2008 Entries and Abstracts
Leslie Jarmon
Graduate Studies
Raising the Bar: Using Second Life in an Interdisciplinary Communication Course
The course’s theoretical underpinnings are grounded in the findings of the 2004 Facilitating Interdisciplinary Research Convocation of the National Academy of Sciences. A top recommendation of the Academy is to have “institutions, project leaders, principal investigators, educators, postdoctoral scholars, and students focused on enhancing communication between researchers” (CFIR 2004, 190). To accomplish this enhancement of communication, the syllabus focuses on developing mental flexibility and a deep understanding of diverse audiences with different expectations and worldviews. Therefore, the course features a project-based learning design requiring students to demonstrate their grasp of communication strategies, reasoning through analogy (e.g., to help build understanding of perspectives from nursing and rhetoric), and building multi-causal explanations by completing a semester-long team project (20% of final grade). Incorporating the Second Life component provides a challenging 3-D virtual world environment for students to apply, test, repeat, adapt, and improve their use of communication strategies in ways that are quite simply beyond the reach of the physical boundaries of a classroom. This pilot was a test of raising the bar and dramatically extending the standards of what might constitute a successfully completed semester-long team project. The team’s original plan was within the scope anticipated by the instructor. However, the expanded global nature of the SL virtual world itself had a powerful impact on their plan. At mid-semester, the team decided to collaborate with the Alley Flats Initiative and to create in Second Life virtual interactive models of low-income, green sustainable housing designs actually being piloted in East Austin, and suddenly their project exceeded all expectations with this unanticipated and greatly expanded “reach.” Furthermore, their decision to “go public” and to include a virtual ribbon-cutting ceremony also shifted the instructor’s role because going public in SL meant that UT-Austin was represented in an unprecedented public albeit virtual space. Our research results suggest that the use of Second Life substantially enhanced both the quality and experiences of student learning, and they also indicate some areas for improvement in future use.