Susanna Horng – Creative Cartography: The City as Site of Cultural Production

Posted on by Timothy Schaffer in Humanities, PBL + collaboration

Summary

Professor Susanna Horng (Liberal Studies) uses project based learning to guide her first-year Writing II students in the creation of digital maps. Students are asked to research and design an unwritten chapter for one of the following course texts: Maps of the Imagination: The Writer as Cartographer by Peter Turchi, or Nonstop Metropolis: A New York City Atlas edited by Rebecca Solnit & Joshua Jelly-Schapiro. Students use ESRI Story Maps software to create interactive, city-based narratives/digital humanities projects, which interrogate the urban and visualize what it means to be a Global Citizen.

Learning Objectives

  • Creative cartography offers multi-modal methods of synthesizing research, narrative mapping, analysis of sources, and data visualization.
  • These activities allow students to flex multimedia and presentation skills. Image, video, and sound selection creates meaning or supports text.
  • The project engages students’ critical thinking, time management, and executive functioning skills.
  • This practice hones students’ digital literacy.

Student Experience

First-year Writing II students are asked to create layered maps with images, videos, hyperlinks links, QR codes, and lyric essays. After instructor contacts Data Services, students are sent email invitations for NYU institutional ArcGIS accounts. Students then create free ESRI Story Maps accounts using NYU Institutional ArcGIS Account. The instructor then creates a private ArcGIS Group for class so students share projects with classmates only. To develop their projects, students work with large amounts of data, longitude and latitude coordinates, and create Excel/Google spreadsheets as research tools.

Technology Resources

  • Data is stored in Google Sheets or Microsoft Excel spreadsheets
  • Story Maps software:
    • Uses ArcGIS (Geographic Information Software)  to integrate maps with text, images, videos, hyperlinks, and sound.
    • Free NYU Institutional Accounts through Data Services
    • Digital Studio, Bobst 5th floor

Outcomes

  • Students will synthesize research, analysis of sources, narrative mapping, and data visualization through the practice of creative cartography using Story Maps software.
  • Students will create an effective presentation and create meaning through multimedia: image, video, and sound.
  • Students will apply digital literacy, critical thinking, time management, and effective functioning skills.
Dvorak Project - Prof. Beckerman

Michael Beckerman – Musical Geographies of Dvorak’s New York

Posted on by Andrew Greene in Humanities, PBL + collaboration

Summary

FAS Ed Tech worked closely with FAS Music Professor Michael Beckerman on a collaborative class project for his Freshman Seminar class. Students learned to use Geographical Information Systems (GIS) technology as both a research and narrative tool, demonstrating connections among New York City’s history, geography, and architecture, and connecting these with Dvořák’s impact on and experience with American music culture during his time spent in the city (1892-1895).  Students used the Fulcrum app on their mobile devices to explore and collect information from locations around the city significant to Dvořák’s time. While developing their “story map” students investigated several different threads that emerged from the initial data captured via the Fulcrum app.  

Goals

  • Assist Professor Beckerman and students in a project combining location data, multimedia, and historical reSearch
  • Determine, in collaboration with instructor and students, appropriate tools for location-based research and media collection for student projects
  • Partner with NYU Library Data Services to provide access and training to GIS tools (Fulcrum, ESRI)
  • Facilitate management of student-generated data collections  and provide technical assistance importing Fulcrum data into ESRI Story Maps

Outcomes

Combining location data, multimedia, and historical information, Professor Beckerman’s students used both CARTO and ESRI Story Maps to create interactive, GIS-focused presentations describing Dvořák’s influence on NYC and American music cultures, as well as America’s musical influence on Dvořák.

Technology Resources

  • Fulcrum mobile app
  • ESRI Story Maps
  • Carto
screenshot of student project

Glenn Wharton – Project-based Learning in Museum Studies

Posted on by ds4583@nyu.edu in Discipline, Humanities, Method, PBL + collaboration

Summary

Professor Glenn Wharton (Museum Studies) leverages project-based learning in his Museums and Community course. As a final research assignment, students work individually or in small groups to design fictional community programs for museums and cultural heritage institutions. Students create websites containing information about their programming. In addition to demonstrating content knowledge, students gain experience in website design and development.

Learning objectives

  • Increase student engagement through use of real-world scenarios
  • Leverage students’ existing knowledge
  • Develop students’ basic web design and production skills

Student experience

  • Students conduct research individually or in small groups to design a community-based, participatory program for a museum or cultural heritage institution
  • Students design and produce a website to display program information, including the aims of the program, activities, funding, etc.
  • Students peer review one another’s websites

Project workflow

In order to introduce students to web publishing technology that may be unfamiliar to them, Professor Wharton and an educational technologist collaborated on an in-class session on the basics of web design and building a website. The ed tech office also provided instructional materials and resources, as well as one-on-one consultations for students with follow-up questions. Whenever technology is used in a course innovation, we work with faculty to develop a support model that puts course content and knowledge building first.

Technology resources

Outcomes

  • Students gain media literacy, website design and creation skills.
  • Students are better prepared for field where collaboration is an essential component.
  • Students are deeply engaged by real-world scenarios.
  • Students are agents of their own learning.

In the following video, Professor Wharton describes the benefits and challenges of incorporating project-based learning in a traditional humanities seminar. In particular, he notes the transformative potential of technology to move his teaching from a “top-down model” into a true “co-production of knowledge.”

Esferas cover

Lourdes Dávila – Experiential Language Learning through Professional Publishing

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

Summary

Professor Lourdes Dávila (Spanish & Portuguese) directed a team of current student and alumni editors to produce an online version of Esferas, a peer-reviewed, annual publication that publishes exceptional critical essays, visual art, creative writing, interviews, translations, and works related to Hispanic and Luso life within and beyond New York City.

Learning objectives

  • Allow for students to develop linguistic, technological, and professional skills
  • Facilitate collaboration among students through group work

Professor Lourdes Dávila, managing editor of Esferas, embarked on a full-scale re-design of the online journal to have a dynamic, modern showcase emerging scholarship, art, and writing from Hispanic and Lusophone culture. She identified NYU’s Web Publishing as a suitable environment since it mimics the hierarchical publishing structure, is supported by NYU, and allows for rich multimedia. She also developed a 2-credit course so that students could gain valuable experience contributing to the editorial process, while earning credit. In addition to current students, alumni, graduate students, and faculty work to realize the journal issue each semester.

Student experience

  • Participate in an authentic publishing process from start to finish
  • Learn new technologies
  • Collaborate with editorial board, artists, and authors
  • Showcase multimedia production and web publishing skills

Technology resources

  • NYU Web Publishing (WordPress), to house public-facing Esferas journal
  • NYU Box (file storage/sharing and document collaboration), to house submission iterations
  • Adobe InDesign, to format journal-ready articles and other submissions

Outcomes

  • Students have meaningful opportunities for real-world language use
  • Students work in a team-based environment on a real-world task (i.e. journal publishing)
  • Students hone transferrable professional skills
  • Students gain skills presenting knowledge with various media and in various modes.
Comer en NY Screenshot

Spanish Language Faculty – Learning Beyond the Classroom (Elementary Spanish)

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

Summary

Professors of Elementary Spanish (Spanish & Portuguese) developed a shared project-based learning assignment across the 15 Fall sections and 11 Spring sections. In its current iteration, small groups of students visit an NYC restaurant of choice, write a review, and contribute a multimedia post on a blog shared across all sections.

Learning objectives

  • Allow for location-based language learning experiences, specifically highlighting the rich locations of New York City
  • Increase engagement as students learn requisite grammar
  • Facilitate collaboration among students through group work

Professors wanted to create a shared project-based learning experience across all sections, and settled on Comer en Nueva York, where groups visit restaurants and share their reviews with their peers learning beginning Spanish.  Directed by language coordinators Professors Roxanna Sooudi and Lorena Hernández, the assignment allows students to utilize linguistic skills in an applied, real-world context – i.e. visiting a restaurant.  They collaborate with their peers to complete the review, present orally to their classmates, and share a multimedia-enhanced review across sections.

Student experience

  • Engage with classmates outside of class to complete a real-world task in the target language
  • Showcase multimedia production and web publishing skills

Technology resources

Outcomes

  • Students have meaningful opportunities for real-world language use
  • Students’ level of collaboration increases
  • Students gain skills presenting knowledge with various media and in various modes.
  • Future iteration will involve creating a collective travel e-magazine on locations around the city.
Comete el coco game

Elizabeth Augspach – Gaming for Grammar

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

Summary

Professor Elizabeth Augspach (Spanish and Portuguese) conceived of ¡Cómete el coco!, a mobile game that would provide her Intermediate Spanish students with fun, engaging ways to practice grammar topics. Students access the game via their phones, and challenge fellow students to grammar challenges that allow for socially-enhanced, informal language learning.

Learning objectives

  • Bridge informal and formal language acquisition through mobile learning
  • Increase engagement as students learn requisite grammar
  • Allow for socially-enhanced ways to review in-class material

Created in partnership with NYU IT, the ¡Cómete el coco! game is meant to foster collaborative, engaging ways to learn and review grammar.  Professor Augspach sought ways to make grammar more fun, and incentivize students to review more outside of class time.

Student experience

  • Engage with game outside of class to review and learn grammar
  • Challenge other students as they have low-stakes, fun competitions between their peers

Technology resources

Outcomes

  • Students have increased opportunities for learning and reviewing grammar
  • In class and out-of-class learning is connected better
  • Students increase engagement with a fun context for practicing grammar.  The element of friendly, low-stakes competition amongst peers increases engagement

Naoko Sourial – Creating a Cross-Institutional Language Community

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

Summary

Professor Naoko Sourial (East Asian Studies) designed a cross-institutional linked course project between University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) students (intermediate level) and NYU students (beginner level) of Japanese.  Students built a community of practice for shared learning by posting on a WordPress blog and engaging in collaborative projects.

Learning objectives

  • Beginner students: improve writing and typing skills
  • Intermediate students: learn to spot and correct grammatical and spelling errors
  • All students: engage in authentic written correspondence in the target language

Professor Naoko Sourial and her UPenn colleague designed prompts to leverage the diverse language levels and interests of the students.  Each week, NYU and UPenn students communicated through the shared blog, and supported each other’s learning. At the end of semester, Professor Sourial conducted a survey to assess effectiveness and student satisfaction with the project.  She incorporated theories on Communities of Practice, groups of people interested in the same topic that support each other in their learning.

Student experience

  • First week: post in English with option of posting in Japanese to create social bond between New York and UPenn Students
  • Next week: NYU Students post to blog as part of homework assignment. UPenn students work together in class to come up with correction/suggestions for NYU Students (which are then approved by the UPenn professor), and post to blog as part of homework
  • By the end of the semester: students recording and posting video comments as well as written comments

Technology resources

Outcomes

  • March 2016: presented at APVEA (Asia-Pacific Virtual Exchange Association) in Princeton with partner from UPenn and got suggestions for improving future iterations
  • 85% of students said the project was “very helpful” in improving typing skills (the remaining 15% ranked it as “somewhat helpful”; same distribution for improving grammar and vocab
    • “It pushed me to apply the Japanese we learned in context and construct original sentences and paragraphs.”
    • “I learned more about the other students because of their blog posts, but I didn’t really talk to many others very much.”
    • “I enjoyed having a mentor in my Japanese studies.”
    • Suggestions for improvement: more blog post assignments and more frequent communication with the UPenn students
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.
Visible / Invisible Cities - Student project

Virginia Cox – Creative Critical Thinking

Posted on by admin in Discipline, Humanities, Method, PBL + collaboration

Summary

Professor Virginia Cox (Italian Studies) integrated project-based learning into CORE-Texts & Ideas, Visible and Invisible Cities, a course that focuses on representations of the city since Classical times. In addition to writing scholarly papers, each student had to complete a creative project, critically exploring texts using multimedia and non-traditional technologies.

Learning objectives

  • Develop students’ ability to use multimedia to advance and enhance a scholarly argument
  • Use emerging technologies to broaden the audience for scholarly content

Visible and Invisible Cities centers on the ways in which human communities have been theorized and imagined within the Western tradition from classical antiquity through to the Renaissance. Activities include close reads of primary texts, rich discussions, and the completion of a creative project. For the creative project, students critically reflect on texts using alternative methods, like podcasting, interactive illustration, mapping, and even song writing.

Student experience

  • Develop and iterate on project idea
  • Post final projects on a course blog, and upvote favorite projects

Technology resources

Outcomes

  • Increase in engagement for subject matter
  • Increase in ability to transfer text-specific ideas to a broader context
  • Project showcase: https://wp.nyu.edu/nyucities/ (open to NYU community only)
screenshot of Venture out project website

East Asian Studies Faculty – Linked Project-based Learning

Posted on by ds4583@nyu.edu in Discipline, Language instruction, Method, PBL + collaboration

Summary

Professors Xiaohong Hou (Chinese), Eunju Na (Korean), and Kayo Nonaka (Japanese) linked students across East Asian Studies through project-based learning. Students participated in authentic, local experiences and blogged in the target language. The instructors wanted students to practice speaking and writing outside of the classroom, as well as a create an online space for peer to peer learning.

Learning objectives

  • Engage with target language outside classroom
  • Practice writing and speaking skills
  • Encourage collaborative knowledge building across languages and skill levels

Student experience

  • Visit a local restaurant, shop, cultural heritage site, or other relevant cultural location.
  • Engage with target language in new setting – through menu, museum exhibit, conversation with native speakers.
  • Using target language, write about experience and share media in a blog post on linked class site.
  • Comment and offer feedback on fellow students’ posts.

Project workflow

  • In-person consultation meeting the instructor and educational technologist to discuss learning objectives and technical specifics
  • Training session with instructors + education technologist to cover basics of web publishing platform
  • Creation of blog with instructor(s) as the owner/administrator and students added as authors
  • Uploading of content to blog by students and grading / assessment by professor
  • Face to face presentation of materials across courses and languages

In this video, Professors Hou, Na, and Nonaka share the process for developing this project, as well as student projects and feedback.

Technology resources

Outcomes


“I learned how to talk more about a topic I was interested in using the source language.”

“I experienced the language as it is used – in real conversations.”

“I got to practice in a real setting.”

“By using Korean outside the classroom, I had to adapt to thinking quickly in order to say what I wanted to say in Korean. I heard the language in a more natural environment.”