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Three years and counting
REEES program looks to continue after U.S. Department of Education
grant ends.
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It's been almost three years since the Russian, East European, and Eurasian
Studies (REEES) Distance Learning Consortium was established in the Department
of Foreign Languages and Literatures at Iowa State and the two other Regents
universities.
And at least at Iowa State, it has been one success story after another.
But it wasn't always that way.
"The first semester was tough," said Dawn Bratsch-Prince, professor and
chair of the department.
The initial difficulties at Iowa State came through the "distance"
learning portion of the consortium. REEES received a $320,000, three-year
grant from the U.S. Department of Education and its Undergraduate International
Studies and Foreign Language (UISFL) Program Grant in the fall of 2002.
The partnership between Iowa State, the University of Iowa and Northern
Iowa University jointly teaches Eastern European languages and culture
via an Internet-based video conferencing system.
The consortium offers language courses in Czech, Polish and Serbo-Croatian-Bosnian
as well as courses that are interdisciplinary in nature discussing the
many political, historical and cultural transformations that these countries
have experienced in the past decade.
Difficulties initially arose because professors on the partner campuses
taught all the language courses. Iowa State students attend their classes
in the Cargill Digitally Enhanced Classroom in Pearson Hall.
"We found out quickly that while the technology is state-of-the-art,
the instruction isn't as effective unless we have a teaching assistant
(in the room) with our students," Bratsch-Prince said.
The department has succeeded in finding native-speaking teaching assistants
to cover Czech, Polish and Serbo-Croatian-Bosnian. The result has been
continual increased attendance in these courses.
Each of the past four semesters, more Iowa State students have enrolled
in REEES courses than at either Iowa or Northern Iowa. In fact, Iowa State
students account for half of the program's enrollment.
"Face-to-face instruction is the ideal way to learn a language,"
Bratsch-Prince said. "We were able to respond quickly to get native
speaking student assistants into those classrooms and I think that has
helped not only student learning, but the overall coordination of the
program."
While the original UISFL grant ends at the conclusion of the spring semester,
the REEES consortium is anticipating being awarded an extension year by
the U.S. Department of Education prior to applying for another grant.
In addition, Iowa State has submitted an application for a National Endowment
for the Humanities grant to train faculty in instructional technology.
Iowa State faculty may not teach REEES language courses through the consortium,
but faculty members such as Olga Mesropova, assistant professor of Russian
and coordinator of Iowa State's REEES program, are teaching English language
cultural courses to Northern Iowa and Iowa students.
Strong enrollment in the courses isn't the only success for the REEES
Program. Take for example, Andrea Savage, a senior biochemistry major,
who was enrolled last fall in a Croatian language course.
Savage was so intrigued by the language and the country that she applied
and was awarded a scholarship from the Croatian Ministry of Science and
Technology. She will spend the 2005 spring semester (March 1 to Aug. 18)
at Zagreb University.
"I'm obsessed with traveling," Savage said. "I began reading
books about Croatia and wanted to travel there. But I feel an obligation
to learn the language before I actually travel there. I will be studying
the language while I'm in Croatia. I'm supposed to graduate this May but
I'm putting it off because I think this is important."
Around LAS
January 10-23, 2005
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