Last month, I had the extraordinarily good fortune to be able attend the EUROCALL Open Educational Resources SIG Conference hosted by the Centro Interfacoltà di Linguisitica Teorica ed Applicata (CILTA) at the University of Bologna (Bologna, Italy). The title of the conference was “Learning Through Sharing: Open Resources, Open Practices, Open Communication.” The venue(…)
This entry is part 21 of 35 in the series Teaching Transparently My job is a language center director first and foremost, but the opportunity to teach language classes gives me a perspective on teaching and learning that I would not get by just running the CILC. It also helps me do the job better.(…)
This entry is part 23 of 35 in the series Teaching Transparently www.flickr.com This fall we had an overabundance of enrollments in the first semester of 2nd year Spanish class. And with that came the opportunity for me teach in the fall as well as the spring…something that I have been hankering to do for(…)
This entry is part 24 of 35 in the series Teaching TransparentlyI have thought a lot about HISP 205 since the semester ended last May. I think (often) about how I would like to do it differently the next time through. I make lists for myself, I read things, and I ponder. I wonder what(…)
This entry is part 25 of 35 in the series Teaching Transparently Lesson #3: Marc Prensky got it all wrong Marc Prensky’s famous and yet false binary that says our students are digital natives and the rest of us are digital immigrants has addled me for years. As -if- we needed to create any more(…)
This entry is part 26 of 35 in the series Teaching TransparentlyLesson # 2: It’s not about you: actually, it’s always been about them I believe that before you apply any of these new, disruptive, innovative, learner-centric tools to your teaching, you -yes you- have to embrace these tools first. They have to be a(…)
This entry is part 27 of 35 in the series Teaching TransparentlyI am laying far too wide awake here in timezone limbo in my hotel room at the nmc conference (with apologies to Leslie my hopefully soundly sleeping roommate ), and thinking perhaps tonight’s waiter slipped me some high test coffee vs the requested decafe.(…)
This entry is part 28 of 35 in the series Teaching TransparentlyAPRIL 2, 2009: When we last checked in with the adventures of HISP 205-09 I had received their anonymous informal assessments of the class. And I reported back to them, verbatim, their comments (the comment from one of my students? “Wow, you showed us(…)
This entry is part 30 of 35 in the series Teaching TransparentlyOne of the most frustrating things about blogging is that fact that unless someone actually takes the time to comment on your posts, you never have any tangible evidence of being read and what your readership thinks about what you have written. Unless you(…)
This entry is part 29 of 35 in the series Teaching TransparentlyMarch 20, 2009: Midterm assessment time. The College wants to know whether students are in peril of failing. No surprise: no one is failing. How -well- they pass remains to be seen. But something is not gelling…something seems a bit off. Something needs to(…)
This entry is part 31 of 35 in the series Teaching Transparently[ I apologize: this post has been sitting, completed, in the draft box for far too long…I really don’t know why it did not get to see the light of day until right now. Well, actually I do…it’s been a busy semester, and around(…)
February 20, 2009: On Fridays, my students in HISP 205 have decided that we should play games…games that stimulate thinking and conversation in Spanish. They had a couple of suggestions like Taboo. I was thinking more diabolical thoughts… thanks to the games like those played at UMW Faculty Academy: aka Deck Wars(scroll to the middle(…)