PCC Internationalization Presentation

>>BRYAN HULL: I'm going to show you two courses that I've been spending
most of my time internationalizing.
This one here is a Writing 122 course and it's on.... they have to,
they're going to research and write on one particular global conflict
that they choose.
But what we do to sort of warm them up
is I choose three different conflicts in the world, so... actually,
when I do the Indian sub-continent, I do several different ones.
And then we do a section on the Turkish-Kurdish conflict
and then I do a Bosnia conflict.
And you can see I intersperse their research skills throughout.
Now. I want to sort of state my assumption about internationalization
straight out so it's not sort of secret and annoying,
cause I hate it when people's assumptions
are in the background and they never admit to it.
So, for me it's a.... I don't know if you've made anything
with phyllo dough, but with phyllo dough it's a completely annoying product
to work with because you take each sheet, and then you put it down
and then you butter oil every single thin sheet,
and you put the next one down.
And for me that's kind of what internationalization is about.
So I want to tell you the layers that I use and then you'll see them
in the course as well.
First, of course, traveling.
And these pictures are taken from CID trips and so these
sort of symbolize the traveling part.
Then there's the sort of media part, where once I get back from a place,
I listen to years and years and years of news about the particular place,
trying to learn as much as I can.
So, for example, this is how I incorporate that into the course.
>>NEWS BROADCAST: From BPI news, this is All Things Considered.
I'm Robert Siegel.
And I'm Michelle Norris. People in Sri Lanka are trying
to piece their lives back together. It's been a month since the end
of nearly three decades of civil war.
>>BRYAN HULL: So they... as part of the course,
they'll listen to news stories, and then they have to analyze them
for bias, for perspective, what is the story leave out
that the other one doesn't leave out.
And that's a whole huge layer that of my own internationalization
that I bring to the course.
Also, of course you have to talk to people who grew up in,
you have the.... I mean, I didn't grow up in Sri Lanka,
so... or India.
So I need to have that resource, that part of the whole process, too.
So, I teach Indian literature and, and students, Indian students
and students from the Indian sub-continent take that class,
and so with some of them I tend to maintain friendships
and mentoring relationships, and so I had one of my students
from about five years ago, she helped me with this course and it's hilarious.
So, she acted as if she's a news reporter from different historical time periods.
So I'm going to take you back to 1977. She did such a good job.
[Music playing.] This is some weird, old Indian newscast that she found.
>>KUDA KEJAR: Good evening and welcome to channel 27 news.
This is Kuda Kejar [sp?] reporting live from Nabili [sp?] on July 5th, 1977.
Big news today from Pakistan. [Inaudible.]
>> WOMAN: Let's turn it up.
>>KUDA KEJAR: His removal comes after weeks of violent protest
and martial law throughout the country...
>>BRYAN HULL: So, obviously in that case I couldn't get a newscast
from that historical period, so what I did was I compiled the data,
came up with a script, and then had her read the script as part of the course.
And she was wonderful for doing it.
Now.... and so there's getting students involved,
getting colleagues involved.
I was going to do a Palestinian-Israel section of this,
and this is going to be my first time teaching this course and so I put that off
because that's always such an intense experience
to even talk about the conflict in a class.
I didn't want to make my job any more difficult than it already
was going to be, so... [Laughter.]
But I have a colleague who teaches world and middle eastern history
at a community college in Sacramento and we're going to do a, a Skype interview
where I ask him questions about the conflict,
and then that will get imported into the course
and they can see the two of us.
Let me show you something else I did with a student
who has spent a lot of time in Bosnia.
If I can really fast.... Hopefully this will work.
This is the new software. Just started, like in the last 24 hours. [Laughter.]
So here.
>>BRYAN HULL: [On video.] Greetings, everyone.
Welcome to exploring world conflicts. Today we're going to look at.
>>BRYAN HULL: So, I don't know how to make this big because it's totally new,
but... [laughter.] So, we.... this is a virtual world.
Like this doesn't actually exist, but we're.... and then they put us into it,
like our real bodies into this virtual world.
>>AUDIENCE: Nice! That's so creative!
>>BRYAN HULL: This, this is my student, Kara. And I'm going to interview her
about her experiences in Bosnia. She's going to explain some things
because the Bosnia conflict is a very difficult conflict.
And then, there's this weird P.C.C. thing floating in the background. So, okay, so.
Now there's one more thing and I've saved the best for last.
I'm going to change courses now.
The only other thing I want to say as I'm changing courses
is there's a, these critical thinking ideas that I do for each unit.
So, for example, I think on the Bosnia unit I do majority/minority relations.
For another unit I talk about the role of the military.
For another unit I talk about the role of....who was there first.
Like, how much should it matter, who was there.
And who, you know, how do you decide who was there first.
I do one on the role of religion in governance. So with each of these conflicts,
I, there's like an overall theme that people can talk about amongst themselves.
So! Now one more thing. This is my World Lit class.
And this is actually happening now. There's actual students in this,
so.... who's been to, besides Sarah, who I know has been there,
who been to Cordova before? Okay. Lots of people.
When I went to Cordova and saw the mosque, the old mosque,
I was totally disappointed. It wasn't really a mosque,
and it wasn't really a church. And I was like,
this is super disappointing. So. [Laughter]
It's hilarious because.... I didn't think it was that beautiful,
so.... [laughter]
So, this is a lecture. Wait a second.
Oh, I see. I'm going to stop it for a second.
So, this is a lecture on Andalusia Cordova, because it....now we're
in literature, right. We're not in Writing 122, analyzing media.
And so I showed them pictures from modern day Cordova,
sort of what that mosque looks like.
But then I wanted to somehow get what Cordova was like in the 10th and 11th century.
So, working with Mark Cole in media services, we went into Second Life
and we actually found 10th century Cordova and I went there.
So! [Laughter] [clapping.]
So I want to see if we.....okay, wait.
>>AUDIENCE MEMBER: Is that why you weren't on campus all those months? [Laughter.]
>>BRYAN HULL: Yes! It was fantastic!
Okay, now wait. Here I am.
>>BRYAN HULL: [On video.] When we're going to go to pray,
one of the places we can go to wash our hands and arms and feet.
But we're not going to pray today. We're just going to go into the [inaudible.]
So here we are in the mosque. It's extremely beautiful here.
There's no sense of hodgepodge.
>>BRYAN HULL: It's too dark, though.
>>BRYAN HULL: If we were going to pray, here are our prayer mats.
Give you a sense of the space and the architecture.
Again, it's a simplistic version, but I think it captures the original.
You can see also that I've taken off my shoes,
because when you enter a mosque y ou can't have shoes on,
so I've been dutiful in that way.
And there's the Koran right here. I do not read Arabic, unfortunately,
but those of you that do maybe you can tell us what Surah that is.
You can a sense again of the architecture. [Inaudible.]
The last time I was in here this guard had a rifle, a gun,
came in here and stood very ominously, so I'm a little bit nervous.
>>BRYAN HULL: Yeah. In Second Life, anything can happen.
Could you turn on the lights for me, please?
Now, this, like this is the technological stuff.
This actually is a video, but for some reason I can't get the streaming thing.
But I actually am moving around in this video.
So that's a little sad that I can't show you that,
but....what else did I want to say?
Yeah, in Second Life, the very first time I went
into this mosque there was this Jordanian guard
who suddenly appeared with a rifle and he just stood there and looked at me
and I was like.... [laughter.] It was very scary, so....
So from this mosque I then go...
and this is why I wanted to go to 10th country Cordova.
I then go to a synagogue and then I also go to a church.
And I actually just go. Like you see me walk down the streets.
And we go into the Christian quarter and we go into the Jewish quarter,
and I talk about it as we go. And I would....
that's not there anymore in present day Cordova.
That's what I wanted and I couldn't get.
Okay. So hopefully that sort of inspired you
to do sort of wild and wacky new thing. Okay. [Applause.]