Abstract

Its goal is to link the Department of History with the Department of Curriculum and Instruction in service to the undergraduate university communities and adult professional learners throughout the state of Indiana. Its objective is to implement a new distance learning course, "Survey of Global History" (History 105/590), centered around first-time technology delivery and asynchronous learning through use of the Internet, World Wide Web, CD ROM, and other digital imaging technologies. The course has a special relevance for Education majors and high school Social Studies teachers -- two strategic groups which, ironically, remain behind the learning curve. "Survey of Global History" will assist them in meeting the new university, state and federal certification standards for education in global history; in enhancing their job opportunities and advancement; and in becoming well-rounded teachers in our elementary and secondary schools. In the case of undergraduate students, we will be expanding the range of curriculum choices available to them, beyond the study of "Western Civilization" or comparative world civilization courses, into the more integrated and interactive realm of global history. In the case of teachers, we will be reaching a relatively untapped market of learners, bound as they are by the time and space constraints of their very busy workplaces -- the schools. Thus, our project meets critical workforce and continuing professional education needs in the state of Indiana. Our request from IHETS/IPSE is for $11,203. The bulk of these funds will be used to pay the salary of a quarter-time graduate teaching assistant to assist (in lieu of their normal grading and tutoring duties) in the labor intensive work of implementing these technologies for classroom and independent student use. The remainder will be used for consulting, marketing, computer and travel expenses.

Narrative

a. Needs to be Addressed and Learners to be Served

This project, a technology-delivered, asynchronous-learning course, "Survey of Global History" (History 150/590) addresses the challenge of recent initiatives to "globalize" American education. New teaching standards for global history have been advanced -- through university core curriculums, state Social Studies curriculums, and the "Goals 2000: Educate America Act" (March of 1994) -- to prepare our students for the global marketplace and media network of the twenty-first century. Yet few universities have begun to meet this challenge. Several of the institutions represented on the Indiana College Network teach traditional world civilization courses, with an emphasis on comparative cultures and regions. Although these are legitimate courses of study, they do not directly meet the challenges of the new standards in global education, which build on comparative history with thematic approaches to global integration -- for example, such themes as the environment and human health.

Perhaps an even more pressing reason to promote this global history survey course is the fact that, to date, few courses in the Liberal Arts, and fewer courses still in History, have been offered through the new technological mediums of asynchronous learning. At Purdue University, for example, only one new distance-learning initiative in the Humanities (in the Fine Arts), as compared to six in the Natural Sciences (in fields ranging from Agribusiness to Physics to Veterinary Medicine), has been funded and supported officially by university Academic Reinvestment Grants in recent years. Among the institutions of the Indiana College Network more broadly, none has as of yet offered a History course fully integrated into the Internet. Thus, History 105/590 will serve as a model for future initiatives in distance learning both here at Purdue and in the state of Indiana at large.

This project is designed to reach two groups of students: first, undergraduates on the campuses of the public and private universities of Indiana, as well as several universities abroad (as noted in the narrative below); and second, part-time working students who wish to register for an undergraduate/graduate History course or continue their professional education "from a distance." In the first case, we are targeting a specific market in the undergraduate community, Education majors, who now require a course in global history as part of their certification process, but generally cannot yet find an appropriate offering in the catalogs of their universities. In the second case, we are targeting high school Social Studies teachers who likewise are expected to teach such a course, as mandated by state and federal curriculum standards, but who were never able to enroll in the appropriate course during their university days because world civilization and global history courses are of such recent vintage. This project will give these teachers the rare luxury, given their often exhausting teaching schedules, of becoming students once again. Just as importantly, it provides them with the opportunity of advancing their professional interests without leaving their homes and schools, without exhausting even more of their energy commuting to and from the traditional classroom.

b. Rationale for the Choice of the Course and its Technologies

A survey course in global history is the perfect medium through which to implement first-time, technology-driven teaching strategies using the new electronic media of the Internet.

Such a course will teach global history in a global way, breaking the barriers of distance and of language through the innovative use of electronic communication. Our ultimate objective is to teach this course within a few years exclusively using the Internet and World Wide Web. But we will be taking a deliberate, gradual course of action -- in the interest of our students -- by testing these methods first in a large undergraduate introductory course, "Survey of Global History" (History 105, enrolling 200 students or more), which will meet in "real time" on Purdue’s West Lafayette campus; and then implementing these methods in a fully asynchronous Internet course, "Survey of Global History" (History 590, enrolling up to 25 students), designed primarily for high school teachers and carrying the option for either undergraduate or graduate credit. In terms of substantive content, History 105/590 is the same course, differing only in form and pedagogical approach. Once fully-tested and in place, this course will serve hundreds of students each academic year on an ongoing basis.

In answer to the charge of the Liberal Arts Core Curriculum at Purdue University, the course will challenge students to acquire "the knowledge, ability, and skills needed to be effective and productive citizens in our rapidly changing world." It will help them to master new techniques for problem solving through the Internet, World Wide Web, and CD ROM. We have chosen these technologies because they are the most cost efficient, asynchronous, and interactive among those available in computer mediated communication. With the critical, labor-intensive work of the teaching assistant funded by this grant, we will apply these media to post syllabi, lecture notes, and assignments on the Web; to conduct weekly discussion groups using a Listserv/Newsgroup; and to complete intensive writing and peer review exercises using text editing software. When we first teach the course in the fall of 1998, we will also be exchanging lectures, visual materials, and interactive discussions and case studies (on the Internet and World Wide Web) with two universities from the former Soviet Union. They are the Yaroslavl State Pedagogical University (Yaroslavl, Russia) and the Khazar University (Baku, Azerbaijan) -- both of which have English-speaking History Departments fully accredited by their respective Ministries of Education. The case study, centered around a computer simulation of the "Congo crisis" (1960-1963), will explore the challenges of nation-building in the era of decolonization. Students at each of the partner universities will interact with each other across the Internet as representatives of the diverse international actors engaged in the crisis. We will use the latest computer software (for the creation of listservers, chat rooms, and bulletin boards) to promote as much interaction as possible.

In each of these cases, by sharing a variety of opinions with each other, by learning about interdependence on the Internet, and by experiencing the effects of cultural distance and difference through the Web, students will be learning very personal lessons about their own place in a "global" society and economy. Asynchronous electronic communication, dedicated to learner-centered education through individual and collaborative efforts, will make it all possible.

c. Institutional Commitment to the Course-Development Project

These plans are ambitious, but they are also achievable. Purdue University has already made a substantial commitment when it awarded the director of this project, Michael G. Smith, a fellowship from the Center for Undergraduate Instructional Excellence (for the fall semester of 1997) to design the syllabus and content lectures for "Survey of Global History." Purdue

has also ensured that an institutional infrastructure will be in place -- through its Academic Reinvestment Program, Office of Distance Learning, and the Multimedia Instructional Development Center -- to assist with the technical implementation and modeling of such a course. Within the university, Professor Lynn Nelson, Director of the James F. Ackerman Center for Democratic Citizenship (Department of Curriculum and Instruction, School of Education) has also made a commitment to promote, market, and evaluate the success of the course among Education majors and high school teachers throughout the state of Indiana. The mission of the Ackerman center squares well with the purposes of our project: to enlighten students with "sensitivity to cultural similarities and differences;" and to help them "develop an understanding of themselves and their relationship to the larger communities around them." Professor Nelson’s mailing lists and contacts in the school system will ensure a broad marketing scope for History 105/590.

d. Instructional Design Plan

The character of History 105/590 fulfills several tenets of the Curriculum 2000 Proposal of the Liberal Arts Core at Purdue University. It challenges students to achieve "a thorough knowledge of one's own culture and the diversity of actual and possible alternatives to it" through a "recognition of the multiplicity of world cultures" and the nature of modern "global interdependence." We have rightly placed these goals at the heart of a liberal education. Yet no introductory survey course in the History curriculums either at Purdue or its IHETS/IPSE affiliates as of yet achieves all of these goals in an integrated course syllabus.

This course is "an historical survey of the interaction between the diverse civilizations of Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Americas since 1500, with special attention to comparisons between cultures over time, and to the implications of global interdependence for the environment, human health, economy and geopolitics." Upon completing the course, students will be able to: a. describe and compare the structures, ideologies, individuals, and events which have informed global history; b. explain and interpret how world civilizations have become more interdependent over the last five centuries; and c. understand and appreciate the implications of global integration for the past, present and future.

Through the length of a semester, this three-credit course covers a wide variety of themes and topics. Let me offer just a short sample. It begins with an introduction to the patterns of land and sea expansion among such diverse peoples as the Mongols, Chinese, Polynesians, and Europeans, including a presentation of how these peoples adapted themselves

to each other upon first contact. We examine how the migration of human disease and plant biology transformed everyday life around the world in revolutionary ways. We also confront the different ways of knowing the world, and ourselves, through one of history’s first global information technologies: the map. The course continues with a survey of the high environmental and social costs which nations have paid to harness the industrial machine for economic advancement and profit. Our task here is to begin to deconstruct the well-worn notion of development in all its nuances and contradictions.

Other topics include the era of the American and French revolutions (1750-1870) and their implications for independence movements in Latin America, with a presentation of the effects of the "Atlantic mercantile system" on people’s lives (the plantation economy) and the

physical world (deforestation). Here we confront development as both a cause and consequence of nation-building. We also conduct an historical comparison of empires in ascendance (Great Britain), in decline (Ottomans), and in crisis (China and Japan) between 1750 and 1870, including a survey of their impacts on the everyday life and migrations of peoples. Moreover, the course surveys emerging trends in the global economy, population growth, and technology transfer, with an emphasis on their implications for the USA as a world "superpower." We conclude by asking our students: what rules our world? The integrating power of media culture and universal standards of human rights? Or the divisive pull of tribal, national class, and gender differences?

History 105/590 helps to prepare our students for the twenty-first century by surveying how the modern geopolitical system has taken shape and functioned since 1500; how international actors (tribes, peoples, classes, states) have interacted with each other in conflict and cooperation; and how global integration has impacted on our physical world and its diverse societies. The theme of the course is integration. Its premise, that the histories of the world's peoples deserve study in their own right. As an introduction to the recent history of the "non-Western" world, the course places into question the traditional assumptions of "Eurocentrism." It challenges students to see world history from the varied perspectives of peoples and cultures beyond Europe and North America, thereby integrating new voices and mentalities into the Liberal Arts curriculum at Purdue and beyond. To fulfill a truly integrated plan, the course is being designed in close consultation with members of the Department of History and the Global Studies Program. Their expertise contributes essential regional, issues-oriented, and theoretical dimensions to the syllabus. The participation of members of the Global Studies Program will be especially useful, for their objectives are to help students "understand the challenges of diversity" and provide them with the "skills needed to compete in a global society."

e. Course Evaluation Plan

The undergraduate survey course, "Survey of Global History" (History 105/590) will be evaluated using Purdue University’s well established statistical system for course evaluations, the forms of the Small Group Instructional Diagnosis System and the Instructor and Course Appraisal System, administered and calculated by the Center for Instructional Services. Our aim will be to achieve high scores, between 4.0 and the maximum 5.0, as a mark of success. Since these forms measure the content of the course in numerical terms, we will also design special surveys which address its technological dimensions and which require students to write out their answers in a short essay format -- all on the Internet for public knowledge. In order to evaluate the success of the course among participating high school teachers and establish an outreach program to them, Professor Lynn Nelson and our chosen graduate teaching assistant will travel directly to their high schools when the course is offered during the spring semester of 1999. They will consult with teachers about the strengths and weaknesses of the course, and about how they might adapt it to their own purposes in secondary education.

f. Plans for Peer Review, Quality Assurance, and Inter-institutional Acceptance

In order to ensure that the course is fulfilling its promises in both form and content, we will engage in a two-tiered approach of peer review and quality assurance. First, an ad-hoc committee of the History Department at Purdue University (to which a representative from the Global Studies Program will be invited) will, during the semester immediately following the course, review its academic standards and its documented successes. Second, we will present the technological formats of the course for review by the Office of Distance Learning and the Multimedia Instructional Development Center at Purdue University. We will publish our findings in three forums: at the state level, in "Viewpoints," the newsletter of the Indiana Council for the Social Studies; at the national level, in several Internet journals devoted to distance learning and global history; and at the international level, in the journal of the International Society of History Didactics.

Inter-institutional acceptance offers a more problematic challenge, as that History Departments both in Indiana and in the U.S. have traditionally been jealous guardians of their teaching prerogatives. To face this challenge in a realistic and open way, we will promote this course not as the singular property of Purdue University nor as a rival course to expropriate or monopolize students from different university markets, but rather as a unique offering of goods and services in the academic marketplace of ideas. From the outset, we will assume that other academic institutions, and the teachers and students which they represent, will either accept or reject this course based on the strength of its ideas and presentation. We will assume that this course is simply an effective means of fulfilling a critical pedagogical need: the dissemination of global values and the professional training of teachers.

g. Project Schedule

History105, "Survey of Global History," will be offered at Purdue University for the first time in the fall semester of 1998. The course will meet in "real time" for lectures, discussions and student presentations -- much as any traditional, large survey course. But several essential class assignments, as noted above, will be conducted as asynchronous learning experiences on the Internet and Web. These exercises will serve as test cases for the challenges of implementing asynchronous learning in a large survey course. "Survey of Global History" will then be offered again during the spring semester of 1999 as a joint undergraduate/graduate course with the designation, History 590, the whole course offered to part-time students and high school teachers exclusively on the Internet and Web.

h. Key Course Development Personnel

There are three persons who are crucial to the successful implementation of this course next year. Firstly, there is the professor who will teach the course, Dr. Michael G. Smith, a PhD in Russian History. Secondly there is the professor who will help to market and evaluate the course, Dr. Lynn Nelson, a PhD in Social Studies Education and History of Education from the Department of Curriculum and Instruction. Thirdly, there is the graduate student who will assist Professors Smith and Nelson in the technological design and implementation of the course as a teaching assistant. This candidate will be chosen during the spring of 1998, by the established procedures of the History Department’s graduate committee, from the pool of its current and incoming graduate students. This candidate will have a good working knowledge of the computer software needed to create asynchronous learning over the Internet. Ideally, this candidate will also have some experience with teaching History in Indiana’s secondary schools.

Appendix

Michael G. Smith, the project director, has ten years of experience teaching Western Civilization and World History courses at Georgetown University, the University of Dayton, and Purdue University. During the 1997-1998 academic year, he received a fellowship from the Center for Undergraduate Instructional Excellence (Purdue) to create the syllabus and class lecture outlines for the new introductory course, "Survey of Global History" (History 105/590). He also participated in the month-long workshop, "Teaching at a Distance," directed by Purdue’s Office of Distance Learning; as well as several daily and weekly workshops on mastering the new electronic communications technologies (Internet, World Wide Web, and Power Point).

Smith’s expertise in Russian History has positioned him well to develop this project. He teaches about the Russian experience as a metaphor for world history, as a case study in the crises posed by the global revolution of western values. Spanning from the borders of Europe to the steppes of Asia, the Russian state became the greatest land empire of the modern era. Yet it was not able to meet the challenges of westernization; twice in our century (1917 and 1991) the Russian state collapsed under the weight of Europe's pace toward "modernization."

Smith’s scholarly research has focused on the modernization of the Muslim peoples of the Russian and Soviet empires, in particular the cultural means (from language reform to popular cinema) by which both the centers and the peripheries of those empires have projected modern forms of power or defended themselves from them. He has taken seven trips to the former Soviet Union (Russia, the Caucasus and Central Asia) over the last six years, where he conducted archival research and professional interviews with local scholars. During each of these trips, he lived with host families, and so was able to immerse himself in native cultures, an important precondition for teaching about global history. During Smith’s career at the University of Dayton between 1991 and 1996, he participated in implementing a unique Liberal Arts program -- the Humanities Base, Internationalization, and Core Cluster initiatives -- parts of which he has assimilated into the current proposal. His experiences at Dayton, a recognized leader in undergraduate education, has given him the confidence to pursue the current proposal and share academic innovation across universities.

Lastly, Professor Smith has been invited to present the design and purpose of "Survey of Global History" to two important academic forums: first, the annual convention of the Indiana Council for the Social Studies (Conner Prairie, Indiana, March 1998), whose theme is "Frontiers of the Past, Present, and Future;" and second, the annual convention of the International Society for History Didactics (Moscow, Russia, September 1998), one of whose themes is "Distance Learning in a Global Setting."