Date: Mon, 7 Oct 1996 08:25:47 MST
Subject: an IITV innovation in Arizona
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Dear DEOS-L-ers, Spanborders, and other List confreres/soeurs:
I appreciate the feedback many of you have been providing
to messages I have posted; let me bring you up-to-date with my
immediate plans for a distinctive course over Arizona's NAUNet
(statewide electronic classrooms) in the spring of next year.
I will be teaching a modification of my longstanding
"Southwest Arts and Culture in Historical Perspective" (upper
division Liberal Studies) to fifteen sites across the state in
real time, with two-way audio and video, with classroom operators
at each location, and scheduled from 8 AM to 9:15 AM on Tuesdays
and Thursdays, starting January 14, 1997.
I have written a texbook emphasizing course principles
and multicultural arts overviews, entitled _Whose Sky is it,
Anyway ?_, published by Kwik Kopy, 1996, 315 pages, as a way to
get information into the hands of the students in advance, so we
can use class time in dialogue over meanings, contexts, causes,
information sources, consequences, implications, perspectives,
and so on.
The course has received extensive institutional grant
support, allowing me to teach just the one course, and to spend
one week at each classroom community, thereby distributing my
time more evenly among all the students (they all pay the same
fees regardless of location). During each of those weeks, I will
be working with students at that location in helping them engage
in community arts-culture interviews and research.
Not only is this for "one-on-one" engagement, but it will
"decentralize" the resource base, thereby diminishing a built-in
disequalibrium of the central library being at Flagstaff and
distributing materials to sites. At the same time, "distributive
education" often fails to incorporate significant contributions
which each community can offer to courses in many disciplines.
With "Arizona Arts and Culture," the goal is to create a
professor's "Overall Theme" in history and evolution which will
then be added to and enriched by the "Local Variations" found in
each of the fifteen communities. Our subject matter emphases
will be on comparable-contrastable elements found at or nearby
each location. I will focus on:
(1) state and national parks in each area,
(2) local arts and culture museums, historical
collections and galleries,
(3) arts/culture activities (including religious-cultural
elements [where acceptable by the participants]
on local Indian Reservations [22 in Arizona]),
(4) local artists (writers, dancers, painter/sculptors,
musicians and the directions they are taking),
(5) local architecture and its evolution, and
(6) how local "Visitors" bureaus and chambers of
commerce "package" --- (what they emphasize, how
they utilize local resources, etc.).
I consider my role as giving a broad picture of geography
and history in the evolution of "Southwest Styles" through epochs
of Indian, Spanish Colonial, Mexican, Anglo 19th Century, Modern
(to WWII), Recent (to 1985), and Current. I consider it vital
that students encounter and apply judgments from arts-culture
interpretation history, plus hands-on practice in how to perform
community arts and culture inquiry and interview.
A unique feature is the diversity of the communities
joined by NAUNet's interactive technology. Flagstaff began as a
railroad and logging community at 7000 feet, surrounded by pine
forests, and gateway to the Grand Canyon. It is also an
important scientific community with its astronomy, geology,
Indian culture (Navaho and Hopi) and university emphases.
Yuma, 300 miles away on the Mexico-California border,
is an agricultural community with military base, aviation
training, a Border Patrol Center, and site of education at the
community college and university level. It houses a training and
proving ground, the Quechan Indian Reservation, and doubles in
population in the winter due to a huge influx of vacationers,
called "snowbirds." The elevation is 100 feet: an irrigated
desert.
Other sites, equally non-metropolitan, lie between those
elevations. Lake Havasu City is young, mostly Anglo, on the
Colorado River, catering to retirees, water sports and desert
recreation. Bullhead City is farther upriver, a desert resort,
near historic mining, surrounded by small Indian reservations,
and near the Laughlin, Nevada gaming resort (with a community
college training games personnel).
Kayenta and Tuba City are small communities at 5000 feet,
on the Navajo Reservation, mostly native in population, near to
several parks and monuments (Grand Canyon, nearby Lake Powell,
scenic Monument Valley, and archaeological preverves. Keams
Canyon is similar, but on the Hopi Reservasion. Many national
government agencies and Tribal offices operate in these regions,
while corporations mine coal and conduct other businesses.
Holbrook, at 4500 feet on I-40, is a railhead, ranchland,
and gateway to regional parks, White Mountains recreation and the
Whiteriver Apache Reservation. Signal Peak is at 2000 feet in an
agricultural area irrigated from deep wells, with a population of
Mexican Americans and Pima and San Carlos Indians. Yet others
are farming or ranching centers, mining regions, or resort
communities, emphasizing divergent interests and resources.
The concept of a homogenous "Arizona Arts and Culture"
therefore, is misleading. Each community is unique; the people
differ, as do the landforms, resources, the plant and animal
world, and ways of life. The religious and cultural elements,
along with history and prospects are highly unalike. They may
ALL be "Southwest" and may relate multiculturally to the generic
events in Southwest evolution and development, but each is also a
"variation" on that theme.
MOST IMPORTANT for those of us developing Interactive
Decentralized Learning --- this participatory, constructivist,
comparative approach can be utilized BECAUSE of the technology.
We could not do what we propose in traditional classrooms. Our
microwave linking with fifteen sites simultaneously makes it
possible. The technology here is more than "just a tool !" It
opens up new horizons --- with consequences for andragogy.
With architecture, I can present overviews by Bunting,
Soleri, Spicer and others. I can discuss with students the
characteristics of Indian structures and methods (high, middle
and low elevations plus regionalities), as well as Hispanic
elements, Territorial Styles and recent transplants, adaptations
and materials developments. Then, students from each site can
present (with their own photographs and videos of local
buildings) a discussion of how each site fits or diverges from
the "general picture," as well as why it has happened that way in
that place.
One intriguing and significant feature is the potential
application to many disciplines: were I teaching about snakes,
birds, plants or any other topic which varies by location,
topography and elevation, I would have a build-in laboratory
where students could serve as learner-helpers to students at
other sites !
The uniqueness of each community, in conformity with the
general themes as well as in variation, is thus related to the
general picture, with students being able both to participate
in original data-gathering and presentation, as well as
formulate and explain their respective community theses. (Trial
modules of this have been previously introduced with success ---
this extends the ideas to the whole course.)
Very important in the learner/learning cycle, is that
students will actively cooperate in a "constructivist" manner --
with resulting data accumulation on videotapes creating a model
for interactive multisite television learning. Since we will be
introducing information which previously has not been
incorporated into the course, the students and I may jointly
write a "new text," complete with video-clips.
Two other components relate to evaluating learning. One
is portfolio accumulation and cooperative feedback within the
sites. I will be available for consultation both directly when I
am at the sites, and each day over IITV during class. The other
is "Exit Grading." I do not plan to evaluate portfolios for
grading purposes until the end of the course --- thus, each
student will be able to go back and revise and expand earlier
work until it reaches the standard they wish to turn in.
I will be looking for significant growth in their ability
to describe, explain and apply course principles. Students will
be starting at different points in their knowledge, they will
accumulate learning at different rates, they will differ in
learning styles and cultures, and they will not all reach the
same final level, thus, since I MUST grade, I will grade on
"growth."
Growth to me means a significant amount of learning in
terms of acquisition of knowledge, multiple description levels,
source analysis and explanation. They must be diligent and
dedicated, and must show the ability to perform research,
identify author/editor biases, distinguish among styles, causes
and consequences. I seek to encourage learning, reward all
levels of development, and treat each person's achievement
individually, rather than measure them against each other.
I want to acknowledge my appreciation to Dr. Arnie
Hilgert, Management Studies, NAU at Yuma, for her willingness to
enter into research and assessment of the learning which students
will be undertaking, and then writing her evaluation of what has
happened. She has worked with me before, and is methodical in
her pre-, middle- and post-assessments, as is obvious in her
critiques of previous courses which she has analysed and
published in _Ed Journal_ (Oct-Nov,1995).
I also want to express appreciation to Dr. Elizabeth
Perrin, Managing Editor of _Ed Journal_, for accepting in advance
the articles I will write, about what I perceive and learn in
this course, along with expository and analytical summaries
coming from students, and Dr. Hilgert's evaluative critiques.
Finally, I appreciate the high degree of support shown me
by Northern Arizona University --- particularly by the Provost,
the Office of Instructional Development, Television Services,
Educational Systems Development, Statewide Academic Programs, and
the Department of Humanities and Religious Studies. In my
thirty-four years of service to NAU, I have been given many
wonderful opportunities for innovation in teaching. This one is
clearly the most exciting, since it offers so much potential for
transforming higher education.
To all of you on these lists, I welcome your questions,
comments, ideas, suggestions and, should you be passing through
the state at any time during the Spring Semester, I cordially
invite you to come and visit -- you may join the class from any
of ten to twelve locations, and you can find out exactly where by
emailing me as we get closer to that time. I will also be
providing descriptions as we go along.
Sincerely, Guy Bensusan. Professor of Humanities and Senior
Faculty Associate for Interactive Instructional Television,
Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff.
NAU Box 5676, ZIP 86011; FAX 520-523-9988,
phone 520-523-9146, email < [log in to unmask] >