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)
microphone and laptop stock photo

Stefanie Goyette – Podcasting for Presentation

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

Summary

Professor Stefanie Goyette (formerly of Global Liberal Studies) assigned a podcasting project in lieu of a final paper in her Cultural Foundations II course. She knew many of her students listened to podcasts, and wanted to provide a creative means for students to synthesize and demonstrate knowledge.

Learning objectives

  • Work on a team to perform and present research.
  • Properly frame a text for a non-specialist (general) audience.

Professor Goyette developed learning objectives and technical specifics with the FAS Office of Ed Tech. She created her Tumblr blog and offered an in-class session (20 minutes) to expose students to the basics of creating and editing audio.   Leveraging the medium of podcasting challenged students to distill scholarly arguments and gain transferable technical skills that apply to a wide range of experiences.

Student experience

  • Make and edit a basic podcast (20-25 minutes of high-quality audio in which each member of the group gets to speak about the same amount).
  • Demonstrate familiarity with text, original analysis, and research on topic.
  • Devise an interesting format or debate topic to liven up the podcast and provide a thematic core.
  • Divide up project tasks effectively with team.
  • The Tumblr post must include: the podcast audio; any necessary documents or images; Works Cited; outline of who was responsible for each part of project.

Technology resources

  • Audio recording and editing software (GarageBand and Audacity)
  • Freely available music and audio assets (see a list on our website)
  • Microphones and recording spaces (NYU LaGuardia Coop)
  • Web publishing (Tumblr)

Outcomes

“The students loved it and it was mostly very productive in terms of learning.” – Stephanie Goyette