Tailoring Learning for International Students

[I wonder if anyone by this time (2026) would take, or need, such a college course. I kinda doubt it.]

Tailoring Learning for International Students
© 2008 John Kevin Mactavish

 Abstract

A unit of instruction that uses the Internet in a variety of ways needs a context. The context in this discussion is a traditional college course and how it is designed for students coming from different countries. What follows is a sketch of the course and its units of instruction. These center around classroom and computer laboratory meetings. The meetings have a structure, or process, and the instructor has a limited number of roles to play. Student learning is based on choices in objectives and computer learning activities. The sketch concludes with an example learning objective and some different types of Internet activities to help meet that objective.

Introduction to Computers . . .
is a beginning college course for intermediate level English students. The course takes place in the classroom and the computer laboratory with the instructor acting as a meeting facilitator, content presenter, and tutor. Although the course is documented online and uses the Internet, it is traditional face-to-face pedagogy (Wuensch, Aziz, Ozan, Kishore, & Tabrizi, 2008).         

Because students come from different national educational systems and they have different computer skills already, the course has to make room for these differences. Giving choices of which learning objectives to work on accommodates these differences and helps students develop their computer literacy as well as demonstrate practical skills.

The course has ten three-and-a-half hour classroom-lab meetings. Each meeting is a three-step process. The process gives the instructor the roles above and looks like this.

        1. What have you discovered? This is a review of required readings and what
students have been working on so far.
        2. What do you need to know? This step introduces new material and gives time for discussions and student presentations.
        3. What do you need to be able to do? This step is about discovering and
demonstrating skills in the computer laboratory.

The topics for the class meetings show the general scope of the course. The student chooses one or more of the objectives for each meeting. If the objectives and their learning activities for a meeting do not give the student something new to learn , he or she can work with the instructor and decide what is best.

Here are example objectives students can choose for the first five class meetings.

         1. Course Overview, Computers and the Internet: The learner should be able to
design a directory structure for a student taking three courses, or for an office worker involved in three projects. The design should include folder and file naming, the types of files included, and sample content for each.
         2. Hardware and Software: The learner should be able to analyze a recent version of MS Windows and report on what it should have to be an operating system.
         3. Word Processing: The learner should be able to create and print or upload a one-page, double-spaced text document showing as many features of the program as possible--fonts, point size, tables, columns, pagination, and so forth.
         4. Presentations with Media: The learner should be able to produce a simple outline of a presentation for school or work with at least five PowerPoint slides.
         5. Spreadsheets: The learner should be able to create two original spreadsheets, one showing a personal or project budget with monthly and annual sample numbers and one showing the formulae for the calculations.

These are the rest of the topics for the meetings: Mid-Course Exam; Databases;
Sharing Information on the Web; Current Issues and Review; Final Presentations and Exam.

To show how this course uses the Internet to meet learning goals or aims for different students, the first thing to remember is that the course’s approach already tells the teacher what to do. When a student selects an objective for a topic, choices of what the student does in order to learn opens up . Here is an example from meeting three. The learning objective is that the student should be able to list five Internet applications for school or work. The list should include why each application is helpful.

Computer lab activities to help learn or demonstrate meeting this objective include
the following types and examples. A student would work on one or more of these.

Search: Search for "computer operating system" using Google and define what it is.

Quest: Go to the Web sites for two different operating systems and find what
applications come with them and what each does. Afterwards, open the programs menu on your computer and find out if you have these applications.

Message Board: Go to the university learning server and leave a message on the
Newbie forum about programs students find most useful for their school work. How many different programs do students list? Are any from the Internet?

OCLC: Go to the university library catalog online and find this article: Pierre
Dillenbourg (2008). Integrating technologies into educational ecosystems. Distance
Education, 29(2), 127-140.

E-mail: Copy and paste the abstract of this article into an e-mail and send your
instructor a copy.

Reading: Read the article. Does it say anything about Internet application programs?

Self-archiving: Put a short bibliography for a paper on one of the free bibliography
Web sites. Then retrieve it in print or document form.

Document Storage: If you have a Gmail or Yahoo account, go to the document
storage area and upload a document, maybe a draft of one of your papers.

Reference: Look up APA style guide online. Can you use any of the information
presented to complete assignments for this course?

If one sees these activities as part of the design of teaching a lesson, the above fall into place in the process. First is in the classroom. The teacher talks about two or three things you can use computers and the Internet for. Then the teacher leads a discussion. Step two is also a classroom activity. It might be to hear and watch a PowerPoint presentation on how to access some online resources like the ones in the lab learning activities. The instructor would make the presentation. Finally, the students work out their own list of applications to help them in work or school. The instructor circulates in the lab helping and tutoring to make sure students are learning and completing the work each chose.

__________
Reference
Wuensch, K. L., Aziz, S., Ozan, E., Kishore, M., & Tabrizi, M. H. N. (2008). Pedagogical
      Characteristics of Online and Face-to-Face Classes. International Journal on
      ELearning, 7(3), 523-532. 

Brut(us) wisdom

 Julius Caesar

"Till then, my noble friend, chew upon this."
I would run the race fettered but by me,
not lose myself and thus my life will miss.
To each his own differs to what we see.

The crowd this way and that blindly steers,
of choice one's robbed--the power of the wave.
Never thoughtless thought elsewhere leads or veers.
Onward where the masses say what is brave.

Grant me space to find what to me will sate.
There I will compete in that precious lot.
To hell with what they say is destined fate.
I'll err or triumph 'gainst self discerned plot.

Dear noble friend, I know you wish me well.
I will thrive as any inflated swell.

Form obscures meaning?

 History of Henry IV, Part II

"Our peace shall stand as firm as rocky mountains."
Your line, dear Bard, or -ess, no iamb ist,
contorts the scheme and spawns for me fountains
of ideas and notions--no single gist.

Poet or play-write, you betimes ruse me--
'bout what is meant, often fully escapes.
Any peace that so scans is hard to see.
Is there more that's written in your fools-capes?

Your peace or not, up sans iambs are pent,
as this line so hides that which's certain.
Thus yours and my insights are truly rent
as stage and play's import's lowered curtain.

Rocky mountains portend the going rough.
Our peace here stands--to reach is truly tough.

__________
Lord Mowbray. There is a thing within my bosom tells me 2390
That no conditions of our peace can stand.

Lord Hastings. Fear you not that: if we can make our peace
Upon such large terms and so absolute
As our conditions shall consist upon,
Our peace shall stand as firm as rocky mountains.

In search of an hypothesis

Exhibit A

When the older boys were standing around looking cool, I copied them. Their weight was on the right foot.

 

B

Twelve years ago I discovered I had slight arthritis in my right hip.

 

C 

I have driven a car since I was sixteen. I am now past eighty. Most of those cars were stick shift, which is to say I relied on my right foot and leg mostly. (Ref. Dr. Russo.)

 

D

I batted in baseball right handed. I am left handed.

 

E

A few years ago I limped favoring my right hip. I quickly developed a pain below my left ribs. I took a strong pain pill and hip and side pains disappeared after walking again normally, even after the pain reliever dosage wore off.

 

F 

As a senior I practice balancing on one foot and then the other.

 

Question 

With which foot is my balance better?

Run with Shakespeare

 Injunction: Select a line from Shakespeare and run with it.

Richard III

"He hearkens after prophecies and dreams";
therefore, too many short forms he does glean.
As for the goose goes same for a gander:
He, she, it and they--we're prone to meander.

One and another it is all such fluff.
Many with bias while others try bluff.
A great deal today, media's simply pure slop.
To consume then act on preludes? You'll flop.

Text and pictures, whether moving or not,
research has shown you get yer brain rot.
Now listen, dear friend, you want to e-mend?
Curate your stuff--some music too, please rend.

No prophets will stem the tide of their profit.
With good 'nd pure dreams, we scoff--'Get off it.'

__________
Note on allusion: 

 

 

 

signifies a jibe to cease acting like one are  better than others, perhaps a know-it-all. This reminds us of Richard's most famous line from the play. 

 

 

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EnglishDutch-------- [ All ] --------AfrikaansAlbanianAmharicArabicArmenianAssameseAymaraAzerbaijaniBambaraBashkirBasqueBelarusianBengaliBhojpuriBosnianBulgarianCantonese (Traditional)CatalanCebuanoChichewaChinese (Literary)Chinese SimpChinese TradChuvashCorsicanCroatianCzechDanishDariDhivehiDogriDutchEmojiEnglishEnglish United KingdomEsperantoEstonianEweFaroeseFijianFilipinoFinnishFrenchFrench (Canada)FrisianGalicianGandaGeorgianGermanGreekGuaraniGujaratiHaitian CreoleHausaHawaiianHebrewHill MariHindiHmongHungarianIcelandicIgboIlocanoIndonesianInuinnaqtunInuktitutInuktitut (Latin)IrishItalianJapaneseJavaneseKannadaKazakhKazakh (Latin)KhmerKinyarwandaKlingon (Latin)KonkaniKoreanKrioKurdish (Kurmanji)Kurdish (Sorani)KyrgyzLaoLatinLatvianLingalaLithuanianLower SorbianLuxembourgishMacedonianMaithiliMalagasyMalayMalayalamMalteseMaoriMarathiMariMeiteilon (Manipuri)MizoMongolianMongolian (Traditional)Myanmar (Burmese)NepaliNorwegianNyanjaOdia (Oriya)OromoPapiamentoPashtoPersianPolishPortuguese (Brazil)Portuguese (Portugal)PunjabiQuechuaQuertaro OtomiRomanianRundiRussianSamoanSanskritScots GaelicSepediSerbianSerbian (Cyrillic)Serbian (Latin)SesothoSetswanaShonaSindhiSinhalaSlovakSlovenianSomaliSpanishSundaneseSwahiliSwedishTagalogTahitianTajikTamilTatarTeluguThaiTibetanTigrinyaTonganTsongaTurkishTurkmenTwiUdmurtUkrainianUpper SorbianUrduUyghurUzbekUzbek (Cyrillic)VietnameseWelshXhosaYakutYiddishYorubaYucatec MayaZulu

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From the front

Composed 1994? (unedited) 

Well, where did I leave off? Oh, yes. The Metro. And I was talking about how quiet it was. Well, it still is. Especially in the mornings when I go to work. The subway car can be full of people but you can hear the proverbial pin when the train is at a stop. This is even with people getting on and off. And between stops all you hear is the clickety-clack and the squeaking of brakes and other metal-on-metal noises. 

A wind announces the next train. Before it arrives, the air is pushed through the tunnel ahead of the train. Your clothes and hair feel the wind before you can hear or see the train come from the dark maw. 

Later in the day on the Metro you hear one or two conversations. In the evenings, rush hour, still just one or two. When people come home from eating and drinking, or when there are foreigners on board, there are several conversations you can hear. If there are two Americans on a car having a conversation, it is as if there are 30 non-Americans speaking. You not only can hear it but you can listen to it. We are noticeable in twos, and ubiquitous if three or four. The British people have candidly remarked we are loud, take up more than our share of space, and talk about nothing for the longest times! 

Talking is allowed. You can talk if you want to on the Metro. But if you are Czech, it is not allowed. It is even almost impossible to catch someone’s eye. People travel anonymously. They are not unfriendly. You will receive very polite behavior, if you ask. But you must ask. There are no conversations that strike up. I am told this is one legacy of the former times. Do not approach first because you never know what someone else wants. [ am also told, “they” will try to determine what you want before responding much less connecting and communicating with you. So smiles are infrequent. Suspicion seems to have become a norm. Perhaps now it ts cultural reticence and not suspicion. Not looking at people is another overwhelming norm. Silence and no looking, as if no one else is there. Most of the time. And that is as it its. Blissful for me. 

I came here at the close of a period of isolating myself. 1 understand this behavior a little more now, and of course I obsess about its rightness/wrongness/meaning/etc. Is it fate or what that I find myself in an almost silent foreign culture? I cannot make contact easily because the culture and language are foreign. And the culture and language, especially the language I am told, are only permeable at your initiative. I guess I am in the right place. I do enjoy the silence, the anonymity, the responsibility of extending myself for what I need. And only that is what is required of me. It is very nice that the responses that I get, so far, are polite, friendly, helpful. When I can speak Czech, if ever, I am told I will find a very rude world? It is hard to believe. I see no signs. But I am unable to hear the ones that may be there now. 

Summer comes to an end. The searing heat of July and early August have tumed to mild weather and some rain. When it was hot, | thought it would never end. Now, [ hope it doesn’t get too cold too soon. 

I went to the Czech National Library. Very big, centuries old. It acts as the national library, like the library of congress for the Czech Republic. And it is the library for Charles University, one of the oldest universities in Europe. The general reading room is like a cathedral with walls painted and such. This room has a ceramic oven for heating, perhaps it still does, and it is about thirty feet high. I have seen many of these ovens in Germany. This is the biggest I have ever seen. 

You need a library card just to get into the general reading room. I had to show residence permit, a copy of a notarized letter from my landlord, my employment contract, and passport just to get the library card. Praise or condemn our slack procedures in the US, if you will. Books are golden here, particularly when they are banned, and many were up until the fall of the Iron Curtain. The library has a special collection of banned books! 

I met with PhDr. Blanka Vlasakova. She is the foreign acquisitions librarian, and she has asked me to name the books I want in English. She will order them. I then will borrow them for several months at a time and then return them. A major privilege. You normally only get to read books in the reading rooms, not take them out of the library. How is all this possible? Someone gave the library the annual quota of German acquisitions and so they have extra money to spend on US publications. They collect books in certain fields so I am recommending purchases. These fields are of interest to me. For this I get books I want and Narodni Knihovna V Praze can then have and use them. She says I came at the right tume--luck. Just give her a list! (This is a slightly longer story having to do with my graduate studies and how I was scheming to get books I need at low cost. If you are interested in the longer story, ask.) 

I have been to two English plays in the last two weeks, one by Bernard Shaw and one by a Czech playwright, a play from the early ‘70’s! Really cheap. Really interesting. Less that $2 for tickets each. And the plays and acting were excellent. I met a poet today. He invited me to a reading tomorrow evening. He promises to read two or three of his English poems. And the bookshops. They are wonderful, but limited for what I am currently reading. But they have wonderful collections of novels, poetry, plays in English. 

Prague is a city which is a haven for art and artists. It’s a place which embraces this side of life--including music. 

Bob Dylan was just here. Pink Floyd in a week or so. Lots of classical music every day. (Communists and former communists love music!) I don’t know anything about music, but I will be learning the bloch flute = I think it is the recorder in the US) beginning in October. Perhaps in memory of Tara, or just that I am tired of my own ignorance about things musical. (I am glad to amuse you.) 

Vaclav Havel, the Czech President, is often quoted in English publications here. He is the playwrightpolitician. And much of what I have read has been inspired and thoughtful. Although I have not read a whole work by him, I should and I will. One of the things he is said to have said has to do with the reasons for being. We are not here to make money and import all the western goods and ways. We must feed our souls, and this is nothing that can be bought. I have read a Czech history. Havel is not the first artist to have ruled the Czech lands. So, I am among people with a history of motives which I think are more like non-material aspirations. I can’t help but say this is different in many ways from the US and its (is it my?) government. 

There are other stories. I have been invited to a meeting in October. The Council of Europe is meeting in Prague to discuss the state of higher education in the Czech Republic, among other things. I will wear a tie and look presentable. 

I have written a grant proposal to the Central European University. This institution is funded by George Soros. Perhaps you have heard of him. He is funding a number of foundations and institutions in the former USSR and Eastern Block. The grant is looking good. The Centre for Higher Education Studies, an arm of the Czech Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport, has agreed to have me do a study of their organization over the next ten months. I am applying for money to do this. Consultants, get ready. I may have some work for you next year! The pay will be about $70 per day. 

And there are other stories. I have been invited to Ukraine by my students. I have found the Czech Sociological Review published in English. I am reading Anarchism: Community and Utopia. Very interesting. This book was published in Prague in English--it was not going to see the light of day because of its outspokenness. Supposedly. It’s pretty abstract and tame so far. I have found a certain apple pastry that is available in bread and bread-like pastry shops. Cakes and sweeter pastries are sold in other shops. I stay out of them. Because I don’t know what’s in this apple thing--looks like a Danish--it can’t hurt me. And I haven’t found one broccoli yet, to buy or in a restaurant. There are Chinese restaurants, but I haven’t tried one yet. And on one subway line, the recorded announcement has changed ever so slightly. There is a “prosim” {please) in the middle of familiar-sounding but still untranslatable Czech. 

I saw the doctor today for the second time. My blood pressure, without drugs, is normal. My blood test, without drugs, shows normal amounts of HDL’s and all that. She gave me prescriptions, comparable to what I was taking under the care of my Denver doctor. My health insurance here pays for them and all the stuff with the doctor. And now I wonder what is going on? Can it be that I am somehow thriving on all the changes? I am going to have to think more about this miracle, if it is one. 

As I wait for the morning tram, I do not see the same people, even though I am there at the same time each moming that I teach in Prague. No matter. I am a foreigner and isolated from them for now anyway. But the route I take, public transportation and walking, is getting to be like a small world. It is familiar, as if I had done it a hundred times already, and I have not. The visual landscape--I need to see more and different visual images. Soon I will, and then my address will be

Far View

 I look to horizons, squinting beyond.
There over fields and woods, a shining pond.
Hope against hope to find eternal light
that would sate my search for precious insight.

I have seen this world, all places about.
Found the fluff and false truths to rid rout.
Faith against faith earnest efforts persist
to find what? the ineffable gist.

The lengths I have gone, walked even hiked.
Passed leagues in distance and wait--also biked.
But this and all--nada, these furtive acts,
not oneness nor whole an abiding fact.

Rest, my soul. Your quest now comes this.
Seems ways need suffice 'stead of dear bliss.

 __________
P. S. Trite to say the way's the purpose. Rather, "Stop the world." No frame nor fate need we lay over experience as template for life, that we lead or have led. 

Did Castenada ever tell us how to do that?

By transcending ordinary reality one acquires wisdom of the right way to live. Ordinary reality, or the world view, is simply one interpretation of what really is. In order to stop the world 'one has to learn the new description in a total sense, for the purpose of pitting against it the old one, and in that way break the dogmatic certainty, which we all share, that the validity of our perceptions, or our reality of the world, is not to be questioned'. 

Other than taking drugs, I guess not. However one can try without and in trying perhaps realize moments of . . . ?  

(Sort-me aside: My answer has been to try to step into other cultures and language communities, through mental and physical travels as well as multiple places of residence.)

If a change in consciousness is what is the essence of transcending or stepping aside or stopping consensus reality, there are ways intentional and accidental that do that. Make a list and choose.