Anne Mendenhall: Helping to provide "education for all"

Anne Mendenhall is a doctoral candidate in our program. Currently, she is in the process of writing her prospectus and is always involved with various service tasks in the IS program here at FSU.  

Recently, Anne spent several months living in Indonesia working as an Instructional Design/Distance Learning consultant with the Universitas Terbuka (UT) the Open University of Indonesia. This university is considered a mega-university with over 600,000 students. This experience helped her to learn more about the field in addition to helping her mold her career interests, which include: international educational topics; traditional instructional design theories, models, and practices, team-based and collaborative learning, task-centered and problem-based instruction, mental models, and distance education.

“Working with developing countries to establish ‘education for all’ continues to be a strong interest of mine. This may be accomplished through grants at a research 1 university…Ultimately, I would like to work at a university as a professor where all of these interests can be explored and developed.”

Anne’s experience in Indonesia was rewarding and life changing.

“The Indonesian people are very kind, generous, and loving.”

When asked about her experience in Indonesia, she mentioned that the university has many, “unique challenges that other universities may not have to face. High enrollment is one [challenge] but also UT’s students are geographically spread over many islands, across oceans, and in remote villages throughout the country. Creating and delivering effective and engaging instruction is a major priority for UT.”

Anne was able to work with faculty and staff with diverse backgrounds and great experiences. Much of her work included professional development and training faculty and staff at UT. She was able to train and consult with faculty on principles of online teaching and learning as well as various other emergent technologies that could enhance communication between students, tutors, and faculty.

Teacher in-service training in Sumatra (organizing committee)

“My work at UT provided me with invaluable experiences that helped me grow as an instructor, instructional designer, and a global citizen. I learned a great deal about the Open University system, the students, and educational practices and challenges in a developing country.”

When asked about the changes she experienced while on her voyage, Anne said that the biggest changes were personal.

“While living in Indonesia I developed a great love and admiration for the people. I was humbled by their desire to learn and by their generosity and kindness.”

While research was not the primary purpose for living and working in Indonesia, Anne was able to conduct some research at the Open University.

“Several years ago the Rector (president of the university) at the time, Professor Dr. Atwi Suparman, decided to restructure the organization. He created a team-based work environment where teams of faculty, staff, and tutors would work together to create curriculum, organize seminars, edit journals, conduct research, etc. Most faculty and staff are on multiple teams. I felt this was a good opportunity, because of the unique work environment, to qualitatively and quantitatively study the teams… I also wanted to know how the culture of this work environment affected team cohesion and mental models. I had the instruments [instruments designed by Dr. Tristan Johnson that measure shared mental models among team members] translated into Bahasa Indonesia because not all of the participants were fluent in English. The data is still being collected and the qualitative data will need to be translated into English for analysis.” 

Teacher in-service training leaders and speakers

Workshop with Dr. Mike Spector and Dr. Thomas Luschei

In addition to her consulting and training work, Anne was an invited keynote speaker for the International Seminar on Instructional Strategies in Higher Education. This was the first time she had spoken in front of such a large crowd (400 people) at a professional conference and although she was nervous it was a wonderful experience. Speaking at this conference helped her to network and put her in contact with educators in remote areas, which gave her the opportunity to visit the schools in these areas.

 “Visiting the remote schools was a very rewarding experience. At one primary school the children had been practicing for an assembly where I was to give them encouragement on speaking English and doing well in school. I was asked to speak at this assembly about 15 minutes before the event. This is one example of learning to take things in stride and just “go with the flow.” It really helped to have a sense of humor and an ability to enjoy the surprises.

The childrens’ sweet spirits and loving personalities touched my tender heart. As I spoke to them I could only think of my nieces and nephew, whom I missed very much. I spoke about things that I would say to my own family. I told them that they are loved and people they don’t even know care about them and hope for their well-being and happiness. I told them there would be many challenges and obstacles that would come their way, but they can overcome those obstacles and challenges. Other things were said but I don’t remember what they were. I only remember hoping that something that I said would inspire and motivate a child to persist and endure through those challenges, that most of us in the U.S. could never imagine.”

It seems that our Anne Mendenhall is already having a great impact on the world. Keep up the good work Anne and thank you for sharing your experiences with all of us!