Dr. Diana S. Perdue, chosen as one of two Fulbright Scholars to Rwanda for 2009-2010, currently is serving in the capital city of Kigali, centrally located in the middle of this small, landlocked country located in the southern half of the continent of Africa. Fulbright scholars are a select group of individuals chosen each year by the Council for International Exchange of Scholars (CIES) for their academic merit and leadership potential who are given the opportunity to study, teach and conduct research, exchange ideas and contribute to finding solutions to shared international concerns and to increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other countries. URL: http://www.cies.org/Fulbright/ .

For six months (January through June) Dr. Perdue will do her research and teaching project involving the two main universities in the country: the Kigali Institute of Education (KIE) and the Kigali Institute of Science & Technology (KIST). Both of these universities are fortunate to have the top students in Rwanda as they require very high scores on the nation's entrance exams.

Dr. Perdue is assisting the Mathematics Department at KIE in developing their Mathematics Education program of study and she is teaching a senior-level mathematics education course to the "teacher trainers". In Rwanda, the secondary level teachers are the ones who do the training for the primary level teachers. Her class consists of 16 students, age 24 - 37, who have anywhere from 4 - 8 years teaching experience; however, they are not familiar with student-centered teaching methodology or inquiry-based lesson planning. So far, they have experienced some "classic" lessons like the "handshake problem" and visiting "Chipton" and the students have absolutely LOVED it! In fact, every class so far has had about 75 other students outside the classroom watching intently through the windows. It seems everyone wants to know what this "muzungu" (foreigner) is doing!

At KIST, Dr. Perdue will be doing faculty training in teaching with technology and has been appointed their director of E-Learning. The university is very interested in getting their program started and, in fact, they have a good beginning. They already have a university Moodle site (open source Learning Management System, LMS, similar to Blackboard) set up and have even done some preliminary training of faculty and staff. However, at present, not many faculty are actually using the system and this is something that the Rector (equivalent to our President) would like to see change. So far, Dr. Perdue and her KIST E-Learning team have set the following goals: (1) by next semester, all courses at KIST will have the syllabus available online. (2) by Fall of 2011, a certain percentage (yet TBD but perhaps 25% to 33%) of courses will be taught as "hybrid" courses with certain course materials (lecture notes, assignments, etc.) and assignments (quizzes, discussion boards, etc.) being done online. The major long-term goal is to offer complete online courses for certain programs of study. On Wednesday, February 24, Dr. Perdue will give a public seminar on Using LMS in hybrid courses where she will discuss with the entire university the advantages as well as demonstrate, using her own Blackboard courses as models, what can be accomplished. The excitement is palpable and, once again, the campus is buzzing with the new things being done!

Dr. Perdue permanently resides in Chester, Va., and is a tenured Associate Professor of Mathematics Education at Virginia State University in the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science. She joined the faculty here in August, 2003; however, she’s taught (either mathematics or computer-related courses) in public and private schools, middle- and high-schools, two- and four-year colleges, and technical / business colleges since about 1988.

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