Frolich, Award #0529

Fulbright Proposal, July 30, 2009, Page 1

Inter-cultural exchange in the use of digital technologies for teaching

environmental, life and health sciences

Introduction: overview of proposed project

The rapid use and dissemination of digital technologies has dramatically impacted
the process of teaching and learning, and in some cases even the deep structure of our
educational institutions. In the United States, many traditional universities are slowly
adapting to this impact, while fully online institutions are expanding at a rapid rate. In
other parts of the world, these changes have spurred a “technological leap-frog” into
systems of self-educated professionals who use the wealth of information available at their
finger-tips to design independent, and often unique, careers that no longer rely on
university-awarded diplomas.
At the same time, the bio-medical sciences have been shaping a life-changing
technological milieu that will dominate the 21st century. From the ability to manipulate
genomes in kitchen-top laboratories, to the need for a re-building of our
ecological/environmental relationships at a global level, a strong and factual understanding
of the depth (and breadth) of biological organization will be crucial for educated people
world-wide. The pressing question then becomes: how can we merge cross-cultural
approaches to using digital technologies in education in a way that fosters the emergence of
a robust understanding in the environmental, life and health sciences?
I believe I bring three strong credentials that might help initiate a response to this
rather large question within the context of a Fulbright teaching scholarship in Ecuador: 1)
a solid, successful and diverse 20–year career dedicated to mastering the craft of teaching
biology, especially in the areas of health and the environment; 2) a well-developed faculty
for analyzing and using digital technologies in my teaching, with a special focus on
interactive and free “Web 2.0” tools and utilities; and 3) strong inter-cultural skills built on
an on-going personal and professional relationship with Latin America and the Spanish
language.
Leveraging this particular background and skill set, my goal, then, during the
proposed 4-month Fulbright scholarship is to build a web-based, cross-cultural and bi-
lingual approach to designing high-quality, interactive tools for enhancing international
environmental and health education. My plan is to work with two universities in the
northern Andean city of Ibarra, Ecuador. One of these, the Pontifical Catholic University
of Ecuador--Ibarra (PUCE-SI), has a strong program in environmental sciences whereas the
other, the Northern Technical University (UTN) has a good allied health and nursing
education program. Besides the establishment of working relationships with my colleague
faculty members at these two universities, the proposed Fulbright Scholarship holds an
opportunity for an evolving, long-term product in the form of collaborative teaching
websites that bring together the best of our unique cultural perspectives in a way that will
inspire the training of a new generation of life scientists and health care workers.

The merging of cultural approaches: details of the project plan

Why Ibarra-Ecuador?
The choice of a location for an intensive experience abroad, as provided via a
Fulbright scholarship, must in part depend on one’s personal history and experience. In
1995, I decided that my professional career would greatly benefit from some experience
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Fulbright Proposal, July 30, 2009, Page 2

with the Spanish language. As a biologist, I chose Ecuador, intending to spend six months
or a year learning Spanish and exploring the unique and diverse biological environments
that this country offers. However, fate took a turn and I wound up spending four years in
Ecuador, working as a college professor while managing a small cloud forest ecological
reserve, as well as starting a family. During this time, I formed some of my strongest
professional ties, many of which I have maintained over the years and which are
represented in the letter of invitation and references that accompany this application.
Since returning full-time to the U.S. in 1999, I have maintained contact with the
universities that I worked with in Ecuador, giving a one-time workshop in Biodiveristy for
the Master’s Program in Environmental Science at the PUCE-SI, occasionally as thesis
advisor for students, and providing pedagogical or technical advice to colleagues upon
request. My perspective from afar has only enhanced my appreciation for the uniqueness
of this part of the world.
Thus, I now believe that a strong case can be made for Ibarra-Ecuador as an ideal
laboratory for developing the kind of cross-cultural use of technology in life science
education that I propose to initiate with this Fulbright scholarship. Ibarra is located in the
northern Andes, approximately two hours from Quito, the capital city. Typical of the sort
of secondary urban center that we find in both developing and industrialized countries,
Ibarra attracts many different kinds of people, and is therefore growing at an astounding
rate. As the Ibarra area urbanizes, the surrounding agricultural and forested countryside is
altered, as is typical of similar medium-size cities worldwide. However, in the case of
Ibarra, not just one, but two of the surrounding ecosystems have attracted worldwide
conservation attention and are often listed among the world’s top environmental “hot-
spots” for conservation: the high inter-Andean cloud forest that extends from the eastern
flank of Ibarra north to the Colombian border; and the Choco rain-forest to be found in the
valleys dropping off to Ibarra’s west down to Ecuador’s Pacific coast.
Besides the typical urban growth of Ibarra, and its effect on surrounding forested
ecosystems, the pace of change in the nearby cultivated rural countryside also represents
what we see happening world-wide. Agricultural mechanization and the use of chemical
fertilizers and pesticides have led to increases in production (at times), but also degradation
of soils. Some, but not all of Ibarra’s growth is due to rural migration away from failed
small farms, which may be bought by larger farm interests, or sometimes abandoned.
Ten years ago, I was perhaps naïve enough to believe that the foreign-owned, small
cloud forest reserve where I worked might make a difference in the future of this region.
But today, I see that Ecuador’s own emerging educated class is where the real power to
bring about change lies. I feel lucky that my personal history has forged connections to this
incredible region; and hopeful that my strong belief in the power of quality education might
allow collaboration, via digital technologies, which would allow for universal, and
interactive, access to the best information and perspectives. This kind of access holds what
I believe is the real path to empowering people in a way that will work in favor of human
well-being and life fulfillment, which of course goes hand-in-hand with the long-term
health of the environments in which we humans live.
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Fulbright Proposal, July 30, 2009, Page 3

Time frame and working plan specifics—Environmental Sciences at PUCE-SI

Over my career, I have been consistently interested in two areas of life science
education: environmental science, and human health—perhaps no accident as the two are
so intrinsically connected. In Ibarra, each of the two major universities has a program that
is strong in one of these areas. The PUCE-SI has a well-respected School of
Environmental and Agricultural Sciences and they offer a Master’s degree in Community-
Based Management of Natural Resources. I believe their approach, which combines rural,
urban and so-called “wild” areas under one faculty that is interested in ecological as well as
economic issues, exemplified by the inclusion of agricultural studies, is very forward-
looking. The PUCE-SI is in the process of revamping their Master’s Program so that it can
be offered in a fully online modality. Since one of my teaching strengths has been an
innovative approach to online learning, including the use of highly interactive web
platforms, this seems a perfect opportunity for us to collaborate. I also would bring a well-
developed teaching style that I think is apt for this kind of collaboration.
My teaching craft has evolved over the years to include three philosophies which I
believe can be easily adapted to the cultural milieu in Ecuador and thereby help bring
success in terms of developing useful online technologies for the PUCE-SI Master’s
Program.
The first of these philosophies is a belief that education should be open and
accessible to all. For much of my teaching career, I’ve been involved with students who
are headed into medically related careers. The power and prestige of the Western medical
approach has typically attracted students from a wide variety of cultural backgrounds and I
enjoy this element of the biomedical science classroom. I come from an immigrant family
myself and my own household is full of bilingual English-Spanish speakers. Besides the
intrinsic value of speaking more than one language, I believe the varied cultural
perspectives that accompany proficiency in another language add a level of richness to the
educational process. I welcome the diversity that we encounter in the biomedical sciences,
not only for the opportunities that are provided for people of many different backgrounds,
but for the richness of opportunity that the diverse cultural perspectives present in the
classroom. In Ecuador, I know that we will need to devise an approach that incorporates
students from a wealth of different heritages, be it Afro-Ecuadorians descended from slaves
and colonists, or indigenous Ecuadorians who trace their roots to pre-Colombian peoples.
Secondly, I believe course structure and design, as well as class activities, should
focus on the student. In the end, we as teachers do our best work when we inspire the
student to do their best work. The key element that an effective teacher must possess is
expert knowledge and deep understanding of their subject area. However, effective
leadership that inspires students in that subject area may be equally important. In the
classroom, the college teacher fills many different roles. They must be a “servant-leader”
willing to open-heartedly share what they know in a way that works for the majority of the
students. This requires a combination of different leadership tools: the effective instructor
must provide a vision for the class, and for each lesson or activity; they at times must be a
coach who works individually with students who might need more attention; they must
create affiliations or a harmonious atmosphere where people feel comfortable working
together; and they must at times be a democratic leader who provides students with a sense
of input and control over their educational experience. By paying attention to these
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Fulbright Proposal, July 30, 2009, Page 4

universal aspects of classroom leadership, I believe I am effective at working in just about

any cultural setting.
Finally, I am dedicated to fostering interactivity in the classroom, among students
and with the professor. The online modality has been criticized as stifling interaction, but I
believe that when used effectively, it can actually offer advantages over the brick-and-
mortar classroom. In the last four years, I have developed an expertise in online utilities
that foster interaction by allowing students not only to post their own work, responses and
concerns, but to develop an online presence and portfolio of their own. I use blogs, wikis,
social networks and other simple interactive websites to insure that my online students are
not left trying to passively absorb information, but are actively showing that they can re-
work and express what they have learned. Adapting this approach to different cultural
settings can present a grand challenge. However, I have been surprised when students from
traditionally shy cultures find a way to express what they have learned online, perhaps in a
way that would have been impossible in the classroom. Only when the student becomes the
teacher, and when they do it in a way that is culturally and personally unique to that
individual, do I believe that true education is happening, and that that particular student has
become an active learner. If we cannot explain and express what we have learned, then I
question whether we have ever really learned it.
During conversations with my colleagues at PUCE-SI, especially Andres Simbaña
who heads the Master’s Program, we have developed a tentative approach to applying my
skills towards implementing a quality online version of the degree program. The Fulbright
scholarship will allow us to fulfill what I believe is an essential in-person component to this
plan. Four to six months before arriving in Ecuador, I will begin exploring the e-learning
platform currently in use at PUCE-SI and looking for ways to adapt and augment to meet
the philosophical goals established above. During the four months of the Fulbright
scholarship, I will give a series of weekly workshops, based on themes that we develop
together before I arrive in-country, to all the faculty who participate in the Master’s
Program. The goal of these workshops will be for each faculty member to design and
develop a successful, interactive online milieu for their component of the Master’s
program. I will also develop a sample course, probably in the area of Biodiversity, which I
will teach as a demo-course to real Master’s students, during the in-country stage of the
project. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, we will establish a multiple-contributor
“master-teacher” bi-lingual website for the topics of interest to the Master’s program
faculty. I, along with Andres Simbaña, will continue to administer and moderate that
website through subsequent offerings of the Master’s degree program.

Time frame and working plan specifics—Health Sciences at UTN

Over the long course of my teaching career, as well as my Ph.D. degree work, my
other principle area of expertise has been in comparative and human anatomy. At the other
major university in Ibarra, the Northern Technical University (UTN), a strong program in
Health Sciences trains nurses and other allied health professionals. Although we are at an
earlier stage of planning for this institution’s component of my project, I am in
conversation with colleagues there to develop a similar “master-teacher” website and a
series of seminars on the use of internet technology in Anatomy lecture and lab settings.
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Fulbright Proposal, July 30, 2009, Page 5

The emergence of cross-cultural web-based approaches to life science teaching:

importance and benefits of the project
The realization of this Fulbright scholarship proposal will bring some lasting and
important benefits, in the form of tangible products, for my host institutions, for colleagues
in life science education throughout the world, as well as for me and my home institution.
Quality access to information, in a way that allows students to interact and make the
information their own, is essential for promoting healthy stewardship of our increasingly
complex natural-cultural landscapes. I believe that the proposed collaboration can turn the
PUCE-SI Master’s Program in Community-Based Resource Management into a world-
class model for this kind of educational opportunity. Over a period of a year, including the
four months of Fulbright residency in Ecuador, we can emerge with a series of quality
courses that can be made available not only to PUCE-SI students, but anyone with internet
access. By working cross-culturally and in two languages, these courses should be
maximally adaptable to environmental challenges throughout the Americas, and even in
other parts of the world. By focusing on the Ibarra region, we have access to a number of
classic case studies that will resonate for students from many different regions and
backgrounds.
Perhaps equally important will be our dynamic and interactive “master-teacher”
website. I currently envision this as an online community, or social network, with a tightly
organized set of multiple contributor sections. This kind of website inevitably takes on a
life of its own, but initially it would minimally include the following: 1) a section that
updates and analyzes the quality of different online technologies; 2) a section that analyzes
the importance of cultural background on educational approach; 3) a section that looks at
interactivity online in the life science classroom; and 4) a section that allows for network
members to make connections based on themes of their own choosing.
I know that my own teaching was greatly enhanced by my previous experience in
Ecuador during the 1990’s. The cross-cultural perspective with which I returned to the
U.S. made me, I am quite sure, the more open-minded and student-centered teacher that I
am today. However since then, the explosion of digital technologies has brought a new
dynamic to our classrooms. And I know that our limited interaction, at a distance, has not
allowed me to fully appreciate how my Ecuadorian colleagues are using online teaching
and learning tools. However, past experience convinces me that the Fulbright scholarship
opportunity would be only a start towards answering the question I pose initially: how can
we merge our differing cultural perspectives and emerge with an approach to life science
education that will serve diverse populations throughout the world at the start of this new
century? I expect to return to my home institution with a new view of what it means to be
“online,” one that goes beyond the inevitably local cultures that constrain our thinking,
teaching and learning, even when connected to the “worldwide” web. With this new
cultural aperture, I am confident that we will make tangible contribution towards a 21st
century prototype for teaching and learning in the biological sciences.