Comer en NY Screenshot

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

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.
Visible / Invisible Cities - Student project

Virginia Cox – Creative Critical Thinking

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

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.”