Crisscrossing Grand canyon: Bridging the gaps with computer conferencing

Abstract

In Summer 1992, the Interdisciplinary Studies Program (ISP) at Wayne State University was awarded a 3-year grant from the U.S. Department of Education's Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education to “Create a ‘Campus’ Through Writing.” Working from several theoretical perspectives that stress collaborative learning and basing our approach on experiments with computer conferencing in adult learning situations, a number of faculty in the ISP devised courses and assignments to facilitate creation of a collaborative, democratic and nonauthoritarian community of adult learners. One assignment, in particular, provided an opportunity to test how successfully adult students could assume control over a computer-generated dialogue. The assignment, based on the film Grand Canyon , encouraged students to take on roles of their racial and gender opposites. This article recounts the high degree of involvement this relatively simply assignment engendered in students. We conclude that even inexperienced adult students can engage in the extended dialogue allowed by computer conferencing.