Shaping Travelers, Not Tourists: A Preparatory Course for the Hawai‘i Project Center
Partner organization: Hawai’i Project Center
Team members: James Copeland (biomedical engineering ’22), Katarina Himmelberger (chemical engineering ’22), Taylor Nowak (mechanical engineering ’22). Corinne Saucier (biomedical engineering ’22)
Executive Summary: Global and intercultural learning are emerging goals within the world of higher education. With proper cultural preparation, study-abroad students can become mindful travelers by developing respect and sensitivity for host locations (Slimbach, 2010). The Interactive Qualifying Project (IQP) at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) speaks to the university’s long-term commitment to global learning. Under current practices, not all students in the program receive specific cultural preparation for the host location. Some project centers require an additional preparatory course to educate students on their IQP location. Our sponsor, Professor Lauren Mathews, the director of the Hawai‘i Project Center (HPC), charged our team with developing a preparatory course that would culturally prepare students for their study-abroad experience and create well-informed travelers.
To achieve the project goal, we divided our work into three objectives. Our first objective was to analyze the structure, format, and content of current preparatory courses for the IQP, taken two terms prior to travel, also known as the Pre-Pre-Qualifying Project (Pre-PQP). To complete this objective, we interviewed Pre-PQP instructors and past Pre-PQP students on their experiences and knowledge of preparatory courses. Through this process, we were able to identify important design elements for the preparatory course.
Our second objective was to identify and evaluate critical themes of knowledge about Hawai‘i. To complete this objective, we interviewed experts from universities and museums in Hawai‘i on specific subjects within their area of expertise. Through our expert interview analysis, we identified the six critical themes of knowledge that students should master before their IQP experience.
Our third objective was to design a draft preparatory course using backward course design. To complete this objective, we used our background knowledge from prior objectives to design the course format and the specific course components. Following backward course design, we first defined learning outcomes, created assessments based upon them, and lastly created learning activities (Wiggins & McTighe, 1998). Through research and expert interviews, we accumulated a collection of resources. Most of these resources were provided by the experts we interviewed and include academic journals, books, and documentary films. Our final deliverable is a drafted course that can be pilot-tested and implemented by the HPC Director.
Results 
The results from our interviews with current Pre-PQP instructors and past Pre-PQP students strengthened our understanding of current Pre-PQP courses, which we then applied to develop a general course format. The results from our interviews with experts within the subjects of history, arts and culture, ethnic studies, and the environment of Hawai‘i allowed our team to finalize the course module themes. Our drafted course includes course learning outcomes, assessments, learning activities, course materials, and a syllabus.
Our final deliverable to our sponsor is a Google Drive folder that organizes and contains all of the elements for the drafted course that are easily accessible. This folder is organized into sub-folders, specified in Weeks 1-7. Each weekly folder includes the instructor lesson plan, student-led activity guide sheet, and any necessary resources or materials needed for that week. Another subfolder, Sources, includes the resources list and any expert-provided sources we do not have access to through WPI’s Gordon Library. The syllabus, post-student-led activity survey, and end of course survey are also organized in this Drive folder. The director of the HPC indicated this Google Drive folder would be useful as she implements the drafted course for the Hawai‘i Pre-PQP course in the future.
Discussion and Recommendations
Over the last seven weeks, our team made significant progress towards our overall project goal, to design a course that would culturally prepare future HPC cohorts for their study-abroad IQP experience and create well-informed travelers. We completed five interviews with Pre-PQP instructors, six interviews with experts, and four interviews with past Pre-PQP students. We used the transcripts and our interview analysis to build and design a draft preparatory course for the HPC. The main limitation of our project was time: we only had seven weeks to complete this project due to the term structure at WPI. It is important to note that the scheduling of interviews, particularly those with the experts, delayed our timeline significantly. This delay in our initial timeline did not allow enough time to conduct pilot testing of our course materials.
The results from our interview analysis and drafted course guided our recommendations for our sponsor to implement, pilot, and revise the course. We also provide additional recommendations for Pre-PQP instructors to improve their courses. We hope our work will help support the future of the HPC and that our sponsor can implement the drafted course to help shape future travelers, not tourists.