WGLN Chair Craig Heller reflects on the last 5 years

Craig Heller, Lorry Lokey\Business Wire, Professor of Biological Sciences and Human Biology; Chairman, Steering Committee, Wallenberg Global Learning Network, reflects on the accomplishments of the last five years and looks to the future

How is the Wallenberg Global Learning Network (WGLN) unique?

In research universities like Stanford, there are obviously the people involved in teaching and learning in a wide variety of disciplines. You also have people doing research on teaching and learning in Schools of Education. And, then you also have people developing technology for teaching and learning. In most research universities these are three entirely separate communities. The challenge is to get all three of these groups to work together.

Can you give us some examples of innovations supported by the WGLN?

The Virtual Labs project is one good example. It is based on the fact that most introductory science courses are lecture courses, but the essence of understanding science comes from doing things and discovering, not just reading or listening to lectures. The web lends itself to exploring, so The Virtual Lab project puts students in a computer-based environment and gives them the opportunity to explore, make their own connections, and even do experiments and participate in virtual hands-on learning.

Whereas lectures, reading, and even still visuals present information mostly in two dimensions, using the computer environment you can go into subject matter and study it in four-dimensions. The time dimension is especially important in science and is difficult to portray in text and lectures.

The Virtual Labs project was originally developed and used in Human Biology classes designed for sophomores, but it has spread and is now being used in classes at the Medical School and beyond. Ithas proven to be transferable, which is one goal of the WGLN.

Another example is the web laboratory project of Bert Hesselink, (Professor of Electrical Engineering and, by courtesy, of Aeronautics and Astronautics and of Applied Physics). Bert runs an Optics Lab where students actually operate instruments and do experiments via the web. A student who might not have access to such sophisticated equipment can get the feeling using it and actually doing an experiment.

Another WGLN project is Web SP, or Web Simulated Patient, which trains medical students how to do an exam. The program acts as a virtual patient with symptoms and complaints. The student has to ask the right questions and make the right diagnosis in the minimum number of steps.

What is the importance of the relationships with our international affiliates?

It is very important for us not to be insular, which is easy to do at a place like Stanford where we have excellent facilities and world class colleagues. WGLN sponsored collaborations give us a way to have meaningful relationships outside the university over issues of teaching, and these relationships would be highly unlikely to arise on their own.

If I seek out a colleague on my own, it will most likely be someone who is in my area of research. It is almost impossible to imagine that I would get into a relationship with someone at another university because we teach the same thing. Under the auspices of the WGLN, we are facilitating people getting to know each other based on a common interest in teaching. We are bringing into contact people of a variety of disciplines and backgrounds, and that can have great value.

How have different schools and disciplines benefited?

Of course each discipline has different requirements. Biology is extremely visual and so that lends itself to technology. If you think of the humanities, though, it’s more text-based and analysis-oriented. If you think of medicine, that is also highly visual. So it’s not surprising that we have a higher representation of science and medicine related projects in the WGLN. Clearly classes here at Stanford have benefited greatly from the introduction of products coming out of WGLN work. We are now seeing many of these products being used elsewhere and at different levels from K-12 to postgraduate, and for distance learning.
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What kinds of reactions have there been to teaching in Wallenberg?

What we’ve seen was not anticipated. The technology in the Advanced Resource Classrooms has stimulated faculty to teach in very different ways than they had done in the past. Since both faculty and students have simultaneous and instant access to classroom displays (shown on large computer screens). There is much more direct involvement of students in classroom activity. They can jointly edit documents, present ideas, introduce new information from the web, and send work back and forth. Learning becomes a much more active process as a result, and the potential of presenting and manipulating course content in various ways has stimulated the creativity of the faculty. We are seeing tremendously creative uses of technology, and more and more students and faculty are attracted to use the facilities of Wallenberg Hall.

What about the next five years?

Our goal is that over the next five years, we should realize the potential of the initial effort of the WGLN by means of a program of focused research and development in areas where there are important issues concerning the quality of learning and teaching that technology innovations could well serve.

There is significant likelihood of producing innovative, useful results that will benefit researchers and practitioners within Sweden, at Stanford, and outside the WGLN, and these innovations can be disseminated widely in educational settings.

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