Whitman - Tobin

Whitman College

German

Robert Tobin
Associate Professor of German
tobin@whitman.edu

Web-based Teaching Methods for Studies of Goethe and Student Autobiographies.

Date Awarded: Summer 1998

Other Participants:
Student Assistant: Kristin Cain

URLs: www.whitman.edu/offices_departments/german/faustseite3.htm
www.whitman.edu/offices_departments/german/faustseite2.htm
www.whitman.edu/offices_departments/german/seite305zu.htm

Project Goals and Objectives:

To practice student skills in critical analysis and German by having them construct webpages.
In the Faust course, students first had to do close readings of passages of Goethe’s Faust, providing glosses and comments on specific words.
Then students had to do another project which required them to link up specific passages of Goethe’s Faust with specific passages from secondary literature on Faust.
At the completion of the two projects, students had both closely analyzed a passage of primary material and had collected a variety of passages from secondary literature that could serve as the basis for a research paper on the matter.
In another course, students composed autobiographies on the web, writing a new “chapter” each week, which was added as a new page to their web site.
In both courses, students had the chance to exhibit their web pages to the class, giving them a chance to talk about their work.

Process:

I spent a month learning how to operate claris and construct simple web pages. My student assistant learned with me, and composed instruction manuals, which were given to students. The student assistant presented in class, and was available outside of class at specific times to coach students. Generally, however, students felt that the assistant was not very helpful, and that they got most of their help from the computer center’s regular assistants.

Outcomes:

Please see web pages, which I am quite happy with. They were required of students in third-year German (305) and the course on Faust (341).

Critical Evaluation:

The whole project worked quite well. I think the summer workshops were the only way to get faculty like me to learn how to do even relatively simple things like compose web pages.

I’m not sure if our productions will be very helpful for other faculty, as the students’ projects were generally quite personal and idiosyncratic.

The student assistant’s role needed clarification. Students had such varying schedules that it was not possible for one assistant to coach them, so the students simply used the regular student staff at the student center.

Students were less overwhelming enthusiastic than I had expected them to be. I doubt whether many students would have done the projects if they had been voluntary.

I found it hard to decide how much correcting to do. Should I insist that their German be perfect before it goes on the web, or should I let them take responsibility for their own work? In the end, I chose the latter option, but had friends in Germany who thought I should have been more rigorous.