This study provided insights about how to develop online cross-cultural projects designed to foster global awareness in upper elementary-age students. Three schools, located in the southern United States, Mexico and Turkey, implemented a cross-cultural model as part of a comparative case study. The primary goal of this research was to gain an understanding of how these populations develop global awareness in an online environment. A second goal was to determine the necessary implications for practice when conducting online, cross-cultural projects in upper elementary classrooms. During eight weeks of implementation, students participated in cross-cultural groups as members of an online community. Qualitative data were collected from the online threaded discussions, focus group interviews with eight case study participants, teacher interviews, parent interviews and observations. Quantitative data from the Inventory of Intercultural Sensitivity (ICCS) survey was collected. Results showed that online cross-cultural projects are an enjoyable and viable means of developing global awareness in upper elementary age students, and that the development of global awareness in an online environment is dependent upon changes in participants social comfort zones. Changes in social comfort zones were shown to best occur through social, collaborative experiences, with gender, learning styles and country of origin playing an important role in the design of the online cross-cultural projects. In addition, the study determined that while students enjoy learning about global issues from other students rather than from teachers and textbooks, active teacher involvement in cross-cultural project is necessary for student success. The project concluded that collaborative, constructivist instructional design is essential for the development of online cross-cultural projects.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LSU/oai:etd.lsu.edu:etd-10252006-134555 |
| Date | 26 October 2006 |
| Creators | Grant, Allen C. |
| Contributors | S Kim MacGregor, Cavan McCarthy, Yiping Lou, Jerry Willis, Janice Hinson |
| Publisher | LSU |
| Source Sets | Louisiana State University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.lsu.edu/docs/available/etd-10252006-134555/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached herein a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to LSU or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below and in appropriate University policies, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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