Adventures in Cross-Cultural Workshops

By Scott Hudson, FOSS Consultant, Cincinnati, Ohio

It was February, and I was in Myanmar when I received the first e-mail: There may be a professional development session in South Korea. If it develops, are you interested?

Scott Hudson with Dr. Min Young Kyoung on his left and an intern from KOFAC

It was about two months before I heard any more about Korea. Then a long e-mail from the Delta representative for International Sales, Jennifer Selby, provided some initial thoughts about the training. The Korean Foundation for the Advancement of Science and Creativity (KOFAC, http://www.kofac.or.kr/en/index.jsp) had purchased FOSS modules and was scheduling three days of professional development for teachers. The training would be for different levels on each of the three days (K–2, 3–5, 6–8) and would involve teachers from around the nation. The kits would be available in a classroom setting with approximately 30 teachers each day. It sounded like a pretty standard set-up for a FOSS workshop.

I worked as a FOSS PD consultant for over five years. After I retired, I began traveling to other school districts. One thing I had discovered was, regardless of the situation (rural/urban, wealthy/poor, black/white), most teachers faced very similar problems and challenges in the classroom—particularly finding time to do inquiry science (or do science at all) and getting support from home and administration. In fact, I found many more similarities among classrooms in America than I found differences.

However, my foreign travels had taught me that cultural differences are very real. Here’s one example: I volunteered to do a teacher workshop at a small school in Haiti to introduce the idea of inquiry learning. This was not related to FOSS, so I had taken some hands-on supplies to use, including some polystyrene foam balls. The founder of the school noticed them in my luggage and asked, “What is the purpose of those?” I told him the teachers would use them as models of the Moon to simulate phases. He was thoughtful for a few minutes then remarked, “I have to tell you that, during our training as teachers, neither I nor my staff will have ever encountered anything like that.” I realized that my starting point would need to be much different in their culture than in any school in the United States, since even the basic idea of hands-on science was not part of their worldview.

A friend in Myanmar told me that his culture considers it rude and disrespectful to even ask a teacher a question. Doing so indicates a distrust of the teacher. Of course, the very basis of inquiry learning is questioning. So I knew there would be challenges in presenting FOSS’s inquiry learning model to an Asian culture.

I communicated with the Korean representative of KOFAC, Dr. Min Young Kyoung. She was extremely helpful in giving the information I needed and in making sure everything was set up. During this long-distance planning time, KOFAC requested that we change the venue to the Korean Science Festival. This annual event is the largest experience sponsored by KOFAC. It is similar to a national science fair combined with an NSTA conference. Our main concern was that the teachers in our workshop would be committed to a full day and not be coming in-and-out during the day. After getting assurances that the commitment would be there, we changed the dates to correspond to those of the festival.

We ironed out most of the logistics via e-mail over the next several weeks. I made the journey to Korea. Despite the language issues, the people were as friendly as any I’ve met anywhere in the world. That applies especially to Dr. Min and the others from KOFAC. Later some reporters interviewed me. With the interpretative help of an intern, Jason Jeong, I tried to encapsulate the core of inquiry learning. I don’t know if any of my thoughts were ever published, but I felt good about the information we had disseminated.

Korean teachers at seminar

On Wednesday, we began the Creative and Active Learning Science Seminar, as our workshop had been dubbed. When I arrived, everything was as Dr. Min had said it would be: a large classroom setting with tables, laptop with projector and Internet, certain FOSS modules, and handouts. The room was set up with eight groups of tables, each of which could seat up to eight. Dr. Min had planned on six groups of six teachers each for the seminar. She had also hired a young man, Hoon Lee, to act as a translator/interpreter.

This first day was intended for K–2 teachers so I used the FOSS Balance and Motion Module as the way to demonstrate the FOSS approach to inquiry. We spent most of the morning doing Investigation 1, Balance. As we did the lessons, I pointed out the various components of the program, such as materials lists, response sheets, lesson plans, equipment, etc. After seeing how the lessons were structured and why, we used a PowerPoint presentation and FOSSweb to show how the curriculum works and the tools and support available to teachers.

For the afternoon I intended to assign teams certain investigations from various FOSS modules and allow them to plan and present their own lessons. This is where we encountered various “challenges.” First and foremost was the language barrier. While most Koreans have some knowledge of English (certainly much greater than my knowledge of Korean), they seem to be less proficient than I have encountered in other parts of Asia. That became evident when they tried to read and translate the FOSS lessons on their own. While they had a good opportunity to see the materials and equipment, many were not able to actually follow the lesson plan, which, of course, is where the power of FOSS is located.

Conducting an experiment

Another challenge concerned the kits themselves. I had the Balance and Motion and Magnetism and Electricity Modules available. One of the problems with workshops of this nature where I can’t take my prepared kits with me is that there is little time for preparation. I hadn’t had the opportunity to even open the Magnetism and Electricity kit prior to assigning investigations to various teacher teams. One participant asked, “Where are the batteries?” and I replied, “The materials are listed on the front of each drawer, and the batteries are here in drawer 2.” Of course, they weren’t there. And Investigations 2, 3, 4, and 5 (all assigned to different teams) require batteries. It was a bit embarrassing, but we talked about the fact that certain items may be removed for foreign shipment. One enterprising team used their cell phone battery to make things work.

The next day I used the FOSS Variables Module for the grades 3–5 training. Hoon did more direct translation than we had done for the grades K–2 teachers. Fortunately, I had anticipated some items that might not be in the kit due to international shipping, such as U.S. pennies, and had taken a bag with me. Things went very smoothly that morning. As we did Investigation 3, I decided to provide more guidance with the afternoon activities than the previous day. However, I had not anticipated the new challenges. Hole-puncher malfunction, lack of a stapler, and failure to follow directions (endemic among teachers of all nations!)—all presented challenges. Nonetheless, it was very successful overall, and I felt good about the effectiveness of the day.

Conducting an experiment

The final day was for middle school teachers, and I knew it is always a challenge to present the FOSS middle school program in one day since it is so comprehensive and challenging for students. I used the FOSS Force and Motion Course, intending to do Investigation 1, Here to There (using air trolleys to introduce concepts of motion) and Investigation 6, Force, to introduce forces. Aside from the ubiquitous challenges of following directions (exacerbated by language difficulties), Investigation 1 went well. The same can be said for constructing and using the “pushers” in Investigation 6. However, I had failed to take into account that I had no four-foot long boards to do the rest of the activities on motion. So, we elevated some tables on one end and proceeded.

Korean teachers using an air trolley from FOSS Force and Motion