My Russian Fulbright took an advantageous turn that demonstrates how the Fulbright Program brings scholars together in unexpected and meaningful ways, this time through robots.
To teach global capitalism in the U.S., I am constantly on the look-out for ways to move beyond old teaching techniques to ones that meet the changing needs of new century students, immersed in their digital lives. When, in 2014, I happened upon the work of anthropologist Dr. Jennifer Robertson, who studies how the Japanese use robots to care for the elderly, I decided to purchase a Japanese autonomous humanoid robot to use as a teaching tool in my classroom. The robot has been a grand success.
Five years later, I found myself as a Fulbrighter on the other side of the planet in Chelyabinsk, Russia in the Ural Mountains. While sharing with colleagues at South Ural State University my experiences teaching with a robot, Professor Alyunkov mentioned that there was a Russian professor on campus who had a robot. We followed up and learned that an engineering professor was teaching with a robot in a laboratory a mere four floors up.
When Dr. Dmitrii Katsay and I met, we connected immediately!
Turns out, a group of Russian scholars in engineering, computer science, and linguistics in 2014 had purchased an autonomous humanoid robot from France and programmed the robot to teach graduate students from China and Arabia how to speak Russian. Robots, usually found in computer science departments, were now used in linguistics and business departments in Russia and the U.S., respectively.
In both instances, teaching with a sophisticated AI tool helped engage students experientially, heightened student interest in course content, boosted classroom participation, and deepened retention of knowledge. The realization of our mutual research sparked the creation of a Russian-American research initiative to advance knowledge on ways to use robots to promote participatory learning in university classrooms.
Unbidden, robotics became the surprising link that sparked a fascinating meeting of the minds that continues today, thanks to the Fulbright Program!
Patrice Flynn – Fulbright to Russia 2019