment immediately.

The Writing Center

The Writing Center provides students with a FREE consulting service for their writing assignments. The Center is located at 123 Waldo Hall. The service operates from Monday to Thursday 9-7 pm, and Friday 9-4 pm. You can make an appointment to discuss your writing with a peer writing assistant (737-5640). Another option available through the Center is to use email to get online answers to brief writing questions (writingQ@mail.orst.edu).

Course Content

The course begins by introducing action research and active listening as two modes of inquiry for doing research and understanding the changes which are taking place in the education system in Oregon communities. The subject matter then becomes more practical in the sense that the group goes out to the communities of Salem, Independence, and Corvallis in order to listen to the perspectives of various stakeholders (superintendents, legislators, principals, teachers, students, parents, and community advocates). Throughout the week students will also be reflecting on course readings, writing journal entries, formulating questions for the stakeholders, creating mind maps, and watching short films on the topic. By doing all of these activities students will get a better understanding of the ways in which various stakeholder groups in Oregon are working together and alone to prepare for the increasingly diverse primary and secondary school students.

Thursday, March 16 Meet at 4:00- 5:00 pm, at OSU, Strand Agricultural Hall, Room 226. A short pre-course information meeting will be held. The syllabus will be distributed, pre-departure planning will be finalized and a short ice breaking session will take place.

Sunday, March 19 Meet at 8:30am at OSU, Strand Agricultural Hall, Room 226. OVERNIGHT retreat at 4-H Center outside of Salem. Action learning, active listening and collaboration skills are discussed and developed throughout the day. Some discussions led by Dr. Janice McMurray (Director InterACTION! project) on active listening and learning. Nature hike, and bonding exercises with colleagues. ** Please bring hiking shoes, sleeping bag, pillow, toiletries, and clothing appropriate for a short hike at the 4-H Center.

Monday, March 20 Salem Leave retreat site at 8:00am. (9:00-10:00 am) Government Panel, Senator Cliff Trow; (10:00-11:00 am) Community Advocate Panel: Dr. Cal Henry and Willie Richardson; (11:00-12:00 pm) Hispanic Education Program Panel/ School Board member Anthony Veliz. Afternoon return to OSU debriefing, develop questions for the next day Lunch will be provided this day.

Tuesday, March 21 Portland/Salem Meet at 7:45 at OSU, Strand Agricultural Hall, Room 226. (9:00-10:00 am) Principal Judy Bryant (10:00-11:00) Superintendent Larry McMurray, (11:00-12:00 pm) Community Advocate Lisa Manning (Self Enhancement) (12:00-1:00 pm) Multi-Cultural Administrator (Portland) / Teacher Panel: Carolyn Leonard & Geoffrey Brooks. Lunch in Salem. ** Please bring your own lunch this day. (2:45 arrive at OSU.)

Wednesday, March 22 Independence Meet at 8:00am at OSU, Strand Agricultural Hall, Room 226. (9:00-10:00 am ) Bilingual Education Teachers Karen Isaias and Laura Zinch; (10:00-11:00 am) Migrant Worker Parents Panel; (11:00-12:00 pm) Migrant Worker Children Panel; (12:00-1:00 pm) Community Social Worker/ Church Elena Pena and Mary Disbrow; 1:00-2:00 pm Lunch at St Patrick's Church in Independence. ** Please bring your own lunch this day. (2:45 pm arrive at OSU.)

Thursday, March 23 Corvallis Meet at 8:00am at OSU, Memorial Union, Room 211. (9:00 -10:00 am) Bilingual Education Teacher Jan Byers; (10:00-11:00 am) OSU Education Reform Coordinator Robert Robson; (11:00-12:00 pm) Journalist Becky Waldrop (12:00-1:00 pm) Meetings with OSU undergraduate students; (1:00-2:00 pm) Lunch at OSU; (2:00-3:30 pm) Web page training facilitated by Shelley Fickes and James Nelson; preparation for final presentation. **Please bring your own lunch this day.

Friday, March 24 Corvallis Meet at 8:00am at OSU, Memorial Union, Room 213. (8:30-9:30 am) University Transitions: Dr. Atta Akyeampong. Preparation for Final presentation. Afternoon (1:00-3:00 pm) lunch presentation in the LaSells Stewart Center with all of the stakeholders and invited guests. The students will present to the stakeholders what they heard and learned through the five day learning process. The class will formally end at approximately 4:00 pm.

Intellectual Engagement and Active Participation

During the five day period that the course runs, we expect each student to at various times be an active listener, facilitator, recorder, presenter and an overall collegial and sensitive member of the learning team for all activities. At the end of the five days each person will be asked to submit a self evaluation of their performance and learning throughout the process. The self-evaluation will be used by the teaching team for assessing the individual's final grade. Overall, intellectual engagement and active participation will be worth 30 percent of the final grade.

Reflection Journal

One of your central learning activities during this course will be keeping a personal reflection journal. You should think of this writing as talking out loud or thinking out loud. And you should realize that some of your most interesting (to you, we mean) and productive journal entries may well begin with questions or notions that you haven't really thought about much. They might also be observations of the stakeholders perspectives/ positions on education that make you wonder. If you are used to writing essays and tests only, then you'll need a paradigm shift. You will need to lower your standards in order to get the full benefits of your journal. Think about it: essays and tests ask you to be sure. They ask you to write clearly and authoritatively about a topic that you've come to some conclusions about (or even master). Part of the challenge of writing essays and tests lies in deciding for yourself what your conclusions are. No doubt you will come to conclusions during this short course and you can certainly use your journal to reflect on them and examine them. But you can and should also use the journal to try out new ideas, to pick up on some aspect of a stakeholder's concerns or class discussion that you disagreed with or agreed with or that we didn't get to fully air. The journal can and should be your place to continue our class discussions and your conversations while out in the field. It can and should be your place to record your reactions to the reading you do. Your entries can agree or disagree with the readings. You can argue with it, or just talk about what might be confusing in your readings. If you end up temporarily lost or at a dead end, that's reasonable and even useful. The point is that you're using the journal to become fully involved in all the issues the course raises and your action learning experience is giving you. Don't forget to go back and re-read earlier entries; sometimes they'll still look accurate, sometimes they'll look naive, and sometimes you'll find that you now have answers to earlier questions. These insights can become new entries. Finally, use your journal to draw connections between this course and the others you've had.

Grading of Journals

The reflection journal counts for 25 percent of your grade. It will be evaluated according to three criteria: commitment, ambition and engagement. Your journals will NOT be graded according to correctness or paragraphing or sentence structure. So feel free to write quickly. Punctuate in any way that makes sense at the time. Your journal will need to include a reflection on each article in the course kit. Reflections on each stakeholder and the newspaper articles in the course kit are also expected to be part of the journal. Note, we expect that you will have at least 15 pages of handwritten commentary in your journal by the time you submit it for grading.

Writing to Learn In Class Exercises

Throughout the week you will be asked to spend 5 minutes of in-class time to participate in short writing to learn activities. The purpose of these exercises is to help you learn more about the course content. These exercises may include: write and pass, micro-themes, reading response questions, media/film reflections, or end of class observations. These writing to learn exercises require no more than one or two paragraphs of written response in your journal. Your written work will be submitted to the instructors in your journal at the end of the course.

Book Review (Due April 14, 2000)

Apart from the reflection journal we want you to complete a book review of the required course text: Jimenez Francisco (1997) The Circuit: Stories from the Life of a Migrant Child . The book review can take the form of an examination of the contents in the book in comparison with the themes found in the reading kit or from the stakeholders we interact with. We envision the book review will take into consideration: content, theme, insights, and interest in the various areas of the book. The book review is worth 15% of your final grade. The book review should be a minimum of 3 pages in length. The final book review must be submitted in TYPED form.

Web Page Participation

Students will work individually or in pairs to construct a mini-web page. Each mini web page will ultimately be joined together to form one large class web page. The web page will have education as its focus. Each mini-web page should have a theme which is based on the course readings, classroom discussions or stakeholder issues. Each mini-web page also needs to include a personal statement (minimum 1 paragraph) about the learning each individual experienced during the course. In addition students are expected to surf the net and find other sites which discuss the theme they are interested in. These newly discovered sites should be included as links where additional information on the topic can be found. For those students more knowledgeable about creating web pages we encourage the inclusion of photographs or other creative links to your mini-web page. We envision the final class web page to be one which captures the overall learning experience from the students perspective. Some training will be provided on how to construct a web page. The web page activity will be worth 15% or your final grade.

Self Evaluation

You will be asked to provide the teaching team with a self evaluation of your participation and learning in the course. The team will consider your self-evaluation when calculating a final grade for your intellectual engagement and participation throughout the course (keep in mind however that we may not arrive at the same conclusion!). The self-evaluation will be in the form of a letter to the teaching team. The letter does not have to be formal, but you need to include comments on your performance from the following areas. How did you do as: an active listener, facilitator, recorder, presenter, participant in group debriefing sessions, and as an overall collegial and sensitive member of the learning team. Did you experience intellectual growth which you feel might be attributed to your experience with this course. Overall, considering all of these factors, what letter grade would you assign using the scale of (A, B, C, D, or F)? Please submit your self-evaluation letter along with the other materials by April 14, 2000.