Long distance learning

As 50 students gather in their Knudsen Hall classroom today to
learn about genetic engineering, 30 more students will join them
from Japan, thanks to fiber-optic cables, electrical blackboards
and the desire of professors worldwide to provide their students
with a multicultural experience.

Professor Bob Goldberg teaches the Honors Collegium course
“Genetic Engineering in Medicine, Agriculture and Law”
every Tuesday and Thursday at UCLA and Kyoto, Japan
simultaneously.

And, pushing the multi-cultural experience to another level,
eight students from the class and two teaching assistants had the
opportunity to go to Japan and stay with their classmates at the
University of Kyoto during the first week of February. Goldberg did
not accompany the students on the trip.

Goldberg partnered with the University of Kyoto for the first
time two years ago, participating in a similar program but with a
different science course. He decided to work with the program this
year, upon special request from its counterparts in Kyoto.

The funding for this year’s program comes from the Howard
Hughes Medical Institute. Goldberg is a part of the HHMI University
Professors Program and has received a faculty teaching grant from
the institute.

“HHMI gave me a million dollars to excite students in the
process of discovery,” Goldberg said.

The trip was educational in a broader sense than just science
for the students, who said they did not have a great knowledge of
the Japanese culture before the trip.

“The idea behind the group going to Japan was for the
American students to interact with the Japanese students and get an
insight into Japanese higher education,” said Roman
Groisberg, a first-year undeclared student who was one of the
students picked to go to Japan.

The eight students were picked through a random lottery and took
the class from the other side of the electrical blackboard for a
week. They did their assignments and quizzes in Japan and still had
to participate in the highly interactive class.

At the end of this month, 16 University of Kyoto students will
have a similar experience when they travel to Los Angeles and stay
with their American classmates.

Upon their return, the UCLA students were assigned to write an
essay discussing the differences between the ways education is
approached in the two countries.

“The way they live is very different than what we are used
to here, including their study habits,” said student-traveler
Ray Chacon, a second-year biology student. “They
wouldn’t stop studying until they were sure that they knew
all the material.”

Goldberg agreed that many of the students in the Japanese
university study “a hundred times” more compared to the
students at UCLA, who typically learn only as much as they think
they need to know.

He added that observing these different traits is helpful in the
learning process, as the students in Japan see spontaneity in the
classroom environment at UCLA and the UCLA students see the
determination exhibited by the Kyoto students.

Another traveler, Mary Conklin, a third-year English student,
noted the dedication illustrated by the fact that the Kyoto
students are taking the class in English, in some ways making the
material more challenging for them.

But she said she also saw similarities between the two cultures,
as she could relate to the Kyoto students when it came to staying
up all night before a big test.

Goldberg said the class as a bridge between different cultures
is a novel thing for both UCLA and Japanese students.

“The way they interact is very formal,” Conklin
said. “They envy the way we could touch each other when we
spoke.”

Goldberg said the challenge of relating the material to two
learning systems goes beyond the class’s academic
aspects.

“The class is very challenging to pull off …
it bridges both a culture gap and a language gap,” he
said, adding that in his last experience with the program, the
traits of both groups of students had rubbed off on each other by
the end of the quarter.

This exchange resulted in the UCLA students becoming more
studious and the Japanese students becoming more comfortable with
asking questions, Goldberg said.

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