Colleen Berry, Assistant Professor, Languages, Chinese Studies Program
How can we help our students get the most out of a short-term study abroad trip? What tools can we use to assess what they have learned (an indicator of the success of the program) and to help them reflect on their experiences in a meaningful way? I am convinced that the use of a directed journal is one of the most valuable tools that can be used to deal with all of these issues.
This year was the fourth year that I co-led the China Summer Study Program, open to all students at University of North Dakota and sponsored by the School of Business. The program, spearheaded by Victoria Beard (the Associate Provost and Professor of Accounting) and started in 2000, has three components: a spring semester preparatory class on Chinese history, business practices, and other aspects of the culture; the course I supervise, “China Then and Now”, which is carried out in China and designed by the students in consultation with me in the spring semester class; and Business Fieldwork in Shanghai (“business” being broadly defined so that it can include a wide variety of topics), also designed by the students under the advisement of Victoria Beard.
The biggest challenge I have felt over the past four years is how to continually improve how we try to help the students to get the most out of this one month experience in China, and specifically, how I can make the course that I supervise more meaningful. Assessment plays a significant role and involves student self-assessment though a directed journal comprised of a pre-trip section on expectations, an in-country section that deals with the sites the students visit and their responses, and a post-trip reflection section. The journal assignment has demanded a yearly re-evaluation of the course specifically and the program overall based in part on my perceptions of what transpired during the program, and on the contents of the student journals themselves, especially the retrospective section.
Prior to my involvement in the program, students kept journals of the trip but not directed journals. Based on my own experience and on conversations I had with the other program leaders, I felt that a directed journal in which the students responded to certain questions would be more productive for most students. However, I also felt that it would be important not only to help guide the students by means of a set of questions, but also to collect those journals regularly on pre-assigned dates: once immediately before they left for China, twice while in China (to ensure that they were keeping up and didn’t leave them until the end and just rely on memory to answer the questions), and once after they had returned home.
The key to designing a successful journal and self-evaluation seems to lie in a balance between thought-provoking, open-ended questions that the students have to address and allowing the students the freedom to address their experiences in a manner that transcends whatever questions I come up with and that allows for maximum creativity and engagement, especially in the in-country portion of the journal. The students only had to respond to the pre- and post- trip questions once, but I originally designed most of the questions to be applied to each of the in-country site visits and experiences. I found that this, understandably, led to rote answers in many cases. So, this year, after I collected the journals in China the first time, I told the students that they could be more creative and write about what they thought was most relevant, memorable, or interesting about each site while using whatever questions were relevant as guidelines. I have also encouraged them to incorporate other media such as photos and videos.
One of the biggest drawbacks to this kind of journal, besides limiting student creativity, is that it reflects the concerns of the person who designs it rather than those of the students. Tackling the challenge of allowing the students more freedom to be creative and speak in their own voices as opposed to giving them all the same questions is an issue that bears striking similarities to those discussed in two other Thursday Teaching blogs: Bill Caraher’s comments on Structure and Chaos in “Teaching in the Sun: Revisiting the Study Tour” and to “Using Models to Teach” by Bret Weber and Carenlee Barkdull.
My goal for the students is to help them get the most out of their month in China. I want them to observe, participate, and reflect. Although China is less expensive than many other places, it is still a costly program. The trip, for many students, is their first (and maybe only) trip to China and once-in-a-lifetime experience. The journal is a good way of not only recording and reflecting on their experiences, but also a means of remembering the trip and what they learned after they leave China. Furthermore, insofar as it is window into how the students are thinking about their experiences, the directed journal provides the instructor with a qualitative means of evaluating the program; and, it ensures that they take the time for reflection during the trip. Finally, it is a useful tool for sharing observations with the participants the following year that may help them be more fully prepared for their trip.
Some of the questions used in the post-trip part of the journal:
1. What impressed you the most on this trip? What surprised you the most?
2. Who was the most interesting or memorable person you met in China and why?
3. What have you learned about the day to day life of people in China that stands out?
4. Talk about three exchanges you had with Chinese people in China. What did you learn from those exchanges?
5. What have you learned about yourself?
6. What is your perception of how Americans/Westerners are regarded in China? How do you think the way you acted either confirmed those views or change those views? (Be as specific as possible and give examples.) What impression of Americans do you feel that you left? Did you notice any behavior by other Americans or Westerners that you felt made a particularly good or bad impression?
7. In what ways did you feel like a “minority” in China? In what ways might it be similar and in what ways different from the experience of minorities in the US?
8. Which of your original goals (in Part I) did you meet?
9. How has this trip changed your life? Give some specific ways that your experiences on this trip will make your life and your actions different when you return home.
10. What were some of the cultural aspects of China that you felt unprepared for or frustrated by? How did you deal with them?
11. What did you bring on the trip that was the most helpful? What do you wish you hadn’t brought or didn’t need?
12. What would you suggest to students going next year? What could the instructors do to make you feel better prepared? What could you have done to be better prepared?
