Educating Asia's Women, One Scholarship At A Time

A major update on campus has been the establishment of a Digital Media Hub. The Digital Media Hub provides an important space where refugee students can produce recordings and other media expressing their experience and perspective. This space features new computers for digital media production and includes a soundproof room. The computers have been installed with the Premiere Pro video editing program, allowing for advanced video editing lessons and activities; and the soundproof space allows for students and staff to edit films, record interviews, and/or make sound recordings.

Students can also learn valuable technology and storytelling skills, expanding potential professional and extra-curricular opportunities. With the equipment available, students are also able to draw upon skills they have learned in an on-campus documentary course, Documentary Filmmaking, to make their own documentaries reflecting their life experiences. During this lockdown, students have made more than 50 short documentary films over the past two semesters as part of the final project of the documentary course.

To accommodate the majority of students who are taking classes in their homes, the course syllabus has been designed in a way so that students can create films with the resources that they have in their homes such as their laptops, mobile phones, etc. The course instructor has also developed video tutorials on video editing and cinematography students can use to understand the techniques they have studied properly. The instructor has said the course is “helping our students to create a new voice, a new way for them to present their thoughts.”

During the lockdown in spring 2020, the Media Hub was open for students’ use and many students used it for their academic and personal projects while they were on campus. At this time, most students have returned home, however a few students from particularly vulnerable communities remain on campus. The Media Hub remains open for any student still on campus. When faculty are back on campus, the Performing Arts Director hopes to enlarge the video editing room to create more space for all editing panels.

While students are not on campus this semester due to the Covid-19 pandemic, we are pleased to have a number of initiatives in place to continue the spirit of a cohesive AUW community:

• The AUW student-led clubs are still finding creative ways to adapt to an online medium to keep their peers involved;
• Pathways plans to begin class-to-class peer learning projects whereby we connect students via informal writing projects. By sharing written letters, stories, and anecdotes with each other, we aim to let students practice using English outside their regular classroom activities and also create the feeling of being member of a larger community of learners;
• Similarly, we have begun the process of developing a partnership with an external organization, Global Nomads, with the goal of connecting Pathways students with adolescent learners from around the world. Global Nomads' mission statement is: "to envision a new generation of global citizens who are empathetic, aware and taking action to solve some of the world’s most pressing issues" by leveraging technology "to foster authentic, global youth – driven dialogue."

As always, one of the hallmarks of the Pathways for Promise program is our commitment to encouraging person-to-person mutual understanding through international, cross-cultural peer-learning.

Service Learning

Pathways is currently developing its capacity and expertise to deliver on service learning in an online context. Pathways Instructors have completed a 3-month course of Webinars on service learning in an online environment. 

Our plans for service learning this academic year include:  

a)      Pathways Students interacting with other students from a range of cultural backgrounds and discussing topics such as COVID -19 (e.g. steps to protect communities), maintaining wellbeing in an online environment, and protecting the marine environment. This global interaction will be facilitated by 'Global Nomads'.

b)      We aim to hold at least 2 online forums over the next 8 months, led by our students, with our network of local Universities and NGOs. Students will share the lessons they’ve learned through the Global Nomads initiative as well as explore and discuss the challenges of building online communities.

c)      Students will work with partner organizations in Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Bangladesh to organize community initiatives which promote 'mental well-being'. 

Ultimately, since Pathways is a bridge program with the inherent goal of instilling confidence in our students, our foremost goal is to make our students feel comfortable. The experience of teaching and learning online is relatively new for all of us, and we're all navigating what "the new normal" of education means together. We encourage consistent student feedback and are working to create the best educational experience possible.