Published April 9, 2010
By Josh Peterson, KVEW TV
An associate professor at Columbia Basin College is planning to help revolutionize and globalize higher education throughout the country.
Yongsheng Sun is getting a $15,000 grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
He’ll use the money to develop new online courses that incorporate teaching methods from other countries.
The classes will include instruction on math, political science and english among others.
Sun says the world is becoming more interconnected, and it’s more important now than ever to understand other cultures.
“We’re competing with everyone else in the world and it is important that we’re aware of what they’re doing and what they’re teaching in their classes somewhere else in the world, so that we know we’ll stay ahead and we know our students will be competitive when they graduate,” said Sun.
Sun is one of more than 80 teachers in Washington receiving money to work on the new learning programs.
The courses are expected to be free.
They’ll be created during the next couple of years.