Name: Erika Berroth
Institution: Lewis & Clark College
Status: Assistant Professor, full time, tenure track
Language: German
Project Type: Curriculum Enhancement
Summer Fellowship
Student Assistant Fellowship
Acquisition of Authentic Materials
Project Title:
Duration: 2 months in the summer of 2000
Description: The
objective of this project is to enhance the cultural component of first, second,
and third year language instruction, and also to provide materials for our conversation
courses.
The project is conceived as a two-part effort to promote student centered modes
of learning.
Part A: German Language and Culture through Contemporary Music represents the
continuation of last years project. Selections from contemporary popular music
were used as the text basis for listening exercises combined with CD-Dictations.
A web component accompanied these exercises and provided vocabulary help as
well as comprehension questions and writing topics for more advanced students.
After testing and using the audio component and the interactive writing exercises
on the web, I identified areas where enhancement and improvement would make
the music project more user-friendly. The main goals for this summer project
are to screen and collect more music samples to offer a better variety of perspectives
on the clusters of themes already developed, and to augment the visual component
of the web exercises. I will spend about a month in Germany gathering materials.
Following the method used last year; some of the steps in developing an integrating
course material include:
Part B: Web Based Curriculum Development for First Year German represents my effort to integrate the material developed in Part A, as well as other web-based tasks, into the first year curriculum. The new edition of my first year text offers a web-based learning center with online activities and study resources for students. I will customize this component for use in my class and offer a variety of options for students to explore topics in German speaking cultures. The syllabus will be available on the web.
Outcome: I used the materials developed last year with my beginning German class in 1999/2000. This was the first class to use the Keck- Interactive Learning Center consistently. I will ask for student evaluations of the lab component of the course at the end of this semester to gather data about the differences in learning experiences. In my third year class, students seemed to enjoy the listening exercises, but were more reluctant to use the web-based writing exercises as spring boards for their own projects. This might just be an idiosyncratic trait of this particular class, but I will work on providing more choices of writing topics and different challenges for working with the texts.
The purpose of enhancing the diversity of materials and assignments is to enable students to choose and combine materials for their own projects. When the students work with the materials and tools provided to craft their own projects, they will be involved in the process of discovery and in making connections in a more creative way. Rather than providing answers for them, the program will enable them to ask questions and explore possibilities.
Brief Time Line:
June and July 2000: Collecting and developing materials as outlined above. Designing
web-based syllabus, which integrates material from the project and other interactive
exercises to enhance the cultural component of first year German.
Fall Semester 2000 Trial run with German 101 students
Spring Semester 2000: Further testing with German 321 students
Amount requested: