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2011 FLTC Mini-Grant Recipients |
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FLTC funded five projects this year that incorporate the use of
latest technologies into existing foreign language and culture courses
to achieve specific learning objectives. A description of the 2011
funded projects follows:
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The
Russian Word: Exercises for a New Third– and Fourth-Year Russian
Textbook by Laura Kline,
Senior Lecturer in Russian, Department of Classical and Modern Languages,
Literatures, and Cultures
As
part of her project Laura Kline will create vocabulary and grammar
exercises, quizzes, chapter tests, and final exams on Blackboard
for her third and fourth level |
Russian students. Laura explains the rationale for her project:
“Currently available third- and fourth-year Russian textbooks
are inadequate because they are not designed to follow any particular
second-year textbook. Moreover, as our Russian classes are too small
to allow us to teach separate third- and fourth-year classes, we
are forced to teach them together. That requires a textbook providing
two years of material that can be started from any point (by students,
for example, who are entering the sequence in the third semester)
and containing exercises at different levels of difficulty. I am
currently creating a textbook that will respond to these needs.
The goal of this project is to create Blackboard exercises to be
used with this textbook.” Laura will create audio recordings
and video material as part of her project as well.
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Basic
German Language Sequence Cultural Database by
Randy Schantz, Part-Time Faculty, German and Slavic, Department
of Classical and Modern Languages, Literatures, and Cultures
Randy Schantz will develop a bank of
German-language cultural artifacts for the basic German language
courses. Randy explains: “The goal of the project is to |
create
a reference repository of German-language cultural artifacts for
instructors and students in the Beginning German Language Sequence:
German 1010, 1020 and 2010. The focus will be on brevity, accessibility,
ease, pertinence to and enjoyment of culture in German-speaking
countries and regions. The BGLS instructors can access the material
to create further instructional materials: Power Point presentations,
slides, worksheets, and assessment materials. The students can access
the material too to create presentations, prepare for and follow
up on cultural units in chapters, and simply browse, glean and enjoy.
The artifacts will be organized in order of and by the cultural
themes of the chapters in Vorsprung (Lovik, Guy and Chavez); there
will be folders for each chapter prepared from Vorsprung. The artifacts
will be from four types of media: images, texts, on-line resources,
and sound recordings.” Artifacts will be made available on
the Blackboard course website. |
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Online
Retention in Italian Basic Courses by
Silvia Giorgini, Coordinator of Italian Basic Courses, Department
of Classical and Modern Languages, Literatures, and Cultures
Silvia Giorgini’s FLTC mini-grant
project involves introducing online testing components in the basic
Italian courses. She will be moving quizzes and exams |
from
the existing paper-based format to the Blackboard environment. Silvia
elaborates on her project’s objectives: “The goal of
this project is to introduce online testing for Italian Basic Courses,
starting this Fall with ITA 2010. We believe that online testing
has several advantages for both the students and for the instructors.
Students will benefit by receiving the results more quickly. Once
implemented instructors can easily create, update and store online
exams. They’ll save time in planning and grading the exams,
and will have an electronic archive of all past exams. Moreover,
this change will reduce costs of paper and time spent copying. Furthermore,
I’d like to add an oral component to the exam and the online
testing will be the perfect way to implement this addition. Last,
as a coordinator, I will be able to analyze test results across
the Basic Courses and address problems in underperforming classes
and ensure effective student learning.” |
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Medical
Polish by Alina Klin,
Senior Lecturer in Polish, Department of Classical and Modern Languages,
Literatures, and Cultures
Alina Klin will create online content modules
on medical Polish in Blackboard. These modules will be included
into her current intermediate and advanced Polish courses. Describing
the need for her project Alina says: “Medical terminology
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too
specialized to be included in even third-year Polish language courses.
Due to the specialized content it would be difficult to offer this
type of course on a regular basis in a traditional classroom setting.
The only existing resource for students interested in learning the
medical terminology in Polish is a textbook published in Poland
in 1981.” A significant number of her students, Alina explained,
are pre-med students and are interested in acquiring medical vocabulary.
Alina plans on making the content available to students through
a Blackboard course website. |
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Voice
Thread Lessons Project by
Jie Billinger, Chinese Language Instructor, Department of Classical
and Modern Languages, Literatures, and Cultures
Jie Billinger will produce “mini
voice threads”, which are essentially audio and video vignettes,
that will be used in the basic Chinese language courses. Jie says:
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“As
a … language instructor …, and a student of the MAT
program of the College of Education, I am always [looking] for innovative
ways to improve teaching and learning. I believe that this project
using VoiceThread will introduce a new interactive and collaborative
way … for Chinese language acquisition at Wayne State University.…
As a result of this project, I anticipate an increase of individual
student participation and practice time and improvements of students’
speech quality. This project will also provide an excellent on-line
learning and discussion opportunity for language students to engage,
collaborate and connect.” |
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