Saturday, September 25, 2010

Update on Fulbright activities

It’s been a while since I updated news of my Fulbright activities. So many and varied things have been happening that it’s now a real challenge to document them all in a way that conveys their nature and impact. I’ll try to chunk events into separate posts and postdate them to maintain a chronological flow.     

Co-teaching TCED1111

Co teaching TCED1111 Learning in the 21st Century with Carole and An is a continuing weekly pleasure. The classes are well structured but create an informal and fun learning and teaching environment. Carole leads the classes which include a variety of lively learning activities, such as mindware puzzles and  discussions. An, the peer mentor, also runs a weekly activity and brings news of 'student life' activities and encourages students to particpate in social activities. I aim to support an inquiry-based approach to the group and individual project work, as students simulataneaously learn about their topic and develop critical information using practices (yes, informed learning!)  

The focus is on enabling students to understand how learning happens and their brains 'work', and how their social environment impacts on their learning - with a view to to developing supportive and collaborative relationships with their peers, and strategies for managing their own health and general wellbeing.  The students are generally responsive to the new ideas and ways of working that we keep introducing. It's been so heartening over the last 5 weeks to watch their growing confidence to intereact with eachother and willingness to share thoughts and feelings. This mutual nurturing is critically important, since individual students are experiencing various challenges, both in their transition to university and their personal lives (some quite severe). 

Belinda and Alex get married today!

Warmest wishes to Alex and Belinda on their wedding today  for a happy life together. Hope it's a truly enjoyable and memorable day for you and your guests, especially Michele and Troy. Sorry I can't be there, but can't wait to hear the stories and see the photos. Hilary :)

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Washington DC


Washington Memorial

The Capitol from National Mall,
Library of Congress dome on right

The White House

Lincoln Memorial


Library of Congress

Tian Tian


Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Mark and Vanessa's Wedding news

While in Washington DC I recieved an urgent 'Mum phone Mark' message - fortunately indicating that he had some good news to share. He and Vanessa decided on their 10th aniversary of meeting each other to get married next year. Joyful news indeed! But I was sad not to be able to join them, Daid and Peter for a clebratory dinner in Samford. But something else to look forward to on my return to Aus. Mark and Vanessa haven't set a date yet, but the wedding is likely to be April-May.

Saturday, September 18, 2010

Lions Presentation, Lunch & Learn 2, Focus Groups, and more ...

This was busy ‘public’ week after all the planning I had to start delivering the goods …

Focus groups with Chinese students: On Monday and Thursday I conducted focus groups with international students who are studying at UCD in Denver, after completing the first year of their degree program at International Campus Beijing (ICB). ICB is a joint education program between UCD and China Agricultural University (CAU) in Beijing. This is an interesting program, which offers Chinese students the opportunity to develop English language fluency and some familiarity with American academic practices in their home country before coming to USA.

As always, I really enjoyed talking with students from China. They openly shared their experiences and concerns about life and study in their home and host country. Like many Chinese students in Australia, these students expressed strong motivation to succeed academically. Among other things, it transpired that they mostly like Denver and UCD, although they find living costs expensive and the food doesn’t always agree with them.

The aim of these focus groups is for me, as a neutral person, to gather student feedback and (with the students’ permission) provide it to the UCD’s International Office to assist program development. In a couple of weeks I shall conduct focus groups with faculty members to gain their perspectives on teaching international students. All this resonates nicely with research I‘ve been doing with Chinese TESOL students at QUT.

Visit to Anschutz Health Sciences Library and Dean of Dental Medicine: On Monday afternoon I spent a couple of hours exploring and working in UCD’s new Health Sciences Library at the Anschutz Campus. It’s an amazing library and I wished Raylee was there to experience such a glorious learning space. The design is light and airy, thanks to a central atrium and many internal windows to view into, across, down and out of the building. Each floor offers open study areas, glass enclosed group spaces, and many enticing nooks for reading and computer using. Comfortable, stylish furniture in warm earthy colours, timber tables and desks of various sizes and striking artwork (paintings, photography, sculpture). It almost had the feel of a country club (without the snobbiness!) Such a relaxing and conducive place to study. Designed by Centerbrook Architects and Planners (click on link for photos). I also visited the Nighthorse Campbell Native Health Building on the Anschutz campus. It is stylistically different but equally stunning, with an internal lobby reminiscent of an Indian tepee rising to a clear glass dome that seems to connect with the sky.

Mary and I met with Denise Kassebaum, Dean of Dental Medicine, who described the truly inclusive learning and teaching approach that domestic and international students experience in this school. A wonderful case study!

Presentation to Denver Lions Club: On Tuesday I again attended the Denver Lions Club meeting with Mary and Catherine, this time to make a presentation on Informed Communities and Australian Connections. This was a great opportunity to thank the Denver Lions Club for supporting my Fulbright program, commenting that:

Through today’s event we’re responding to the missions of both the Lions Club and the Fulbright Commission, which in different ways promote international understanding, education, and community well-being … I have great respect for the Lions Club and the invaluable contribution club members make around the world, through community projects and charitable donations. I’m aware that your Denver Club is a Founder’s Club, with a long and active history, and that you make an inestimable difference to the lives of sight impaired people, less privileged children, at risk youth and their families. In Australia, Lions Clubs also support the community in many ways, both financially and through practical projects. As a parent of two boys I am eternally grateful for the roadside Lions Parks that break up the long car drives between Australian cities … On a local level, I’m pleased to pass on the best wishes of the president and members of the Samford Lions Club …an active group in my local community on the outskirts of Brisbane. The President, Carmel Mazzeo, invites you to visit the Club if you are ever in the area.

I went on to talk about the importance of information, information literacy and informed learning for ensuring social and economic well being of communities. I mentioned that:

Informed learning flourishes in environments that support the free flow of ideas, the sharing of knowledge and the remembrance of community heritage and cultural identities. Achieving such complex goals, requires well resourced educational facilities, including libraries, museums and cultural centres. Philanthropic organisations, which support education and the arts, such as the Carnegie Foundation, the King Foundation and the Lions Club, are invaluable partners in informed learning.

After briefly introducing these concepts, I illustrated them with travellers’ tales of my informed learning journey, and how it brought me to my Fulbright residency in Denver. The audience were attentive (I think!) and asked some interesting and relevant questions at the end. It was nice to again meet Denver Lions Club President Steve Krebsbach and other club members, including King Foundation President Bob Sweeney. The Italian lunch was also good again!

Catherine Ostrander, Preside Steve Krebsbach and Hilary
Lunch and Learn Workshop 2: On Wednesday I presented the second Lunch and Learn Workshop, on the topic Faculty Experiences: Teaching International Students. Discussion centred around three focus questions:
How do we, as teachers, experience cultural diversity?
Why is it challenging for faculty to teach international students?
What are the potential benefits for faculty of teaching international students?

The participants carried out a problem-solving activity about one of the following scenarios:
a) Dilemmas of teachers of in culturally diverse contexts: With your group members, identify and describe a real-life (or hypothetical) critical incident that became a dilemma for a teacher in culturally diverse context. Propose a strategy to resolve the dilemma. Then present the dilemma and your proposed strategy to other workshop participants as a ‘documentary’.

b) Promoting an inclusive approach to teaching in culturally diverse contexts: Imagine you and your group have been selected as champions of culturally inclusive education. You are charged with convincing reluctant colleagues to enhance their approach to teaching international students. Draw on real-life (or hypothetical) critical incident(s) to build an argument that promotes the benefits to teachers of teaching in culturally diverse contexts. Then present the argument to other workshop participants as a 5 minute ‘documentary’

Beforehand, I wasn’t sure how the group problem-solving activity would work – it was really role play by another name! But the group members collaborated well and presented creative and useful responses to the problems.

Historical lunch: On Friday, after teaching as usual in the morning, I enjoyed the ‘lost Friday’ lunch gathering hosted weekly by Tom Noel aka Dr Colorado, a personable and lively communicator. Here, in the historic Baur's Restaurant, I met an interesting group of Denver historians, including Dana EchoHawk, who strongly contributes to Denver’s community history and preservation of cultural memories. Her projects include co-producing with Daniel Salazar, for Center for Colorado & the West at Auraria Library, videos on aspects of Colorado Hispanic history, including the Displaced Aurarian community:
Salvaje y Libre (Wild and Free)
Westside Friends
In search of Displaced Aurarians
Altogether, this lunch gathering proved a great informed learning opportunity about (and with) the Denver community – and another good feed!

Fulbright Alumni BBQ: To round off a lively week, I attended a BBQ hosted by Colorado Fulbright Alumni for current Fulbright scholars. The secretary, Cheryl Kaas, who is also a Learning Adviser at UCD, kindly drove me there and home again. This gave us a good opportunity to chat about our Fulbright experiences and also our common interest in supporting student learning. It was fun to meet up with Fulbright scholars from a variety of countries, including Germany and Colombia, and Laura Maxwell (again) from France. The Alumni were mostly closer to my age than the current scholars! They were all most friendly, and in particular I’m looking forward to visiting Barb Stuart, Lecturer in Management at Denver University.

Off to Washington DC: On Saturday morning I flew to Washington DC, but that visit needs a whole post of its own!

Thursday, September 16, 2010

Constitution Day & Mexican Independence Day

Today, September 16 is Constitution Day. Drafted in secret by delegates to the Constitutional Convention during the summer of 1787, this four-page document established the government of the United States. It opens with the words:
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
National Archives: http://www.archives.gov/historical-docs/todays-doc/index.html?dod-date=916

And today is also Mexican Independence Day! And this year marks the 200th anniversary of Mexico's independence from Spanish rule. Here's the "Grito" (the cry) that started it all: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grito_de_Dolores

(Thanks to/Gracias a Louise and Lando of Auraria Library for alerting me to these significant anniversaries)

Sunday, September 12, 2010

Lions Club, Welcome Reception and African/African American-Chicano-Chicana Studies

Labor Day: The Week of 6 September started with Labor Day holiday on Monday - which a offered a welcome long week-end to rest and prepare for upcoming commitments.

Lions Club: On Tuesday I had the pleasure to attend the Denver Lions Club weekly meeting at Maggiano's Italian restaurant with Catherine Ostrander, who is Head of Community Relations at Auraria Library and a newly elected Lions Club board member. The Lions members were vey friendly and welcoming - they even have a special 'Welcome to the Denver Den' song which they sing to visitors. An enjoyable lunch, with particularly tasty lasagna! The invited speaker was Aaron Harber, a television host, producer, political and economic commentator and newspaper columnist.  His talk about “The impending November, 2010 elections” gave an interetsing inside view of the upcoming Senate and Governor election.  

Lunch with Fulbright Laura: Thursday was a big day! Lunch with Mary and Laura Maxwell, a Fulbright French Language teaching assistant who's currently working at a Denver high school and studying at Metro State College Denver. She's from Paris, but also has family in Newcastle upon Tyne, so we had plenty in common.

Fulbright Welcome Reception: Late Thursday afternoon was my official Fulbright Welcome Reception, held in the ELC, Auraria Library. This was a warm and enjoyable occassion. I felt privileged to meet senior adminsitrators and faculty members from all three of the sponsoring institutions (UCD, MSCD and CCD). UCD Provost Rod Nairn gave an introductory address and Dr Carolyn North, Assistant Vice Chancellor for International Affairs,outlined key aspects of my program. Delicious food and wine, flowers, photography and wonderful music played by a specially auditioned string quartet of MSCD students. (All beautifully taken care of by Catherine and Niraj f Auraria Library).

I was pleased to be able to publicly express my deep appreciation to representatives of the three institutions for sponsoring my Fulbright Scholar in Residence program, as follows:  

Thank you Dr Nairn for your kind welcoming remarks. And thank you to our other distinguished guests for attending this reception - it a pleasure and a privilege to meet you. I would particularly like to acknowledge Dr Mary Somerville, originator and coordinator of this program and also co-sponsors Dr Carolyn North and Dr Ali Thobhani for bringing this program from proposal to reality.

I would also like to acknowledge the strong support from my home university, Queensland University of Technology (QUT) – in particular Vice-Chancellor Professor Peter Coldrake, Executive Dean of Education Professor Wendy Patton and Head of School for Cultural and Language Studies in Education Professor Annette Patterson. In fact, thank you everyone! I deeply appreciate your association with my Fulbright program. This program resonates closely with the mission of the Australian-American Fulbright Commission, which is to promote understanding between the peoples of Australia and America through educational and cultural exchange. This program is opening up wonderful opportunities for me professionally and personally. I am proud to participate in this unique tri-institutional initiative which draws together colleagues from UCD, CCD and MSCD in furthering students’ academic success. I look forward to ongoing scholarly collaboration between our institutions, during and beyond the four months that I am in Denver.

African/African American-Chicano-Chicana Studies: On Friday, after teaching, I had lunch and a fascinating conversation, led by Dr Ali Thobhani, with colleagues specialising in African/African American-Chicano-Chicana Studies at Metro State College Denver. We covered a range of topics which helped me develop greater understanding of the learning experiences and needs of minority and ethnically diverse students in the Denver/US context.

Ipad: Another exciting event this week - I bought an ipad! Slim and sleek!

Over the week-end Mary and I went shopping and then worked on our respective writing and teaching projects. 

Saturday, September 11, 2010

Acknowledging 9/11

Today is the ninth anniversary of 9/11. I acknowledge the pain, courage and hope of everyone touched by this tragedy.

Thursday, September 2, 2010

Informed learning in action

Tivoli Student Center, Auraria Campus (originally a brewery)
Amazing that I've been here over 3 weeks already. In some ways the time seems to have flown by, though in others it seems much longer as so much is happening. But all good! Lots of meeting people, planning and preparation for Denver-based activities, arranging visits and travel to other universities, and now teaching. People on campus and around town are friendly and I'm working with interesting people of greatly varying backgrounds and professional responsibilities.


Last week saw the first week of semester and start of the academic year. It was exciting to see the campus come to life. The library is now jumping as it serves 40,000 odd students who are spread across the 3 HE institutions on the Auraria campus. Last Friday I had my first class with new (freshmen) students taking the course (unit) Learning in the 21st Century. I’m co-teaching with Dr Carole Basile and An Nguyen, a 5th year student peer advisor. Lots of fun as we’re on the same wavelength and the students are responsive. The course really supports informed learning, which we’re discussing and modelling explicitly with the students. Among other things, the students will create a map (any format) of their informed learning journey through the course and develop an ‘informed learning chest’ (any format) to gather their information and reflections throughout the course. Be interesting to see how this journey unfolds for all of us.

Meanwhile, the librarians are progressing well information literacy initiatives drawing on informed learning principles. They have decided to convene an Informed Learning Circle of key stakeholders and will also hold regular Chocolate and Conversations for informal discussion based around selected readings. (If nothing else, it seems like we’ve started a healthy Coffee and Chocolate tradition, Christine!) On Weds this week I attended the Library’s Open Forum, where speakers from Technical and IT Services helped me develop greater understanding the library’s complex operations - rather nice to re-tend my info professional roots! It was also an opportunity to offer further explanation to the library personnel about my FB program and intended outcomes. And not forgetting some enjoyable informal interaction at the Library’s End of Summer Pot Luck lunch last Friday. Further confirmation that librarians the world over are good at food.

For the first two weeks it was pretty hot, 92-96 degrees F, but a dry heat and more bearable than Brisbane's humidity. Fall now seems to be on its way. The last few days have been cooler, the mornings are getting a little darker and the trees are starting to show hints of brown. I'm told that in about 6 weeks we'll have first snow of winter.

I’ve continued to explore Denver with Denver and also on foot. There are spectacular views of the mountains, with patches of snow on the high peaks. Denver has an appealing mix of contemporary and historic buildings, wide streets, stiking and entertaining public art, tree-lined streets and everywhere very clean. Generally there’s a prosperous feel about the place, although I’ve noticed a distressingly high number of homeless people holding cardboard signs on street corners. Spanish is spoken almost as much as English around Denver.

By walking around the neighborhood and eating lots of wonderful fresh vegies I'm getting fitter and losing weight (an unexpected bonus of the residency!) However, the weight loss may take a turn as I‘ve just discovered the delight of Einstein Bros bagels! There’s one Einsteins rather too conveniently located on campus.

It’s been great keeping in close contact with the family via email and ventrillo. Fortunately all seems well at home, even though Stoke City are not yet performing up to potential this season. Go the mighty Potters!

St Cajetan's, Auraria Campus,
former parish church of the (now dispersed) Hispanic community