name: Michel Rocchi

institution: University of Puget Sound

language: French

status: Full-time, tenure track

type: SummerFellowship

title: French Studies & Emerging Technologies

duration: May 18-August 28, 1998

description: Brief Description: The French curriculum at Puget Sound is currently staffed by three full-time faculty members. We are experiencing an increase in third year non-literary enrollment. In order to cap enrollment at 20, we have to add extra sessions staffed by adjunct faculty. This situation presents a constant challenge as we have not been able to find the right adjunct for particular courses on short notice.

Desired Outcome:

Serve the students who major or minor in French by having the permanent faculty teach the keystone courses more regularly.

Introduce students to emerging technologies

Invite students to individualize their learning through multimedia, and possibly tap some hidden advantages unanticipated by traditional
methods.

outcome:

-Experiment with a system by which the permanent faculty would teach more regularly the pivotal courses with higher enrollment through the use of multimedia and creative scheduling. -Support classroom interaction with guided electronic communication. Electronic communication will supplement plenary sessions by examining topics further.
-Engage students in partnerships on a research topic and allow the electronic forum to support research between students.
-Engage students in a Web-based final project so research will be easily available to all students, and to support final presentations.
-Support student research by facilitating the learning of electronic research for future language, culture and literature courses.

timeline:

Plan:
I will start already this spring semester a limited pilot experiment to prepare for the summer. In my Culture & Civilization of France: French 250, instead of dividing the enrollment of 30 students into two sections, I will keep all 30 students in the same section.

On Mondays, all students will meet in class for a mini-lecture and to discuss the assigned readings. On Wednesdays and Fridays small groups of 15 will alternate attending the course. The group not attending will be assigned a task on-line through WebBoard and will be required to log on at prescribed times to respond to posted questions on the material, participate in electronic discussions with other students, and dialogue with their project partners on their chosen semester's project.

This will necessitate careful planning of assignments, timely posting of challenging questions, creative design of discussion topics, and constant monitoring of the quality of on-line activities and their level of acceptable French. Careful coordination with the Instructional Technology Consultant is essential to the success of this project, as well as support from the liaison librarian to facilitate the students' research on cultural topics.

On the days the small groups meet in class, discussions will be facilitated by the smaller numbers of students. Individual attention will be easier to provide, and language activities should progress more efficiently.

All students will select an individual project that they will pursue throughout the semester. They may pursue a cultural, political, artistic, literary, historical, or social aspect of France. They may conduct their study through Internet sources or other library resources available. Students will be paired in the corresponding discussion section of the class with an assigned "chat room" type established for the course through WebBoard. Students will be expected to communicate with their counterparts about their roject and I will interject my comments and suggestions on a regular basis.

Projects to complete to support Program:
Web resources for courses including a home page and course pages.

Evaluation tools (surveys, content comparison rubrics, coding of courses, evaluation forms, etc.)

Ongoing analysis of electronic communication among students (quality and quantity of discourse.)

Evaluation:

Survey to assess student acceptance of and interest in electronic communication.

Adapt use of electronic communication at mid-semester to support majority concerns.

Consider content covered in student final projects and compare against previous traditional projects forms.

Compare content covered in new model to content covered in models with fewer students.

Student course evaluations administered at end of each semester.

Instructional Technology Consultant assessment of project.

Media technician and liaison librarians feedback on project.

Anecdotal feedback from colleagues in French who may have the same students in other courses.

Follow-up on evaluation:
Adjust the system, based on above assessments.

Devise a follow-up course for the Fall of 1998. The next course in the sequence is scheduled to be Advanced

French: French 230. The follow-up will determine if the cultural content of the new model would lend itself to a conversation and grammar course.

Evaluate the outcomes of the follow-up course by the same tools used to assess the new model.

If all feedback is positive, I would submit a request for a unit release for the Spring semester or a summer fellowship for 1999 to continue the plan. This would entail training the other two colleagues in French to apply the approach to lower language levels and upper level literature courses.

amount: 3000.00
breakdown: Faculty Stipend $3000.00