Center for Teaching & Learning Carmen Granda (Spanish)

Assignment Components:

Building on your reflections from the ACUE Module 1, please draft a plan for community building in your class that includes the following:

• What activity(ies) will you employ at the start of the semester so that you can:
  • get to know your students: My first unit is on identity, focusing specifically on Frida Kahlo, referred to by many as the “Queen of selfies” for her numerous self-portraits. With this in mind, I am planning to start the semester by having students take a selfie that has a background or props in the background that are significant to students (that hopefully will give us a better idea of who they are). Students will post these selfies to a discussion board on Moodle and classmates will comment on their peers’ photos, noting if they have something in common and/or asking follow-up questions. If students aren’t comfortable taking selfies, they can post a photo of something important in their lives that expresses their identity in some way, and peers will ask questions. I also plan to implement other discussion board activities and Zoom icebreakers, like 2 truths and a lie, never have I ever, etc. to further build community the first days of the semester. Finally, I also plan for students to fill out a brief survey, which I always have them complete in-person with basic information, why they are interested in taking Spanish, what do they enjoy about learning Spanish, and if there’s something that they would like to share with me (here, they usually tell me about accommodations, allergies, or if they are shy).
  • they can get to know you: I will also post a selfie and participate in the discussion. After today’s live session, I am also considering organizing an office hour during the week that students can use to informally interact with each other or me. Before the semester begins, I also plan to create a brief welcome video. I’ll introduce myself to the students and share some of my interests outside of teaching.
  • they can connect with their peers: Students will be commenting on each other’s photos, asking questions, making observations and comments on the discussion board. After this week’s module, I am considering organizing peer groups, so students can get to know each other well in the course (though I’d probably switch up these groups at the midterm point). I think these groups are also an excellent way to hold students accountable for their work. Finally, I am considering creating a syllabus scavenger hunt, as mentioned in this week’s module, to encourage students to read the syllabus and work together to answer questions related to the class content, objectives, and requirements.
• What strategies will you embed within your course throughout the semester to reinforce this sense of community? For each unit of my course, I’d like to implement at least 2 Community Building activities related to the chapter topic. For example, on this first unit related to identity/art, one activity involves each student picking a famous piece of art by a Hispanic artist, describing it (and the artist’s biography and other works) in a discussion board post without mentioning the name of the artist or the piece, and posting an image of the student recreating the artwork. Classmates will then have to guess the artwork with the classmates’ clues and description. With my students, I’d also like to create either a Spotify or Youtube playlist of popular Spanish songs that we can post on Moodle, and that I could use at the beginning of class and during brain breaks if needed.
• How will these strategies for community building respond to the potential modes of instruction you may employ this fall (in person/remote/both)? I will be teaching fully online, so I will be relying primarily on digital tools to organize community building activities--either Zoom, discussion boards, or also student-created videos (either through Moodle or a program, like Flipgrid). It’s important to me that the tools for my Community Building activities be varied. I don’t want to rely solely on the discussion boards or Zoom breakout rooms, so I am still brainstorming other tools and formats to engage students and help them get to know each other outside of class.
• How do these strategies relate to and support your overarching goals for student learning in your class? Community building plays an important role in world language classes. I want my students to feel comfortable participating. The less anxiety and pressure that they feel to speak, the more likely they will actively participate. The first step is creating a favorable learning environment and designing tasks that will get students excited about learning and speaking the target language. Community building activities at the beginning of the semester help create a classroom culture and environment that promotes communication, collaboration, respect, and responsibility. Once this is established, students will be more comfortable taking risks in the target language, which is fundamental for progression in the language.