Building Community: Spanish

Plan for Community Building 
  • What activity(ies) will you employ at the start of the semester so that you can get to know your students, they can get to know you, and they can connect with their peers?
    • Welcome email sent 1 week prior to class
    • Short orientation video embedded on Moodle
    • Community building activity on the first day: As a language class, students can oftentimes be apprehensive about speaking in another language after not having much practice during the summer, so after a short welcome to the class, I like to start with a low-stakes pair activity in which they share names and some ice-breaker questions that they can then report back to the class and introduce their classmates for us (in Spanish), which I first model for them, sharing information about myself, some interests outside of class, and why I’m looking forward to teaching the class. I then spend some time going into more detail about the class and introducing the first unit and finish with another group activity revolving around Quim Monzó’s “El cuento” [“The story”] in my “Short Stories from the Hispanic World” class.
    • Survey: I always have students fill out a short survey for the second day of class that includes questions such as their hopes and goals for the class as well as ask them if there is anything that they want me to know about them and what some of their personal interests are outside of class, which I try and use throughout the semester to make connections between the class content. I also like to return to this mid-semester as they reflect on their contributions to the class and what they want to continue working on for the remainder of the semester to help hold them accountable for their involvement in the class. I will continue to do this, but through Moodle this semester.
    • Personalize Moodle and Zoom profiles: I will encourage students to personalize their Moodle and Zoom (i.e., by adding a virtual background with an image of a favorite painting or city from the Spanish-speaking world, etc., my hope is that it will encourage some informal conversations between students before/after class, allowing them to share about their interests and build connections within the class while also hoping this motivates students to keep their video turned on for class discussions/breakout sessions, etc.)
  • What strategies will you embed within your course?
    • Use of digital tools, such as Perusall embedded on Moodle, which will allow both online and in-class students to collectively annotate readings in threads, responding to each other’s comments, and interacting to motivate participation via social interaction.
    • Partner with students on community building (i.e., selecting music to play before class, etc.)
    • Facilitate virtual community spaces outside of class time for students to work together and build community through the topic of the course (i.e., peer review session for the short story that they write, online film screening together as a class or in small groups, virtual painting night in which they create the covers to our collective anthology that we make every semester, etc.).
  • 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 my course as “hyflex,” so one of my main objectives is to create opportunities for in-person students to also connect with the online students, assuring there are equitable learning outcomes for all. Since all of these activities will work well despite the modes of instruction.
  • How do these strategies relate to and support your overarching goals for student learning in your class?
    • As a language class and one that is heavily based in discussions, participation is an important component of the course. The community building activities will help create rapport among students so that they are more comfortable entering into discussion, listening actively to each other, and inviting others to say more about their thoughts.