2017 Provost’s Learning Innovations Grants 2017 PROVOST’S ... Robyn.pdf · 2017 Provost’s...

2017 Provost’s Learning Innovations Grants

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2017 PROVOST’S LEARNING INNOVATIONS GRANTS

APPLICATION INSTRUCTIONS

1. Complete this Application Form, in its entirety, and save as “Lastname_Firstname_APP” (using your name).

2. Complete the Budget Worksheet and save as “Lastname_Firstname_BUDGET” (using your name).

3. Ask your Department Head to complete the Department Head Certification, scan and save as, “Lastname_Firstname_SIG” (using your name).

4. Email all documents to [email protected], no later than 11:59pm EST, January 25, 2017.

If you have any questions about completing this application, please email [email protected], or contact Michael Starenko at 585-475-5035 or [email protected].

APPLICANT INFORMATION This application is for a:

X Exploration Grant

Focus Grant

Principal Applicant name: Robyn K. Dean

Faculty title: Assistant Professor Email: [email protected] Phone: 475-2549 (Full-time only)

College: NTID Department: American Sign Language and Interpreter Education

Department Head name: Kim Kurz Email: [email protected] Others involved in the project (if any): Eight guest lecturers Project name: Introducing Translation and Interpreting Studies for Global Collaboration Total funds requested (as calculated on the budget worksheet): $4,200 (requests of $1,000 to $5,000 will be considered)


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BUDGET There is a fillable PDF worksheet to calculate your budget. You can download the worksheet at rit.edu/ili/plig.

• The total shown on this worksheet must match the “Total funds requested” in the Applicant Information section of this application form

• If awarded, additional funds will be provided to cover any benefits and ITS expenses associated with the salary budget requested

• Note that any equipment or other materials purchased with grant funds are the property of your department and revert to the department after your project is completed

TIMELINE Please indicate any variances to the planned PLIG 2017 schedule and your reasons. If you do not intend to deviate from the schedule, you may leave this section blank.

Task Date Proposed Variance and Reason

Full project plan submitted August 23, 2017

Preliminary findings submitted January 10, 2018

Summary of final findings submitted August 22, 2018

Final budget accounting submitted August 22, 2018

Teaching and Learning Commons submission due (posting a summary of findings, examples of teaching designs or materials, etc.)

October 3, 2018

Participation in Teaching and Learning Services PLIG dissemination event (e.g., PLIG Showcase)

November 2018


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STATEMENT OF UTILITY (two pages maximum) Using the evaluation criteria outlined in the Proposal Evaluation section of the PLIG website, please provide an overview of the project you are proposing, including: • Project objectives

• An explanation of the teaching/learning problem(s) it is designed to address

• An explanation of the significance of the project to student outcomes and/or the student experience.

• A brief description of how the project integrates with activity already underway at RIT in a priority area and/or how this approach has been successfully used at RIT already.

Objectives

This synergistic project brings together faculty from different RIT schools and departments who share interest and expertise in the field of translation and interpreting (T&I). The primary objective is to plan and host a unique, new undergraduate course, potentially attractive to a wide array of RIT students, which “lifts the curtain” on the oft-mysterious (and seldom “revealed”) process of T&I in various cross-linguistic, cross-cultural settings, including the variety of international collaborative settings/situations in which RIT students and faculty already are regulalry involved. The goals of the proposed course are three-fold: (1) to inform and instruct students (especially monolingual students) how their collaborations that are mediated or affected by T&I professionals can be made more effective via greater understanding of T&I processes that are generally “shrouded in mystery”; (2) to inform and potentially interest bilingual students to explore the many career options that exist within the broad T&I field; and (3) to raise the level of awareness of T&I as a specific field of study relevant to many schools and departments across RIT (and beyond, via our dissemination efforts) in an era where global collaboration is an increasing educational and occupational priority.

Problem to be Addressed

Companies and organizations often rely on their international staff or bilingual employees to make cross-cultural, cross-linguistic connections successful. This typical approach presumes that bilingualism and/or international experience alone are sufficient to guide effective cross-cultural, cross-linguistic interaction. These insufficiently informed assumptions can lead to serious problems. The Internet is rampant with examples of misleading, embarrassing, and insulting language translations as well as behavioral, marketing, and other cultural faux pas made by organizations, despite their earnest attempts to engage international audiences effectively and respectfully. If the individuals responsible for planning and engaging in such interactions were familiar with the literature, processes, norms, etc., established within the T&I and related fields, their work would be greatly enhanced, whether or not their work role involves translating or interpreting per se.

In reality, the processes involved in effectively adapting spoken or written material from one language and culture to another, as well as behavioral and other elements of human interaction, are quite complex, not at all “common sense,” and often shrouded in mystery. Furthermore, translators and interpreters who work with international organizations are often improperly constrained by those who supervise their work (e.g., directed to “translate word-for-word what I say” which is virtually impossible), in large part because the theories and standards of the T&I discipline are largely unknown.

Significance

RIT seeks to educate all students to be prepared to engage, achieve, and compete on a global scale. Our satellite campuses in several international locations further emphasize the importance of our students (and RIT as an institution itself) taking on an international perspective to pursue excellence in this era of global


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STATEMENT OF UTILITY (continued)

collaboration. Whether our graduates work for corporations, not-for profits, governmental or non-governmental organizations, there is a growing need for personnel to work effectively across borders, cultures, and languages.

This project aims to improve the preparedness of RIT students, many of whom will be future employees within the global workforce/marketplace, to work effectively and collaboratively with experts in the T&I field and to gain substantive, useful knowledge regarding the somewhat new construct of “transcreation” – the process of recreating or adapting materials and products for applicability to other cultural groups (references available upon request).

The T&I field was identified by U.S. News and World Report in 2011 as one of the best and fastest growing career categories. Language services also have been on the radar of international quality and standards organizations since 2010 (https://www.astm.org/COMMITTEE/F43.htm). The number of T&I-related service and consulting companies is growing at a rapid pace. Should not our graduates be better prepared to participate in and/or effectively engage with these employment trends?

A new course that introduces students to T&I theories, available language services, different types of T&I practitioners, and the many venues in which T&I work takes place, whether within the U.S. or internationally, would be a significant, innovative contribution to the RIT curriculum. We believe a wide array of students would benefit from this course. We are unaware of any comparable courses in colleges or universities elsewhere, despite our collective experience in the T&I academic field. Again, while one outcome of this project may be to stimulate certain students to become T&I practitioners, the broader objective is to develop a student cohort that is able to work collaboratively with T&I experts in the global workforce.

Integration

The idea for this project arose from discussions between faculty from the American Sign Language and Interpreting Education (ASLIE) department at NTID and faculty from the Modern Languages and Cultures department in the College of Liberal Arts (COLA) and is built upon the long-standing relationships between COLA and NTID. For almost a decade, ASLIE has worked in close collaboration with the Modern Languages and Cultures department to offer American Sign Language classes to non-NTID students.

Several majors across campus intersect around the topic of bilingualism and cross-cultural communication: International and Global Studies (COLA), Global Business (College of Business), signed language interpreting (NTID), and the new major for Modern Languages and Cultures (COLA). Even students whose studies are less directly associated with cross-linguistic or international issues (e.g., Psychology, Sociology and Anthropology, and many more) still engage in course content relevant to this topic and stand to benefit from the educational experience provided via this proposed course.

Consistent with the longer pedagogical history of RIT, this project draws upon the expertise of actual practitioners (of the T&I craft). RIT courses have long been rooted in practitioner-led education. Learning theory and building skills outside employment settings certainly has merit but education is vastly enhanced when students engage directly with practitioners of the craft they are studying. The proposed course is consistent with that RIT tradition.


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STATEMENT OF CREATIVITY (three paragraphs maximum) Provide a brief description of how this is a novel approach, or a new application of an existing mode or model of teaching and learning, and/or research about how teaching and learning represents a new paradigm. (Please note that special consideration will be given to proposals that demonstrate a new use/application of a model, system, or technology already in use at RIT.)

There are few universities, even internationally, that allow for the specific study of T&I and none, that we are aware of, that offer an “overview” type course such as the one we propose for students who are not necessarily planning to pursue T&I careers. There are only a handful of universities in the U.S. that offer T&I as a major. Yet, professional opportunities for translators and interpreters continue to grow at a rapid pace. Bilingual individuals often find themselves working as ad hoc translators or interpreters without any training or education. This immediately calls into the question the quality of their work product and the potential ineffectiveness, even harmfulness, of their work product. Instead of trying to compete with programs in the U.S. that train translators and interpreters, this project proposes to stimulate the education of a much larger potential cadre of graduates who know how to effectively partner with translators and interpreters in order to meet the language and other cross-cultural service needs of companies and organizations, again, by “raising the curtain” on the rarely elucidated work of T&I professionals and challenging the presumptions behind less-informed approaches to such efforts.

Many employers hire ad hoc translators and interpreters (i.e., bilinguals without specific T&I training) without sufficient quality assurance processes in place. The unexamined “faith” in their oft-admired bilingual skills (especially in the monolinguistic-heavy U.S.A.) is frequently ill-placed and usually insufficiently informed. Unfortunately, many T&I service companies further this ill-placed faith by providing assurances regarding the effectiveness of their services, again, based on bilingualism alone (and even that promise is questionable at times). Having an employee with sufficient education who can vet, consult with, and work cooperatively with T&I professionals would offer a highly desirable skill set. Even if this employee does not have extensive knowledge about the particular linguistic and/or cultural group being targeted, they would still possess a level of familiarity with the process, protocols, and challenges faced by the T&I professionals with whom they work to be able to advise the subcontracting practitioners and their employers on the quality of the services they are engaging. In short, the creativity of our PLIG project idea lies not on a primary focus on the specialization of a handful of students to pursue employment in the T&I service field (although we do expect this outcome as well) but rather on its broader focus on raising awareness about the T&I field for the larger cadre of students who will ultimately work within the context of the global marketplace and benefit greatly from the information this course will offer.


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STATEMENT OF EFFICACY (two pages maximum) Provide a brief description of the experiment/research design, methodology, and methods of data collection you will use to gauge efficacy.

Overview

The proposed course will consist of an array of topics that span the employment-relevant spectrum of the T&I field – again, whether one seeks to be a provider or a consumer of T&I services. The specific topics for particular class sessions have been selected (and will be further refined) based on the expertise of local and international individuals with whom the collaborating faculty are already familiar. Already-determined topics include: T&I theories, T&I services and agencies, T&I as related to STEM, T&I as related to healthcare topics/settings, T&I in business settings, transcreation of gaming products, fiction and nonfiction translation, conference interpreting, and interpreting at the United Nations.

The proposed course will be offered once per week in the evening in the Spring, 2018 semester, so that guest lecturers (eight are planned/identified) may enrich and diversify the course curriculum after their working hours. These eight guest lecturers will consist of local T&I practitioners and T&I management personnel. Their engagement in this course will allow students to network with these practitioners/agencies, optimally (with faculty support), leading to specific collaboration opportunities, including “co-op” experiences between these community service agencies and RIT students.

The ASLIE department at NTID already offers a “Special Topics” course shell that will allow for the proposed course to be readily offered in time for spring 2018 semester.

Timeline, Objectives, and Responsible Parties

Summer 2017, Robyn Dean (NTID/ASLIE) and Sara Armengot (COLA/MLC) will:

• Finalize the course syllabus, course materials and secure the engagement of guest lecturers

o Guest lecturers already have been identified (and have preliminarily agreed) to teach the following topics: conference interpreting, U.N. interpreting, business interpreting, and language service models.

o Given the extensive T&I professional networks of the collaborating faculty, there is no concern about engaging additional guest lecturers to address other relevant topic areas.

• Design a campaign to raise awareness and advertise the course to prospective students, to be delivered in the Spring semester, 2018

Fall 2017, Project director Robyn Dean, along with collaborating faculty will: • Roll out the course advertising campaign (e.g., talk to student organizations and work with

instructors who teach courses on international relations, anthropology, psychology, etc., to advertise the course offering)

• Complete the necessary administrative procedures for finalizing the course design and plan (e.g., internal paperwork, identifying textbooks or other readings in collaboration with the RIT bookstore and Wallace Library)

Spring 2018, Project director Robyn Dean, along with collaborating faculty will: • Deliver the new course • Collect formative and summative evaluation data • Based on evaluation data, determine efficacy and plans for the course’s utility for future iterations


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STATEMENT OF EFFICACY (continued)

Evaluation

A multi-method approach to both formative and summative evaluations will be employed in this project. As the project plan is evolving, project meetings with involved parties will be structured with agendas and process/outcome notes will be taken and archived. When the course plan and syllabus are semi-finalized, feedback will be solicited from stakeholders (e.g., involved department faculty and guest lecturers) and other potentially relevant parties (e.g., national and international experts in the T&I field who are within our professional network). The final course syllabus will be retrained for later evaluation feedback from parties engaged in our dissemination plan (see next section).

Summative evaluation data will be obtained from the primary faculty, guest lecturers, participating students (e.g, via Qualtrics software), and other relevant parties we can identify (e.g., support personnel and national and international experts in the T&I field who we’ll keep informed about this innovative project and its outcomes).

Formative and summative evaluation reports will be submitted to the PLIG overseers and other relevant parties (e.g., the ASLIE chair, the MLC chair, the COLA and NTID deans and associate deans, etc.) as requested.

These evaluation results will inform our dissemination plans – conference presentations and one or more peer-reviewed journal articles as described in the next section.


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DISSEMINATION PLAN (optional) Provide details about the journal, conference, show, or other external vehicle with strong potential for dissemination of your results. Include supporting documentation, such as preliminary interest or acceptance, with your application, if available. (Please note that special consideration will be given to proposals that have a defined opportunity for external dissemination, such as an academic journal or professional conference.)

ILI/TLS will assist with arranging channels for disseminating results within RIT (e.g., annual PLIG Showcase).

Project Director Robyn Dean has an extensive lecture and publication record involving national and international associations and publications in the T&I field. In fact, her doctoral degree from Harriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, Scotland, was from a T&I department consisting of faculty and students representing an array of different spoken and signed languages, cultures, and work settings within the T&I field. This is a highly unusual educational background for a “typical” sign language interpreting faculty member. Dr. Dean’s scholarship is accordingly well-known far beyond standard sign language interpreting forums and publications and, increasingly, is welcomed and recognized in forums and publications dealing more broadly with T&I topics. In addition to dozens of first-authored publications in the T&I field, a best-selling first-authored textbook on interpreting, and hundreds of invited presentations to varied U.S. and international audiences interested in her broad T&I knowledge base, Dr. Dean presently serves on an international standards committee regarding T&I services.

In all these regards, an aggressive, promising plan of dissemination will be pursued regarding the methods and outcomes of this unique, proposed course.

International Conferences Where Presentation Proposals Will Be Sent

International Association for Translation and Intercultural Studies

American Translators’ Association

American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages

Critical Link

Modern Languages Association (regional and national meetings)

New York State Association of Foreign Language Teachers

International Journals Under Consideration for a Project Design/Outcome Reports

Interpreting

International Journal of Interpreter Education

Other Journal Types Under Consideration Pending Collaborator Input

International business journals

Anthropology and Psychology journals

Other journals relevant to cross-cultural academic, business, etc., engagement


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ADDITIONAL CONSIDERATIONS Please address these questions, if needed.

Will your project require assistance for extensive or unusual media, multimedia, simulation, and/or software development? If so, please explain?

All courses offered by RIT must be accessible to students with disabilities, according to Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (rit.edu/studentaffairs/disabilityservices/info). Is your proposed teaching approach accessible to all students, with reasonable accommodation? If not, please explain.

RIT abides by the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 (FERPA), which prohibits instructors from making students' identities, course work, and educational records public without their consent (rit.edu/xVzNE). Will any data gathering or sharing for your project raise any FERPA issues? If so, please explain.

No.

Yes.

No.


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DISSEMINATION AGREEMENT By completing this grant application, I agree to provide the materials described here, in support of disseminating what is learned from this project to other faculty at RIT.

I also agree to return all/a portion of the funds that I receive for this project to RIT if I fail to complete or provide the materials described here. • Full project plan (including roles and responsibilities, milestone dates, and pertinent project details) • Overview of preliminary findings (may include experiment/study design, lessons learned, initial data

collection, and/or literature review summary) • Final summary of findings (including data collection, lessons learned, implications for further study, and which

may be in the form of an article abstract, conference presentation outline, or short report) • Final budget accounting (reconciliation of budget provided with your application and the actual project

expenses) • Teaching and Learning Commons posting (a summary of findings and examples of teaching designs or

materials) • Participation in an ILI/TLS dissemination event (e.g., PLIG Showcase)

By submitting this application, I accept this agreement. _RKD__ (applicant, please initial here)


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DEPARTMENT HEAD CERTIFICATION

SEE SEPARATE ATTACHMENT

NOTE: When signed, please scan and email to: [email protected]

Dean_Robyn_APPDean_Robyn_APPDean_Robyn_SIG

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