APPENDIX VIII-2
2 Global Seminar Project
This project on the global
sustainability on environment and food system is an international collaborative
project that offers a distance education course to undergraduate and graduate
students around the world using fully interactive video and satellite
technology. This has been successfully conducted for the past three years with
its center at Cornell University in New York.
This project creates the faculty and
institutional network, seminar content and pedagogy, and instructional delivery
systems for a global undergraduate and graduate seminar on the environment and
sustainable food systems. The affiliated institutions are collaborating to
develop and deliver a seminar series via satellite, teleconferencing, and
computer networking and other telecommunication technologies.
The seminar topic, "environment and
sustainable food systems" is a high priority for the United Nations, for
most countries and for development agencies. Undergraduate and graduate
students need to develop understandings on an expanding world population and
its implication for world food production, natural resources degradation, and
loss of biodiversity. Public awareness on the need for sustainable development
among future world citizens and leaders is critical to the survival of our
planet, and the successful coexistence of people, food, agriculture, and the
environment. By many estimates, the global population will double by the year
2050, 90% of this new growth is expected in the developing countries. Food
production will need to keep pace with this acceleration in population growth.
The global seminar provides an informed dialogue on important policy issues
among students from different parts of the world.
This project would be well suited to the
environment of Amazon area, particularly with the use of broadband Internet of
CampusNet and Community Development Network.
Cornell University will submit a travel grant application to the US National Science Foundation which is for the attendance by American scholars to this workshop.
Excerpt from
http://instruct1.cit.cornell.edu/courses/als480/GSSummary.html
The Global Seminar Project
Cornell University, College of
Agriculture and Life Sciences
Dean Sutphin, Project Director
Introduction
The Global Seminar Project is a joint
venture in distance education between American universities and similar
institutions overseas, designed to create the faculty and institutional
network, seminar content and pedagogy, and instructional delivery systems for a
global undergraduate and graduate seminar on the environment and sustainable
food systems. Spearheaded by Cornell University, the project includes academic
institutions in Australia, Europe, and Central America. Whereas Cornell was the
sole US institution involved in the project during the first three years of its
existence, other institutions have expressed interest in joining the consortia
and discussions are currently underway with Texas A&M, UC Davis, Iowa State
and Florida State University. Closer to home, the State University of New York
College of Agriculture and Technology at Cobleskill is the first two-year
college to request for a passive observer status in the Global Seminar Project.
To create an educational model and
concurrently assure sustainability of the project, institutions were carefully
selected in six countries to represent excellent open universities,
research/liberal arts universities and colleges of agriculture in the developed
and developing nations. They are collaborating to develop and deliver a seminar
series via satellite, teleconferencing, and computer networking and other
telecommunication technologies. The institutions include Cornell University,
U.S.A.; Zamorano University, Honduras; EARTH University, Costa Rica; University
of Melbourne, Australia; Uppsala University and the Swedish College of
Agriculture in Sweden; and Wageningen University and the Open University of the
Netherlands in the Netherlands. This highly successful model program for
international collaboration has expanded beyond the present consortia to
include the US institutions indicated above.
After two years of operation, feedback
from students and collaborating faculty show that we have created a powerful
educational consortium model. This model promotes social justice by sharing the
highest level of intellectual knowledge around the world among institutions
with different levels of ability to pay, while simultaneously increasing
students understanding of diversity and their access to a high-quality education.
The seminar topic, "environment and
sustainable food systems" is a high priority for the United Nations, for
most countries and for development agencies. Undergraduate and graduate
students need to develop understandings on an expanding world population and
its implication for world food production, natural resources degradation, and
loss of biodiversity. Public awareness on the need for sustainable development
among future world citizens and leaders is critical to the survival of our
planet, and the successful coexistence of people, food, agriculture, and the
environment. By many estimates, the global population will double by the year
2050, 90% of this new growth is expected in the developing countries. Food
production will need to keep pace with this acceleration in population growth.
The global seminar provides an informed dialogue on important policy issues
among students from different parts of the world.
Objectives
The objectives of the Global Seminar
Project (GSP) include: 1) Develop and organize an interdisciplinary knowledge
base in the form of modular case studies on the environment and food systems to
establish a global seminar. 2) Build linkages with and foster participation by
institutions and faculty subject matter specialists from around the world. 3)
Assist undergraduates to develop the higher order cognitive and learning skills
needed to address problems of global proportion and to enhance their awareness
of critical issues of sustainability. 4) Refine a model for other universities
interested in creating effective international educational collaborations,
complete with delivery systems that are fully interactive and offer both
"high touch and high tech". 5) Develop delivery systems to
incrementally make this seminar accessible across the globe.
Conceptual and Theoretical Base
The philosophical and theoretical
framework for the seminar is based on a constructivist approach to teaching and
learning as advocated by Ausubel, Novak, Bandura and other recognized cognitive
psychologists. This approach promotes critical reflection and experiential
learning strongly advocated by Dewey, Novak and Vygotsky who also contend that
education based on real problems is more meaningful than rote learning and
memorization. To accommodate student concrete learning styles, the GSP uses
case studies of real events and people for students to investigate key concepts
and policy issues that are embedded in real world problems. Content knowledge
is portrayed as published literature and video protocols of actual situations.
Student freedom to act and to share perspectives, supported by Pretty and
Chamber, is an inherent dimension of international problem solving teams that
include at least one student from each university. Students are encouraged to
analyze each topic from several conceptual perspectives, namely: economic,
political, sociological, philosophical, technological, environmental and
cultural. An electronic discussion board and live interactive video provide the
venues.
Community based learning occurs as each
institution takes responsibility for broadcasts which show regional ways of
thinking, policies and actions. For example, the broadcast from Zamorano
described how the university, government, relief agencies and local communities
cooperated to respond to a natural disaster, Hurricane Mitch. The broadcast
from Sweden used a university research in a small rural village in Africa to
explore land use issues. Cornell University portrayed a community-based New
York watershed project involving Cooperative Extension, community leaders and
government to supply New York City with the highest quality water supply of any
other comparable size city in the world with minimal treatment facilities.
Other topics had similar relevance, intrigue, impact and policy implications to
provide "meaningful learning activities".
A sound theoretical and conceptual
framework of current thinking in the field of education provided the context to
adapt strategies for experimentation in distance learning. A research and
evaluation strategy was developed to learn from experiences, to facilitate
continuous and immediate improvement of GSP, and contribute to the literature.
Strategies
Now, in the fourth year since its
inception, the Global Seminar Project has successfully integrated pedagogy and
multiple technologies. A case study approach to content, international student
teams, the use of video, Internet, satellite and telephone technologies meet
the challenge of delivering an educational program to a virtual global
classroom in multiple educational centers around the world. This model is
replicable with respect to other content areas.
Each institution shares equal ownership
of a variable 1-3-credit university seminar sponsored through the respective
universities and coordinated by Cornell University. To date, between 200 250
students have enrolled in the Global Seminar in the eight universities.
Students enrolled for credit are attracted by the opportunity to integrate
interdisciplinary knowledge from across the curriculum, and to foster a
cross-cultural dialogue among students through the use of modern communication
technologies.
Each site is responsible for one
broadcast in rotation per semester. Cornell coordinates the project by hosting
the web site, server, discussion board, reviewing and publishing instructional
materials and other management responsibilities. Costs are shared across
institutions that have the ability to pay, while others are covered by grants
and contributions from other consortium members.
Faculty at each institution are
facilitators for each broadcast and play a leadership role when the topic
originates from their institution. Topics are presented in a three-week cycle.
In week one, students review and discuss the case study at their respective
institutions, week two is the international broadcast and week three the post
analysis and reflections. Through video streaming the satellite broadcasts can
be viewed by anyone around the world with Internet connections.
Strategies have been developed and tested
which support the constructive approach. For example, the broadcast from
Australia used a debate format between students from each university to examine
key aspects of land reclamation associated with salinity problems in the
Victoria Basin. In other broadcasts, students responded to leading questions in
a round robin fashion among the participating universities. In most broadcasts,
faculty presentations have been restricted to 20 minutes out of a total of 90
minutes so that more time would be allocated to actively engage students in
dialogue
Faculty at the respective universities
grade their students on participation in problem solving teams, discussion in
class and broadcasts and a major paper at the end of the semester.
Other educational strategies and
outcomes include a comprehensive website, 10 case studies, an 11 minute
professional demonstration video, four referenced presentations at
international conferences and three journal articles, grant funding from USDA,
and individual donor support of approximately $180,000. Other publications are
in development.
Evaluation and Outcomes
To evaluate broadcasts and to plan the
seminars, Cornell coordinates monthly faculty audio conference calls.
Discussion includes student feedback on an evaluation form of 20 indicators of
quality and open-ended questions completed after each broadcast; then
collected, summarized, and disseminated by Cornell University. Ratings
generally range between 2.0 and 3.5 on a four point scale (4=highest).
Individual items on the assessment are sometimes skewed because of
experimentation to test selected teaching strategies. The most promising
educational strategies are retained which should yield ratings of three or
higher in the future.
The high level and quality of
interaction among students, and between students and faculty, enhanced by the
combination of several distance learning technologies has become a hallmark of
the global seminar. Examples of student comments show that the GSP enriches
their educational experience, changes and informs their views on food systems
and the environment:
The global seminar serves to promote
dialogue on the critical global questions of our times hopefully to aid in all
our understanding of the situation in the world a little better to help steer
this ship in a better direction. The only way to find real solutions is to have
a global dialogue discussion board allowed for some real interaction with
different opinions and wealth of knowledge...The use of video is very
effective; enhanced my knowledge of the topic...To witness how
telecommunication can enable distance learningopportunity to hear and interact
with experts and students around the world that would otherwise be
impossible...allowed me to learn more of worldviews on sustainable agriculture.
Each of three international conferences
has included approximately 20 faculty collaborators in a three-day review and
planning session. Two conferences in the Dominican Republican and one in New
York City had added value because they were locations for two case studies.
Future annual conferences will use locations for the case studies to provide
faculty with hands-on experience.
In summary, quantitative and qualitative
assessment provided the structure to systematically examine, adapt and adopt
educational strategies through a highly credible research base. This base has
lead to an adaptation of the Harvard case study model by Cornell University to
develop a distance learning seminar series in "Sustainable Food Systems
and the Environment". Next, through systematic and incremental planning,
the GSP will be expanded to a multi consortium arrangement. In preparation,
broadcasts were used Spring ¹99 by consortium members to pilot test expansion
to other universities, community colleges and high school enrichment programs.
Future Plans
In order to enrich the global
representation, the Global Seminar Project will seek to expand by arranging
in-country consortia to view the international broadcast, then engage in a
global discussion. Multi consortia are needed because the GSP experience shows
that no more than a dozen sites can actively participate in a live video
discussion group.
In summary, the global seminar is a
proven model that is sustainable and well documented by a rigorous evaluation
and research. The project objectives have been met through the core university
consortium and expanding to multi consortia worldwide, along with increased
enrollment within the core institutions. Educating students across the
university who will be future policy makers and world citizens is essential to
creating a safe clean environment that can sustain a safe, nutritious food
system. Concurrently, this model provides students with critical thinking,
problem solving, communications, global cooperation and a wide range of
broad-based skills.
Additional information on the Global
Seminar Project may be obtained from the web site at: www.cals.cornell.edu/global/.
Contact:
Lee Riddell
Project Manager of the Global Seminar
CALS Distance Learning Program
http://www.cals.cornell.edu/global/
College of Agriculture and Life Sciences
147 Roberts Hall, Cornell University
Ithaca, NY 14853
Phone: (607) 254-7482 Fax: (607)
254-4613