Lights, camera, interaction
By Anne Gibson Ph.D. '95
High technology brings students from Clark and Russia together to compare their urban environments without ever leaving their home classrooms
Psychology professor Jaan Valsiner's Cultural Psychology of Urban Living class starts like many others at Clark. Singly and in small groups, students filter into the classroom and select seats around a long table. While exchanging greetings with classmates, they retrieve writing materials, water bottles and snacks from backpacks. Valsiner enters the classroom and the beginning of the three-hour class is spent fielding questions about assignments, reviewing the progress of student projects, and moderating discussion about the day 's topic.
But about half-way through the class, the similarity ends. For the past few minutes, ITS personnel have been quietly setting up equipment. When the appropriate connections have been made, the lights are dimmed, and Valsiner and his students greet sociology professor Nikita Pokrovsky and his students at State University —Higher School of Economics (HSE) in Moscow, Russia. The remainder of the class is spent in enlightening academic discussion between Clark and Russian students and professors, thanks to a video bridge incorporating a screen projection and speaker system that allows students in Moscow and Worcester to see and speak to each other.
Comparing urban cultures
The goal of Cultural Psychology of Urban Living is to get students to think about how culture is expressed in the built urban environment and how it impacts people living and working there. The Worcester-Moscow link provides students with a mechanism to compare and contrast their own urban environments as those settings undergo economic and social transformation.
"It's easier to see culture when we encounter people different from ourselves," notes Valsiner.
In this course, students present and analyze images like photographs and videos of the urban environment that they are studying. Students are expected to choose a particular aspect of the urban environment —whether it be graffiti, street lighting, malls or elevators—to research in depth.
Bridging academic disciplines
In its second year, not only does the Worcester-Moscow collaboration incorporate diverse cultural perspectives, it also provides an interdisciplinary academic perspective. A psychology course at Clark, Cultural Psychology of Urban Living is offered through the Sociology Department at HSE. According to Valsiner, Pokrovsky is the most renowned sociologist in Russia, highly regarded for his research on the history of sociology, social theory and cultural studies. Thus, both Clark and HSE students benefit from the knowledge and expertise of two foremost professors while exploring the culture of urban living in two very different cities of the world through the lenses of two different academic disciplines —psychology and sociology.
Experiencing different cultures and perspectives only enhances the hands-on approach to learning that Valsiner and Pokrovsky emphasize in this course. The assigned research project and small-scale tasks to develop the students ' observational research skills encourage students to learn through inquiry, says Valsiner.
Students on both sides of the bridge recognize the benefits of the collaboration. Maggie Lajoie '09, who is studying the psychological implications of both visible and invisible signage and boundaries, is excited to have the opportunity to interact with the Russian students.
"The Russian students bring a different cultural point of view, and a sociological point of view not always presented in psychology classes, " says Lajoie.
Lajoie says that having the opportunity to discuss their projects at each stage and receive feedback from the professors and students in both classes is crucial to the learning process.
"Our classmates have fabulous ideas and are able to contribute from their own experiences, " she explains.
HSE student Alexander Ramonov, who investigated how partial lighting influences the way objects in urban environments are perceived, agrees.
"I left almost every joint class feeling that I broadened my knowledge," he says, noting the interaction often introduced new and important ideas worth putting into practice. It was exciting, Ramonov says, to discover and compare different social realities and perspectives.
Another Clark student, Kaoru Kawashima '07, says the independent course work was challenging, and she enjoyed taking the initiative to actively examine an intellectual direction that she chose to explore.
The video component of the bridge is especially useful in courses, like the Cultural Psychology of Urban Living, that include a strong visual component. Not only does the bridge allow students to share ideas in real time, it also allows them to share imagery of the urban environments they are studying.
Revolutionizing global learning
Valsiner and Pokrovsky are excited about the potential of video bridge technology for revolutionizing teaching and making academic inquiry a truly global endeavor. Valsiner says video bridge technology can enhance student education at Clark.
"For a small university like Clark, the video bridge technology has the enormous benefit of co-teaching classes with universities all over the world. It helps understanding between different societies, and it 's very clear that the future is with this kind of learning and teaching," he explains.
"Such a course provides a brand new vision of what the teaching process will be in a few years from today, " agrees Pokrovsky. "It is going to be digital, virtual and mobile—the classroom is going to be a nonmaterial space. I hope that progressive universities like Clark and HSE can become leaders in this respect. This new format will transform not only the technological aspect of teaching, but also teaching methods and the teaching profession."
To learn more about this course and student projects, visit www.clarku.edu/urbanspace or listen to a podcast of Professor Pokrovsky and one of his students at www.clarku.edu/clarkvoices.
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