Cambodia Project (2011-2012)

 

McMaster Fellows

JoAnn Burkhardt, Faculty, Education – The purpose of this proposed project is to collect data pertaining to the prevalence and the understanding of Autism Spectrum Disorder in Cambodia. Work has been done with teachers, governmental officials and public school administrators for nearly a decade while partnering with the Southeast Asian Children’s Mercy Fund. The Fellow’s work with teachers and school administrators has focused on teacher training pertaining to educational pedagogies for typically developing children. For a variety of reasons, the Fellow has recently become interested in the topic of Autism within Cambodian society. This personal and professional interest coincides with requests from a number of governmental officials, teachers and leaders of the Cambodian Women’s Crisis Center to provide training within the country pertaining to the issue of non-typical children. This confluence of professional/personal interest and community need has provided an impetus for this project.  

Fred Coulter, Faculty, Education – The project will be to explore the possibility of making an interactive connection via the internet with a classroom in Cambodia and a classroom at Defiance College.  The purpose will be to give teachers in Cambodia a live in-service focused on active learning.  In May of 2010 teachers in Phnom Penh requested that they be able to see teachers in the United States implementing active learning in their classrooms.  Further, the purpose of this project will be to explore how Defiance College students can better understand teaching conditions in Cambodia.

McMaster Associate Fellow

Don Buerk, Faculty, History – This project will focus on the learning experiences gained by each scholar as it increases their problem-solving ability.  Creative thinking is equally as important as critical thinking.  Through the supervision of the Associate Fellow, the scholars will learn how to function in a culture different from their own, to travel internationally, to gain intercultural knowledge and competence and ultimately to become global citizens.

 

McMaster Scholars

Craig Bills, Junior, Psychology/Social Work – The issue that is being addressed by this project is the psychological effects of trauma, primarily PTSD. The scholar proposes creating a Khmer training manual which can easily and effectively explain the aspects of PTSD. A presentation will be given to CWCC professionals and medical personnel and allow for questions and answers throughout. The Cambodian Women’s Crisis Center will be the primary prospect for this project. It is hoped that, with the new gained knowledge, CWCC will become even more successful in the treatment of the victims that they take in and will be able to get them living their lives again with new found hope.   

Kellie Cooper, Senior, Psychology – This project will analyze the economic status and quality of life. The World Health Organization Quality of Life (WHOQO) survey will be used as guide to identify current problems facing citizens Cambodia.

Olivia Ehrle, Senior, Communications – Through dialoging with members of the Cambodian community, the scholar wants to record information about Cambodia's cultural views, resources, and plans regarding special needs to determine how best to meet the needs of the community with future projects.  The scholar also wants to distribute a Disabilities 101 manual to as many people and institutions as possible, to spread knowledge about the nature, symptoms and treatments of common disabilities.

Nicole D Grim, Junior, AYA Integrated Social Studies – One of the problems in Cambodia is the lack of teacher training. Cambodia is experiencing a circular problem by the teachers being trained by untrained teachers, over and over. The problem does not lie with the teachers lack of desire to learn; merely the lack of resources available to them. This project for Cambodia is to create instructional DVD’s on different learning strategies for the teachers of Cambodia. These videos would be translated into Khmer and would help the teachers to become better at their job. It would give them visual examples of the types of learning strategies used in the United States.

Kimberly A. Grubmiller, Junior, Middle Childhood Education Social Studies/Language Arts – The issue this project is addressing comes as a direct request from community partners for instructional videos related to educational psychology and pedagogical techniques. The videos and manuals scholars produce will be a resource that can be used for multiple training sessions long after our visit. The scholar will present the materials to teachers and educational leaders in various communities.

Alexis Pierce, Sophomore, Early Childhood Education – Coming together with other education majors from Defiance College that are a part of the McMaster program; this scholar plans to create a skit through a video and a book. The scholar wants to help these inexperienced teachers understand techniques to better their teaching. One of these techniques that will be focused on during the project is student engaged learning. Through this project, the scholar wants to help teachers in Cambodia to gain experience and enthusiasm to teach the young lives in Cambodia.

Zachariah Polzin, Senior, Mathematics and Molecular Biology – The Cambodian education system is in need of assistance with secondary education. There has been little outside aid toward this compared to primary education.  The project proposed involves a creation of instructional materials (DVDS and method manuals) in content area needed in Cambodia.  The areas of focus will be in Math and Science and will be subject to researched community needs.  These materials will be translated into Khmer.

Kellie Raypole, Senior, Forensic Science – Contamination in Cambodian drinking water is an ongoing battle. Organizations have been implemented in Cambodia just for research on arsenic contamination. This project will address the issue of contaminated water by performing basic water quality testing along with arsenic testing. Following the tests, the results will be provided to the host in the form of an informative brochure.   Along with the protocol, this project starts the use of a database that will be used in the following years to keep a collection of the data for future Cambodian Scholars.

Emma Starks, Junior, Psychology and Social Work – The problem that is being addressed in this project is the lack of interviewing skills and knowledge that Cambodia has. The scholar will be proposing to train the CWCC staff these interviewing skills they lack, and conduct workshops for them to train and practice as well.

Taylor Tuttle, Junior, Biology – This project will address the issue of contaminated water by performing basic water quality testing along with arsenic testing. Following the tests, the results will be provided to the host in the form of an informative brochure.   Along with the protocol, this project starts the use of a database that will be used in the following years to keep a collection of the data for future Cambodian Scholars.