Aline Baehler

Aline Baehler – Experiential Language Learning in French

Posted on by admin in Blended + online, Discipline, Language instruction, Method, PBL + collaboration

Summary

Professor Aline Baehler (French) leverages web publishing tools for intermediate-advanced learners of French to use language skills in a realistic, experiential way. Her award-winning Papiers Mâchés and Capsules de grammaire are open source platforms for strengthening existing grammatical knowledge; the Scénarios site is a virtual apartment building where students role play as French-speaking residents.

Learning objectives

  • Create opportunities for intermediate-advanced students to review content learned in lower-level courses
  • Increase feedback for students expanding their linguistic skills
  • Provide immersive experiences to engage with the target language and culture
  • Foster collaboration among students, both in and out of class

In this video, Professor Baehler speaks about a role-playing project in her intermediate-advanced French course.  Students create fictional characters and collectively construct a vibrant apartment building in a francophone city of their choice through text, conversation, and multimedia.  By navigating daily life through the eyes of native speakers, students have authentic ways to explore culture, history, grammar, and vocabulary in the target language.  This innovation addresses the difficulty in providing students with immersive experiences in the target language and culture.

Another challenge of bridge language course is having time needed to review content learned in lower-level courses, while also expanding linguistic skills.  To this end, Professor Baehler has developed two interactive, open-source tutorials that guide students through grammar and writing activities.

  • Capsules de grammaire: provides students with grammar and vocabulary practice
  • Papiers-Mâchés: scaffolds students through the writing process (currently being re-designed for accessibility and user experience)

In both platforms, students receive automatic feedback and can go through the materials at their own pace.

Student experience

  • Engage with lecture videos, interactive modules, and simulations outside of lecture time
  • Participate in hands on lab activities
  • Collaborate on group activities and review material during lecture time

Technology resources

Outcomes

  • Reflect the experiential act of language learning: Learning french30_collagelanguage is a social act, and creating a community where students can share and develop their language skills in a supportive environment reflects the reality of learning another language.  The Google Site also allows students to use language in a highly contextualized way, since they are using French as their fictional character.  
  • Create a participatory environment: Professor Baehler created a participatory environment where the instructor and students were full participants. Instead of completing assignments for the professor, students and professor had a collaborative role in building the online world.
  • More integrated curriculum: Professor Baehler found it easier to tie in discrete aspects of a foreign language curriculum since the virtual environment required students to use grammatical, semantic, and cultural knowledge in an authentic way.
  • Increased motivation: Professor Baehler found that students were more engaged with the language and sought out ways to showcase and use their linguistic knowledge.  Students collaborated and could be creative, adding images and rich background narratives for their fictional characters.
Quarks - Spaceship greenscreen

Allen Mincer – Flipping for Understanding

Posted on by admin in Blended + online, Discipline, Method, Sciences

Updated on 1/18/19

Summary

Professor Allen Mincer (Physics) flipped CORE-Quarks to Cosmos, a large lecture course for non-science majors. He developed original content to replace the use of two required textbooks; students engaged with material outside of class and participated in collaborative, active learning activities in class.

The current iteration of the course includes additional resources on background information for primary skills (unit conversion, estimation, dimensional analysis), as well as opportunities for metacognitive activities (e.g., self explanation). 

Learning objectives

  • Increase active learning opportunities for students to engage more deeply with concepts
  • Provide proper support for non-majors learning complex science content
  • Eliminate the need for students to purchase costly textbooks

“No textbook really deals with the material in this course in a way that fits what I wish to teach. But I feel that students need a way to go over the topics covered in lecture, as it is too easy to miss something when it is just heard once.” – Professor Allen Mincer

“No textbook really deals with the material in this course in a way that fits what I wish to teach. But I feel that students need a way to go over the topics covered in lecture, as it is too easy to miss something when it is just heard once,” describes Professor Mincer. The creation of freely available course materials, or Open Educational Resources (OER), allows him to cover topics more efficiently and allow students to use online delivery to review “anywhere, anytime”.  Professor Mincer also developed a custom simulation on the topic of Parallax, which allows students to interact with this challenging topic in real time.

Pairing a flipped course structure with OER plays an essential role in meeting pedagogical goals, such as increasing student engagement and learning.  In the spirit of affordability, OER will also eliminate the need for students to purchase textbooks that they might only need for a single course.

EXAMPLES OF CONTENT
#1. Parallax simulation: Click to access simulation

#2. Video lecture on how the Greeks calculated the size of the Earth

#3. Video demo of the Electroscope

#4. Video demo of the cathode

Student experience

  • Engage with lecture videos, interactive modules, and simulations outside of lecture time
  • Participate in hands on lab activities
  • Collaborate on group activities and review material during lecture time

Technology resources

Outcomes

  • Custom content replaced two textbooks, leading to total student cost savings of over $42,000 per semester
  • Increased scores for students performing at the intermediate and advanced levels
  • Ability for students to review lecture material anywhere, anytime
  • Recognition that future iterations should build in additional remediation needs for students with less exposure to physics concepts.
Microeconomics - Black market

Marc Lieberman – Flipping for Affordability

Posted on by admin in Blended + online, Discipline, Method, Social sciences

Updated 7/12/19

Summary

Microeconomics - supply and demandProfessor Marc Lieberman (Economics) flipped the recitation sections for both of his large lecture courses, Introduction to Microeconomics and Intro to Macroeconomics,  eliminating the need for students to purchase textbooks and platform licenses.  In addition to developing online modules and animations, Professor Lieberman leveraged NYU Classes to create an online problem solving platform.

Learning objectives

  • Provide students with essential review material to clarify points of confusion
  • Reduce the variability in instruction by recitation leaders
  • Eliminate the need for students to purchase costly textbooks and software

Microeconomics_RevenueProfessor Marc Lieberman created Open Educational Resources (OER), freely available course content, to solve pedagogical and financial challenges. Common recitation materials lead to all students receiving a similar level of information about key topics. Content can be customized for lectures, and made visually appealing through rich animations created by the NYU IT Media Production Team. No-cost content and platforms save students money (up to $350 per student).   

Macroeconomics module screenshot

Professor Lieberman worked with FAS (in partnership with NYU IT’s TLT Team) to develop similar resources for his Introduction to Macroeconomics course. These were implemented successfully in Fall 2018’s Intro to Macroeconomics course and will be used again in Professor Lieberman’s classes, as well as additional Economics courses running at NYU Florence, in the coming academic year.

Student experience

  • Go through online modules prior to lecture
  • Attend recitation sections and review material anywhere, anytime
  • Complete problem sets

Technology resources

  • Custom animations
  • Custom interactive modules, for recitation lectures + assessments
  • NYU Classes, for custom problem sets
  • NYU Stream, to house videos

Outcomes

  • Custom content replaced the need to purchase a textbook and interactive software, leading to cost savings of up to $350 per student.  
  • Standardized instruction across recitation sections
  • Ability for students to review material anywhere, anytime
  • Similar project completed for Introduction to Macroeconomics in Fall 2018
  • Example module: ‘How Banks Get in Trouble’ – Click to view module