July 31, 2024 • 29 mins
In this episode, host Kelly Driscoll interviews Matthew Street, a Senior Lecturer in Spanish at the University of Virginia.
They discuss his work with open educational resources (OER) and how it makes education more accessible and equitable, as well as the impact of digital portfolios on fostering active and project-based learning.
For more information about this podcast, please visit our podcast website using the link below: https://bit.ly/3MfBqbo
Listen on Apple Podcasts using the link below: https://apple.co/3OkFVEn
Follow us on Social Media!
Twitter: https://bit.ly/3M9J7Qt
Facebook: https://bit.ly/3OgnIYw
Instagram: https://bit.ly/3Mjm4D8
Please visit our website at https://bit.ly/3IgGVFP
#ProjectBasedLearning #CriticalThinking #StudyAbroad #MakeLearningVisible
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
Welcome to DigicationScholars Conversations.
I'm your host, Kelly Driscoll.
In this episode, you'll hear parttwo of my conversation with Matthew
Street, Senior Lecturer in Spanishat the University of Virginia.
More links and information about today'sconversation can be found on Digication's
Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
(00:23):
Full episodes of Digication ScholarsConversations can be found on YouTube.
Or your favorite podcast app.
I wanted to talk a little bit, I knowwe mentioned at the beginning of the
conversation that you've been doing morework around open educational resources as
well, and I would love for you to share.
(00:45):
You know, why that's something that'simportant to you, how it, how you may
be developing these things for your owncourses, or maybe even other faculty
members that are within your program.
I would love to learn more aboutwhat you're doing in that area too.
Yeah, so.
Um, the Open Educational Resourceshas this been a big emphasis for, for
(01:10):
a while, but at UVA for a couple ofyears now, there's been a big emphasis
in some, some support in the termof stipends and stuff to, to create
you to create your own resources.
And, you know, it makes a lot of sensebecause the textbooks and the programs
and curricula has grown gotten soexpensive, you know, when we were using
(01:33):
like a mainstream publisher and theywere coming out with a book every two
or three years and the book in theonline platform is over 300 dollars.
I mean, that's, that's, that'sa hell of an amount of money
to, to pay in addition to
your, Super-high tuition.
So for, from an accessibility standpoint,it makes sense from the cost aspect and
(01:56):
also from an equity standpoint for, um,the coverage of different minority groups
and, and, uh, equality aspects all around.
And you're free to, to explainthings that, that, that maybe
may not be presented in.
That more nuanced terms that aren'tnecessarily in the, the, the dictionaries,
(02:17):
the Spanish dictionaries yet, butare definitely in the, definitely in
the, the main, the discourse around.
And so there's some of the incentivesto create open educational resources.
And we've been working to create,it's, we kind of took a big undertaking
to create open educational resourcesfor three different courses,
(02:38):
which is a lot of information.
So, you know, we're, I'm slowly workingon the one for accelerated beginning
Spanish and some of my colleagueslike Kate Neff and, um, and, and.
Esperanza Goriz, they're workingon developing one for Spanish 2010.
And so, you know, over time,we're going to start using these.
(03:01):
I'm actually going to use a coupleof pages from the one that I'm
developing and I'm developing it.
It right into Canvas.
So we're using things like H5P,which is, do you know what H5P is?
Right?
Like an interactive, it's an interactivesort of like, like the home, like a
Duolingo sort of thing where you candrag and drop, fill in the blank.
(03:24):
You can speak in there.
It's these little activities that linkto the grade book in the, in the LMS.
So we're creating activities doingthe H5P activities and then creating
our own content or adapting contentthat always are is already out
there from other creators of OER.
And yeah, so, you know, the, the copyrightstuff is something I'm not well versed in.
(03:49):
Um, but you know, we have thepermission to use certain things
if it's a certain different.
A certain copyright.
Yeah, so we're still kind oflearning as we go with this.
Um, yes.
So, but what I'm creating, you know,the whole focus of, of mine, like a
portfolio is just, it's integrated oneto one with, with what I'm creating.
(04:10):
It's like the students aregoing to be, they're going
to be putting this somewhere,their work somewhere to show it.
Yeah, so I'm definitely thinkingabout mine through the lens of
the, the work will be disseminatedor the create the, the open ended
stuff will be done on an ePortfolio.
Oh, I'm so excited tosee where that may go.
(04:32):
And I'm also interested, youmentioned earlier your use of
some of the instruction areas.
within Digication to kind of scaffoldthe creation process for your students.
Do you ever, um, link to or embed oruse that instruction area to provide
(04:55):
resources like this in your teaching?
So kind of using it as a tool to provideresources or content to the students that
then they could respond to within those?
Kind of corresponding pages.
So like, um, like some of the, like theH5P activities and things like that.
(05:15):
Mm-Hmm.
Yeah.
So I've tried to embed H5P on Digicationand I don't think it works yet.
Okay.
I don't, I don't think you can yet.
Um, at least the last time I tried, youcould not embed it in, in Digication.
May, maybe, maybe that's somethingthat, that, that's coming.
Or maybe you can do it now.
But we do provide our owncontent for some activities.
(05:37):
Yes, like for our open ended summativeactivities, those are things that
don't correspond with the textbook.
We create them 100%.
The concept map activity created 100%.
The monologue prompts, those are created.
You know, the reflection prompts and, andsome, and then with the first iteration of
(05:59):
the Portfolio that we used, uh, We createdall of the open ended projects there too.
They were not, um, because thebook that we were using at the
time was not a project-based book.
We're using a program nowcalled Contraseña – by Lingro
Learning - and it is project based.
So we adapt some of their projectsand put them on Digication, and they
(06:22):
know that we're doing that, and thestudents can respond to those activities.
Multimodal ways on the, on the Portfolio.
Nice.
Nice.
Yeah.
What, what does that look like?
Are they kind of text prompts or their
videos that they watch?
A bit of everything, right?
(06:43):
So there's text, the main, the maindriver is text for instructions
for sure, but there could be,there could be video examples.
Like I'm thinking of the conversationprompts for the Spanish, um,
the summer Spanish course.
Yeah.
So it's, you know, medoing a conversation.
Um, this shows what theideal one would look like.
(07:03):
And it also shows, you know, maybeit's a tutorial linked, you know, I've
made tons of tutorials for Digication.
So it could be, here's a quicktutorial on how to whatever.
So it could be embedded YouTube videos.
It could be if they need to seeparticular guidelines or rubrics,
it could be either in, I love howDigication has, where you can put like
a little, tiny little window of the.
(07:25):
The file.
Mm-Hmm.
. So it could be somethinglike that or a hyperlink, you
know, that links out Mm-Hmm.
to another, like a, aanother PDF or Word file.
So we do aloo...
of a variety of those at, at some.
It would be really cool to have an optionto do some H5P stuff within Digication.
Yeah.
I have to look into that.
(07:47):
Yeah.
And it, it may exist now.
I know I tried it, um, uh, maybe,um, last summer, not this summer.
But the one before that, yeah.
And it wasn't, it wasn't workingthen, which is, it's okay.
Yeah.
We are just always really fascinatedand interested in, you know, other
kinds of technologies that, um,you know, the people are using our
(08:08):
platform are using too, in waysthat they can become integrated.
So I'm glad that that got mentioned.
So I'll have to, um, sharethat with my team and, and see
what might be possible there.
Um, So thank you so much also forjust kind of sharing that because I, I
think in many ways, there's, you know,passionate educators like yourself that
(08:32):
have gotten, you know, really engagedwith the ways that this technology
can be used within their courses.
So not only as.
A place for the students tobe able to kind of make their
learning visible and see theirgrowth and development over time.
Um, but really, as this kind of teachingtool that creates a kind of bridge
(08:59):
from what you're offering to them.
in person in the classroom andsomething that they can kind of interact
with within their own time as well.
So it's kind of serving as thisplace for them to be able to to learn
from you and also respond to that.
(09:20):
Um, And then get feedback from you alongthe way in a way that I think is, is,
you know, different than what a lot oflearning management systems are offering,
just because they're organized aroundthe course specifically, and this is
kind of organized around the individual.
So you can kind of serve out these things.
(09:41):
Are you putting them into a templatethat they're using throughout the course?
Or do they just kind of go from scratch?
Yeah.
So I, I provide the students with atemplate for their Spanish portfolios as
well as their unprofessional portfolios.
However.
Um, one of the, one of the guys thatwas on the team, that's also been
(10:05):
using portfolios for a long time here.
So, um, he's in the French department.
He's also, he's also, um, he's alsoa lecturer or, or teaching professor.
His name is Spiros Spiridon.
Have you, have you ever heard of him?
No, I have not spoken
to him.
Yeah.
So,
yeah, so he.
He, he does very creative thingswith portfolio and he, he piloted a
(10:27):
professional portfolio sort of thingwhere the students could create their own.
Like he just, he just told them you usewhatever source site that you want to do.
And some students used Digication,some students use Wix, you know,
some students use whatever.
And so that was interesting.
But since Since my class is not, it'smainly like first year students or second
(10:50):
year students, and then there's alsoother sections going at the same time.
It's good for us to havelike a Digication template.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Kind of streamline things.
And are there multiplesections of your course too?
There's multiple sections of mycourse, and then there's sections
that other lecturers teach as well.
And, and, you know, in the,the, the different level of,
(11:14):
Digication buy in from, you know,varies from lecturer to lecturer.
So you got to kind of give it tothem on a platter in some ways, you
know, cause it's just such a valuabletool for the students, you know,
it's like, that's one of the thingsthat I've seen that we're teaching.
We have to remind ourselves thatwe're teaching college students,
(11:35):
not high school students.
And the big thing about the Portfoliois the Ownership and the autonomy that
comes with it, even if it's not explicitlystated that the students don't explicitly
know that they own this work, you cantell that they get that by the end.
And that's something that makes themmore, more responsible and active learners
(11:58):
when they're When it's their work thatthey're sharing with the professor,
it's not, it's not something that I own.
They're giving mepermission to look at it.
And so that sort of switch is, I think,a big deciding or differentiating factor
between like teaching high schoolersversus teaching at the university level.
(12:21):
Yeah.
And you can tell when you look at theYou know, pages and projects that they
put together that they're incrediblyproud of the work that they've done.
And there's a great number ofstudents that have opted to
share those Portfolios publicly.
Um, where people can go in and, and seethis incredible progress that they've
(12:47):
made and really listen to the student.
View their reflections and, andget to know them and why this
course was, you know, impactfuland where they hope to take this,
you know, language in the future.
Um, so it's always exciting to see, youknow, when they do understand that kind
of ownership, you know, how openly theywould like to, to be able to, to share it.
(13:13):
And very often I find, youknow, we see many, many examples
of those students that are.
Creating these more kind of crafted,professional oriented portfolios
that they want to share outside.
But more and more students are wanting toreally share, you know, this was something
(13:33):
that, you know, may not be as polishedas something that I'd be developing for
my career, but it's really providingevidence of how much I was able to evolve
and how much I was able to learn overreally a relatively short amount of time.
Yeah.
Yeah.
(13:53):
And, and I agree.
Yeah.
And I, um, this was years ago, but whenI did the university of Virginia study
abroad in Costa Rica, I had the studentscreate Portfolios for that because it's
like, you're documenting this any wayit's going on Instagram and Facebook.
You're going to sit down with yourgrandma and show her all these pictures.
Why not have this learning tool at thesame time where you're also is a place
(14:19):
where you can dump your pictures andstuff, but also you can tell a story
about your evolution of your journeyin this other country for six weeks.
Yeah.
It's yeah.
And I, I agree.
I think the students that havereally seen the, the effects
of the professional portfolio.
Just really take it to the next level.
They really kind of see themselvesbranching out as these critical thinkers
(14:43):
and they identify the ways in which theirthinking has evolved and, and how not
just one class, but the totality of theirlearning has contributed and engendered
this kind of new curiosity to, to, to wantto, to want to put their best foot forward
and show that they're their own person.
(15:03):
And the
portfolio is a great tool for that.
Yeah.
And I love to see even, you know, in someof the beginning stages, how they're,
you know, really tying in what they'relearning in your course to other elements
of who they are and, you know, what maybe their core area of study, if it's
(15:24):
not foreign language and how they'rekind of making those connections from
your course to other kinds of learningexperiences that they have had or that
they're planning for at the same time.
Um, so thank you for sharing that.
And, um, I wanted to.
Kind of, um, circle back to some ofthe points you made earlier about,
(15:49):
um, for our listeners to hear why youthink some of this active learning and
project based learning is so criticalfor students in Higher Ed, um, as they're
preparing for futures beyond college.
Yeah, well that, that,that is a great question.
(16:12):
So, you know, I shared this with mystudents that I heard, um, on a news
show the last semester that severalcountries have installed government
positions like for, to deal withloneliness in their countries.
Like, like there's like the Czar ofLoneliness for, for a couple of countries.
(16:32):
And so, um, So the, the, the activefeature of being able to get out of
your comfort zone and make these, thesepersonal connections in this space is.
is something that we need tobe actively focusing on, right?
It seems like, oh, that's a nobrainer, but no, you actually do need
(16:53):
to encourage students to talk to theperson next to them, because if not,
they're, most of them are not going to.
So I think, I think that,I think that's important.
And I also think in kind ofsharing the rationale with students
about how important it is tobe able to talk about concepts.
In an elevated way is part of developingthis critical thinking aspect as well.
(17:19):
When, you know, I remind my studentsthat your students at the university
of Virginia, you should be ableto stand up and tell me about the
present progressive right now.
And, and, and it doesn'thave to be all right.
You can stumble over your words, butthese are things you should be able to do.
So we're going to work onpracticing those things.
So I think giving them opportunities to.
(17:42):
To kind of express their learning asthey're kind of working toward mastery
helps them to be able to teach eachother in the active learning spaces.
And when they're sitting across fromeach other, it's easy to, to, for me
to ask for help, it's easier to askfor help and offer to help others.
(18:03):
And when the students, the students thathave the most success are the ones that
say, I was really impressed with the factthat I was able to teach and help others.
And that really helped me.
And I think that makes people.
Really active in their own learning.
And that's what you have to do.
You have to always be doing thenext thing instead of waiting
(18:26):
for the next instruction.
Right.
And so I think some of this emphasis oncreating with the language, getting out of
your comfort zone, interacting, offeringto help people, asking for help when
needed, are, are very important aspectsthat could help in all realms of life.
Yeah.
Yeah, absolutely.
(18:46):
And kind of.
Building off of that point, you know,how do you see this as something
that may contribute to, you know,this kind of understanding of each
other and, and sharing their stories?
You mentioned kind of asking for helpor, um, offering help may contribute to,
(19:11):
you know, a deeper desire to understand.
People from other cultures, even if youmay not yet speak the language, you know,
getting being comfortable kind of seekingthings out from people that that are may
not be like you, but may be able to, oryou may not initially think are like you,
but finding that, kind of common ground.
(19:35):
Yeah.
Well, I think students, students,they, they often, yeah, they have to be
reminded of this, but they almost everystudent has interacted with someone
that doesn't speak English very well.
And so reminding the students thatthat person engaged you in conversation
and while, while you understood them.
So now you're that person.
(19:57):
Right.
That's you now, right?
And so when they kind of see it in thatway, I think it enables them to, to, to
understand that, Hey, you know, at theend of the day, even if I say all of the
wrong things, it doesn't really matter.
It's just, I'm, I'm trying and,you know, continue, continue to
try, I guess, in linguistics,it's called your affective filter.
(20:19):
You know, how self conscious youare to say certain things, you know,
that you're not that good at yet.
Um, but, you know, students worktowards that, but yeah, I, I, I'm just
a huge fan of just students, act...
Students engaging with otherstudents in a collaborative way.
I feel like that haspromoted the most success.
(20:41):
And, you know, bringing it back tothe Portfolio and the Portfolio also
contributes to this, even outsideof the classroom, you know, for,
for the, for I always go back tothe concept map activity or students
getting started on the final projects.
If I don't know, or maybe I've beendragging my feet or, you know, maybe I've
(21:02):
been partying too much, or maybe thiscould maybe have too much stuff going on.
I just couldn't get to it.
If I, I know I can go log on to, and lookat, see what Kelly's done so far and get
an idea of, okay, so this is the standard.
So let me see what if I can get right.
Or this is some, she hassome things like this.
Oh, that's a good idea.
(21:22):
You know?
So I think even outside of the class, thevirtual community that's provided by the.
It's not something you'regoing to get on Canvas.
Like, I just did a whole master's programon Canvas at the University of Virginia.
And every time they would ask us to goback and comment on something someone
else said, it took 30 minutes to find it.
(21:44):
You know, it's like, you don'thave that issue with Digication.
It's like, I know exactly whereit is, what I'm looking for.
Yeah, yeah, I know that's alittle all over the place, but
no, but I, I think it's a good pointbecause you know, when you are in this
kind of setting, creating that communityand level of comfort with one another
(22:09):
to kind of break down the barriersof, um, You know, feeling, you know,
feeling uncomfortable, but being able toengage with other people that are also
in that kind of similar uncomfortablespace, you know, maybe at different
levels, um, you know, it's somethingthat, you know, it, it can be scary and
(22:31):
sometimes people have to kind of bravely.
Seek out what expectations are.
And I imagine that, you know, oncethey start looking to see what
other people in the class are doing,that they're naturally kind of
connecting with some of those peoplewhen they're in the course, too.
(22:51):
Or maybe continually going back tolook at some of the same students,
kind of, work because they've seenit as an exemplar and something that
they want to, you know, a level thatthey would like to be able to reach.
Um, and I do think that, you know,because it's oriented around the
individual, it's easier for studentsto be able to, to find each other.
(23:16):
And get inspired by one another.
Um, you know, even within a learningmanagement system, if you're able to
kind of dig down into an assignment andsee that it's something that someone
submitted, it's not connected to abody of work that, that they've done.
So you may be able to access an individualdocument, but you wouldn't be able
(23:38):
to kind of go through and click andbrowse and learn about that person and
see other things that they've done.
And, you know, they kind of becomethese launch points to learning
other aspects of who the individualsare that are that are in their
course, I think, in a different way.
So I, maybe I also spoke about it ina roundabout way, but I completely
(23:59):
understand what you're saying, and it'san intentional part of what we created.
Right?
Um, you know, when we were teaching,we wanted that kind of, um,
motivation that happens when you cansee the success of other students.
(24:20):
You know, it creates a, it lights a fireunder you and helps you kind of have a
vision for what you might grow into also.
Yeah,
I agree.
Yeah.
So, um, I know we're getting closeto the end of our time today.
(24:41):
Um, but I did want to just kindof touch quickly on, so we were
talking a little bit about studentsbeing able to, you know, share
their stories with one another.
And I was curious if you've.
experienced students sharing some thingsthat maybe you hadn't anticipated and
(25:06):
if, you know, how other students inthe course may have responded, um.
You know, you touched a little bit onstudents kind of maybe feeling some
more empathy towards each other becausethey were finding themselves in, in
similar kinds of places, but do you havesomething like that, that you might share?
(25:28):
So there's always students that, thattake assignments to the next level, right?
That, that, and so like, we're talkingof exceptional examples and the
professional portfolio is, is one ofthose where I give them a pretty basic
template, you know, and encourage themto, to definitely make it their own
again, as their professional template.
(25:48):
And so students have taken, takea few students over the couple of
years that I've done this, havetaken this to another level, right?
So they've added otherpages and just read.
Information in a more efficient andconcise way that I've then, then
adapted that into the template, right?
(26:09):
Cause these are just exceptional ideas.
Students also surprised me with theconcept map activities, you know, like I
give them some examples and most studentseither follow those sorts of examples,
but you know, students will take thefinal project to the next, to the next
level, or with topics that, I neverreally thought about before, you know,
(26:30):
I give them a bunch of suggested topics.
I remember one very vividly a coupleof semesters ago, a student, a student
did a project on what happens to theclothes that don't sell in the world.
Like where do these clothes go?
Apparently they go someplace like inChile or Columbia or something like that.
There's just like this huge kind ofmountain of just brand new clothes.
(26:54):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And so I was like, wow, this is justsuch a creative, a creative topic.
I haven't had very many situationswhere students do any, any sort of
things that, you know, maybe sharesomething too personal or something
like that on a portfolio that, um.
You know, but students, studentsregularly, regularly comment that their
(27:19):
portfolios, looking at other people'swork on the Portfolio was a main, a
main source of to gather information?
Sure.
But also to know where they,how they need it to perform.
So it kind of makes it like this, youhave to put your best foot forward
because all these other students are too.
(27:39):
And, and you know, if you're not right,if you get a grade, if you get a C and,
you know, I often tell students, ifthey ask like, why did I score so low?
I'm like, well, why don't you go look atX, Y, and Z's portfolios and you can see.
You can see where, and I'll, Ialways let students resubmit.
That's something that I always do.
(28:01):
Like if I, if you're going to engage morewith the material, I'll change your grade.
Yeah, sure.
Yeah, go do it.
Yeah.
So, you know, it's good for studentsto look at other students work, but
also it kind of engenders this kind ofcompetition in the class and yeah, and
students just bond because, you know,they know they got to get through it.
(28:21):
Yeah.
Wonderful.
Well, Matthew, thank you againso much for joining me today.
It was wonderful to have this opportunityto speak to you and I'm very excited to
be able to share your, your stories andexperience with, with our listeners.
Thank you so much, Kelly.
It's been an honor to, to chat with you.
(28:42):
I'm very excited.
So thanks.
Absolutely.
Take good care.
Alright.
Bye.
Bye.
Coming up next, we'll be chattingwith Kate Sonka, Executive
Director of TeachAccess.
Here is a quick preview.
Everybody should know a little bit.
Um, so one of the phrases thatwe like to use a lot is we are
(29:02):
about breadth more than depth.
Um, and you, you kind of hintedat this in a few different ways.
Um, but this idea that we're reallytrying to get a lot of people
to know at least a little bit.
Um, of course that doesn'tmean that it will take care of
all the accessibility needs.
Welcome to DigicationScholars Conversations.
I'm your host, Kelly Driscoll.
In this episode, you'll hear parttwo of my conversation with Matthew
Street, Senior Lecturer in Spanishat the University of Virginia.
More links and information about today'sconversation can be found on Digication's
Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
(00:23):
Full episodes of Digication ScholarsConversations can be found on YouTube.
Or your favorite podcast app.
I wanted to talk a little bit, I knowwe mentioned at the beginning of the
conversation that you've been doing morework around open educational resources as
well, and I would love for you to share.
(00:45):
You know, why that's something that'simportant to you, how it, how you may
be developing these things for your owncourses, or maybe even other faculty
members that are within your program.
I would love to learn more aboutwhat you're doing in that area too.
Yeah, so.
Um, the Open Educational Resourceshas this been a big emphasis for, for
(01:10):
a while, but at UVA for a couple ofyears now, there's been a big emphasis
in some, some support in the termof stipends and stuff to, to create
you to create your own resources.
And, you know, it makes a lot of sensebecause the textbooks and the programs
and curricula has grown gotten soexpensive, you know, when we were using
(01:33):
like a mainstream publisher and theywere coming out with a book every two
or three years and the book in theonline platform is over 300 dollars.
I mean, that's, that's, that'sa hell of an amount of money
to, to pay in addition to
your, Super-high tuition.
So for, from an accessibility standpoint,it makes sense from the cost aspect and
(01:56):
also from an equity standpoint for, um,the coverage of different minority groups
and, and, uh, equality aspects all around.
And you're free to, to explainthings that, that, that maybe
may not be presented in.
That more nuanced terms that aren'tnecessarily in the, the, the dictionaries,
(02:17):
the Spanish dictionaries yet, butare definitely in the, definitely in
the, the main, the discourse around.
And so there's some of the incentivesto create open educational resources.
And we've been working to create,it's, we kind of took a big undertaking
to create open educational resourcesfor three different courses,
(02:38):
which is a lot of information.
So, you know, we're, I'm slowly workingon the one for accelerated beginning
Spanish and some of my colleagueslike Kate Neff and, um, and, and.
Esperanza Goriz, they're workingon developing one for Spanish 2010.
And so, you know, over time,we're going to start using these.
(03:01):
I'm actually going to use a coupleof pages from the one that I'm
developing and I'm developing it.
It right into Canvas.
So we're using things like H5P,which is, do you know what H5P is?
Right?
Like an interactive, it's an interactivesort of like, like the home, like a
Duolingo sort of thing where you candrag and drop, fill in the blank.
(03:24):
You can speak in there.
It's these little activities that linkto the grade book in the, in the LMS.
So we're creating activities doingthe H5P activities and then creating
our own content or adapting contentthat always are is already out
there from other creators of OER.
And yeah, so, you know, the, the copyrightstuff is something I'm not well versed in.
(03:49):
Um, but you know, we have thepermission to use certain things
if it's a certain different.
A certain copyright.
Yeah, so we're still kind oflearning as we go with this.
Um, yes.
So, but what I'm creating, you know,the whole focus of, of mine, like a
portfolio is just, it's integrated oneto one with, with what I'm creating.
(04:10):
It's like the students aregoing to be, they're going
to be putting this somewhere,their work somewhere to show it.
Yeah, so I'm definitely thinkingabout mine through the lens of
the, the work will be disseminatedor the create the, the open ended
stuff will be done on an ePortfolio.
Oh, I'm so excited tosee where that may go.
(04:32):
And I'm also interested, youmentioned earlier your use of
some of the instruction areas.
within Digication to kind of scaffoldthe creation process for your students.
Do you ever, um, link to or embed oruse that instruction area to provide
(04:55):
resources like this in your teaching?
So kind of using it as a tool to provideresources or content to the students that
then they could respond to within those?
Kind of corresponding pages.
So like, um, like some of the, like theH5P activities and things like that.
(05:15):
Mm-Hmm.
Yeah.
So I've tried to embed H5P on Digicationand I don't think it works yet.
Okay.
I don't, I don't think you can yet.
Um, at least the last time I tried, youcould not embed it in, in Digication.
May, maybe, maybe that's somethingthat, that, that's coming.
Or maybe you can do it now.
But we do provide our owncontent for some activities.
(05:37):
Yes, like for our open ended summativeactivities, those are things that
don't correspond with the textbook.
We create them 100%.
The concept map activity created 100%.
The monologue prompts, those are created.
You know, the reflection prompts and, andsome, and then with the first iteration of
(05:59):
the Portfolio that we used, uh, We createdall of the open ended projects there too.
They were not, um, because thebook that we were using at the
time was not a project-based book.
We're using a program nowcalled Contraseña – by Lingro
Learning - and it is project based.
So we adapt some of their projectsand put them on Digication, and they
(06:22):
know that we're doing that, and thestudents can respond to those activities.
Multimodal ways on the, on the Portfolio.
Nice.
Nice.
Yeah.
What, what does that look like?
Are they kind of text prompts or their
videos that they watch?
A bit of everything, right?
(06:43):
So there's text, the main, the maindriver is text for instructions
for sure, but there could be,there could be video examples.
Like I'm thinking of the conversationprompts for the Spanish, um,
the summer Spanish course.
Yeah.
So it's, you know, medoing a conversation.
Um, this shows what theideal one would look like.
(07:03):
And it also shows, you know, maybeit's a tutorial linked, you know, I've
made tons of tutorials for Digication.
So it could be, here's a quicktutorial on how to whatever.
So it could be embedded YouTube videos.
It could be if they need to seeparticular guidelines or rubrics,
it could be either in, I love howDigication has, where you can put like
a little, tiny little window of the.
(07:25):
The file.
Mm-Hmm.
. So it could be somethinglike that or a hyperlink, you
know, that links out Mm-Hmm.
to another, like a, aanother PDF or Word file.
So we do aloo...
of a variety of those at, at some.
It would be really cool to have an optionto do some H5P stuff within Digication.
Yeah.
I have to look into that.
(07:47):
Yeah.
And it, it may exist now.
I know I tried it, um, uh, maybe,um, last summer, not this summer.
But the one before that, yeah.
And it wasn't, it wasn't workingthen, which is, it's okay.
Yeah.
We are just always really fascinatedand interested in, you know, other
kinds of technologies that, um,you know, the people are using our
(08:08):
platform are using too, in waysthat they can become integrated.
So I'm glad that that got mentioned.
So I'll have to, um, sharethat with my team and, and see
what might be possible there.
Um, So thank you so much also forjust kind of sharing that because I, I
think in many ways, there's, you know,passionate educators like yourself that
(08:32):
have gotten, you know, really engagedwith the ways that this technology
can be used within their courses.
So not only as.
A place for the students tobe able to kind of make their
learning visible and see theirgrowth and development over time.
Um, but really, as this kind of teachingtool that creates a kind of bridge
(08:59):
from what you're offering to them.
in person in the classroom andsomething that they can kind of interact
with within their own time as well.
So it's kind of serving as thisplace for them to be able to to learn
from you and also respond to that.
(09:20):
Um, And then get feedback from you alongthe way in a way that I think is, is,
you know, different than what a lot oflearning management systems are offering,
just because they're organized aroundthe course specifically, and this is
kind of organized around the individual.
So you can kind of serve out these things.
(09:41):
Are you putting them into a templatethat they're using throughout the course?
Or do they just kind of go from scratch?
Yeah.
So I, I provide the students with atemplate for their Spanish portfolios as
well as their unprofessional portfolios.
However.
Um, one of the, one of the guys thatwas on the team, that's also been
(10:05):
using portfolios for a long time here.
So, um, he's in the French department.
He's also, he's also, um, he's alsoa lecturer or, or teaching professor.
His name is Spiros Spiridon.
Have you, have you ever heard of him?
No, I have not spoken
to him.
Yeah.
So,
yeah, so he.
He, he does very creative thingswith portfolio and he, he piloted a
(10:27):
professional portfolio sort of thingwhere the students could create their own.
Like he just, he just told them you usewhatever source site that you want to do.
And some students used Digication,some students use Wix, you know,
some students use whatever.
And so that was interesting.
But since Since my class is not, it'smainly like first year students or second
(10:50):
year students, and then there's alsoother sections going at the same time.
It's good for us to havelike a Digication template.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Kind of streamline things.
And are there multiplesections of your course too?
There's multiple sections of mycourse, and then there's sections
that other lecturers teach as well.
And, and, you know, in the,the, the different level of,
(11:14):
Digication buy in from, you know,varies from lecturer to lecturer.
So you got to kind of give it tothem on a platter in some ways, you
know, cause it's just such a valuabletool for the students, you know,
it's like, that's one of the thingsthat I've seen that we're teaching.
We have to remind ourselves thatwe're teaching college students,
(11:35):
not high school students.
And the big thing about the Portfoliois the Ownership and the autonomy that
comes with it, even if it's not explicitlystated that the students don't explicitly
know that they own this work, you cantell that they get that by the end.
And that's something that makes themmore, more responsible and active learners
(11:58):
when they're When it's their work thatthey're sharing with the professor,
it's not, it's not something that I own.
They're giving mepermission to look at it.
And so that sort of switch is, I think,a big deciding or differentiating factor
between like teaching high schoolersversus teaching at the university level.
(12:21):
Yeah.
And you can tell when you look at theYou know, pages and projects that they
put together that they're incrediblyproud of the work that they've done.
And there's a great number ofstudents that have opted to
share those Portfolios publicly.
Um, where people can go in and, and seethis incredible progress that they've
(12:47):
made and really listen to the student.
View their reflections and, andget to know them and why this
course was, you know, impactfuland where they hope to take this,
you know, language in the future.
Um, so it's always exciting to see, youknow, when they do understand that kind
of ownership, you know, how openly theywould like to, to be able to, to share it.
(13:13):
And very often I find, youknow, we see many, many examples
of those students that are.
Creating these more kind of crafted,professional oriented portfolios
that they want to share outside.
But more and more students are wanting toreally share, you know, this was something
(13:33):
that, you know, may not be as polishedas something that I'd be developing for
my career, but it's really providingevidence of how much I was able to evolve
and how much I was able to learn overreally a relatively short amount of time.
Yeah.
Yeah.
(13:53):
And, and I agree.
Yeah.
And I, um, this was years ago, but whenI did the university of Virginia study
abroad in Costa Rica, I had the studentscreate Portfolios for that because it's
like, you're documenting this any wayit's going on Instagram and Facebook.
You're going to sit down with yourgrandma and show her all these pictures.
Why not have this learning tool at thesame time where you're also is a place
(14:19):
where you can dump your pictures andstuff, but also you can tell a story
about your evolution of your journeyin this other country for six weeks.
Yeah.
It's yeah.
And I, I agree.
I think the students that havereally seen the, the effects
of the professional portfolio.
Just really take it to the next level.
They really kind of see themselvesbranching out as these critical thinkers
(14:43):
and they identify the ways in which theirthinking has evolved and, and how not
just one class, but the totality of theirlearning has contributed and engendered
this kind of new curiosity to, to, to wantto, to want to put their best foot forward
and show that they're their own person.
(15:03):
And the
portfolio is a great tool for that.
Yeah.
And I love to see even, you know, in someof the beginning stages, how they're,
you know, really tying in what they'relearning in your course to other elements
of who they are and, you know, what maybe their core area of study, if it's
(15:24):
not foreign language and how they'rekind of making those connections from
your course to other kinds of learningexperiences that they have had or that
they're planning for at the same time.
Um, so thank you for sharing that.
And, um, I wanted to.
Kind of, um, circle back to some ofthe points you made earlier about,
(15:49):
um, for our listeners to hear why youthink some of this active learning and
project based learning is so criticalfor students in Higher Ed, um, as they're
preparing for futures beyond college.
Yeah, well that, that,that is a great question.
(16:12):
So, you know, I shared this with mystudents that I heard, um, on a news
show the last semester that severalcountries have installed government
positions like for, to deal withloneliness in their countries.
Like, like there's like the Czar ofLoneliness for, for a couple of countries.
(16:32):
And so, um, So the, the, the activefeature of being able to get out of
your comfort zone and make these, thesepersonal connections in this space is.
is something that we need tobe actively focusing on, right?
It seems like, oh, that's a nobrainer, but no, you actually do need
(16:53):
to encourage students to talk to theperson next to them, because if not,
they're, most of them are not going to.
So I think, I think that,I think that's important.
And I also think in kind ofsharing the rationale with students
about how important it is tobe able to talk about concepts.
In an elevated way is part of developingthis critical thinking aspect as well.
(17:19):
When, you know, I remind my studentsthat your students at the university
of Virginia, you should be ableto stand up and tell me about the
present progressive right now.
And, and, and it doesn'thave to be all right.
You can stumble over your words, butthese are things you should be able to do.
So we're going to work onpracticing those things.
So I think giving them opportunities to.
(17:42):
To kind of express their learning asthey're kind of working toward mastery
helps them to be able to teach eachother in the active learning spaces.
And when they're sitting across fromeach other, it's easy to, to, for me
to ask for help, it's easier to askfor help and offer to help others.
(18:03):
And when the students, the students thathave the most success are the ones that
say, I was really impressed with the factthat I was able to teach and help others.
And that really helped me.
And I think that makes people.
Really active in their own learning.
And that's what you have to do.
You have to always be doing thenext thing instead of waiting
(18:26):
for the next instruction.
Right.
And so I think some of this emphasis oncreating with the language, getting out of
your comfort zone, interacting, offeringto help people, asking for help when
needed, are, are very important aspectsthat could help in all realms of life.
Yeah.
Yeah, absolutely.
(18:46):
And kind of.
Building off of that point, you know,how do you see this as something
that may contribute to, you know,this kind of understanding of each
other and, and sharing their stories?
You mentioned kind of asking for helpor, um, offering help may contribute to,
(19:11):
you know, a deeper desire to understand.
People from other cultures, even if youmay not yet speak the language, you know,
getting being comfortable kind of seekingthings out from people that that are may
not be like you, but may be able to, oryou may not initially think are like you,
but finding that, kind of common ground.
(19:35):
Yeah.
Well, I think students, students,they, they often, yeah, they have to be
reminded of this, but they almost everystudent has interacted with someone
that doesn't speak English very well.
And so reminding the students thatthat person engaged you in conversation
and while, while you understood them.
So now you're that person.
(19:57):
Right.
That's you now, right?
And so when they kind of see it in thatway, I think it enables them to, to, to
understand that, Hey, you know, at theend of the day, even if I say all of the
wrong things, it doesn't really matter.
It's just, I'm, I'm trying and,you know, continue, continue to
try, I guess, in linguistics,it's called your affective filter.
(20:19):
You know, how self conscious youare to say certain things, you know,
that you're not that good at yet.
Um, but, you know, students worktowards that, but yeah, I, I, I'm just
a huge fan of just students, act...
Students engaging with otherstudents in a collaborative way.
I feel like that haspromoted the most success.
(20:41):
And, you know, bringing it back tothe Portfolio and the Portfolio also
contributes to this, even outsideof the classroom, you know, for,
for the, for I always go back tothe concept map activity or students
getting started on the final projects.
If I don't know, or maybe I've beendragging my feet or, you know, maybe I've
(21:02):
been partying too much, or maybe thiscould maybe have too much stuff going on.
I just couldn't get to it.
If I, I know I can go log on to, and lookat, see what Kelly's done so far and get
an idea of, okay, so this is the standard.
So let me see what if I can get right.
Or this is some, she hassome things like this.
Oh, that's a good idea.
(21:22):
You know?
So I think even outside of the class, thevirtual community that's provided by the.
It's not something you'regoing to get on Canvas.
Like, I just did a whole master's programon Canvas at the University of Virginia.
And every time they would ask us to goback and comment on something someone
else said, it took 30 minutes to find it.
(21:44):
You know, it's like, you don'thave that issue with Digication.
It's like, I know exactly whereit is, what I'm looking for.
Yeah, yeah, I know that's alittle all over the place, but
no, but I, I think it's a good pointbecause you know, when you are in this
kind of setting, creating that communityand level of comfort with one another
(22:09):
to kind of break down the barriersof, um, You know, feeling, you know,
feeling uncomfortable, but being able toengage with other people that are also
in that kind of similar uncomfortablespace, you know, maybe at different
levels, um, you know, it's somethingthat, you know, it, it can be scary and
(22:31):
sometimes people have to kind of bravely.
Seek out what expectations are.
And I imagine that, you know, oncethey start looking to see what
other people in the class are doing,that they're naturally kind of
connecting with some of those peoplewhen they're in the course, too.
(22:51):
Or maybe continually going back tolook at some of the same students,
kind of, work because they've seenit as an exemplar and something that
they want to, you know, a level thatthey would like to be able to reach.
Um, and I do think that, you know,because it's oriented around the
individual, it's easier for studentsto be able to, to find each other.
(23:16):
And get inspired by one another.
Um, you know, even within a learningmanagement system, if you're able to
kind of dig down into an assignment andsee that it's something that someone
submitted, it's not connected to abody of work that, that they've done.
So you may be able to access an individualdocument, but you wouldn't be able
(23:38):
to kind of go through and click andbrowse and learn about that person and
see other things that they've done.
And, you know, they kind of becomethese launch points to learning
other aspects of who the individualsare that are that are in their
course, I think, in a different way.
So I, maybe I also spoke about it ina roundabout way, but I completely
(23:59):
understand what you're saying, and it'san intentional part of what we created.
Right?
Um, you know, when we were teaching,we wanted that kind of, um,
motivation that happens when you cansee the success of other students.
(24:20):
You know, it creates a, it lights a fireunder you and helps you kind of have a
vision for what you might grow into also.
Yeah,
I agree.
Yeah.
So, um, I know we're getting closeto the end of our time today.
(24:41):
Um, but I did want to just kindof touch quickly on, so we were
talking a little bit about studentsbeing able to, you know, share
their stories with one another.
And I was curious if you've.
experienced students sharing some thingsthat maybe you hadn't anticipated and
(25:06):
if, you know, how other students inthe course may have responded, um.
You know, you touched a little bit onstudents kind of maybe feeling some
more empathy towards each other becausethey were finding themselves in, in
similar kinds of places, but do you havesomething like that, that you might share?
(25:28):
So there's always students that, thattake assignments to the next level, right?
That, that, and so like, we're talkingof exceptional examples and the
professional portfolio is, is one ofthose where I give them a pretty basic
template, you know, and encourage themto, to definitely make it their own
again, as their professional template.
(25:48):
And so students have taken, takea few students over the couple of
years that I've done this, havetaken this to another level, right?
So they've added otherpages and just read.
Information in a more efficient andconcise way that I've then, then
adapted that into the template, right?
(26:09):
Cause these are just exceptional ideas.
Students also surprised me with theconcept map activities, you know, like I
give them some examples and most studentseither follow those sorts of examples,
but you know, students will take thefinal project to the next, to the next
level, or with topics that, I neverreally thought about before, you know,
(26:30):
I give them a bunch of suggested topics.
I remember one very vividly a coupleof semesters ago, a student, a student
did a project on what happens to theclothes that don't sell in the world.
Like where do these clothes go?
Apparently they go someplace like inChile or Columbia or something like that.
There's just like this huge kind ofmountain of just brand new clothes.
(26:54):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And so I was like, wow, this is justsuch a creative, a creative topic.
I haven't had very many situationswhere students do any, any sort of
things that, you know, maybe sharesomething too personal or something
like that on a portfolio that, um.
You know, but students, studentsregularly, regularly comment that their
(27:19):
portfolios, looking at other people'swork on the Portfolio was a main, a
main source of to gather information?
Sure.
But also to know where they,how they need it to perform.
So it kind of makes it like this, youhave to put your best foot forward
because all these other students are too.
(27:39):
And, and you know, if you're not right,if you get a grade, if you get a C and,
you know, I often tell students, ifthey ask like, why did I score so low?
I'm like, well, why don't you go look atX, Y, and Z's portfolios and you can see.
You can see where, and I'll, Ialways let students resubmit.
That's something that I always do.
(28:01):
Like if I, if you're going to engage morewith the material, I'll change your grade.
Yeah, sure.
Yeah, go do it.
Yeah.
So, you know, it's good for studentsto look at other students work, but
also it kind of engenders this kind ofcompetition in the class and yeah, and
students just bond because, you know,they know they got to get through it.
(28:21):
Yeah.
Wonderful.
Well, Matthew, thank you againso much for joining me today.
It was wonderful to have this opportunityto speak to you and I'm very excited to
be able to share your, your stories andexperience with, with our listeners.
Thank you so much, Kelly.
It's been an honor to, to chat with you.
(28:42):
I'm very excited.
So thanks.
Absolutely.
Take good care.
Alright.
Bye.
Bye.
Coming up next, we'll be chattingwith Kate Sonka, Executive
Director of TeachAccess.
Here is a quick preview.
Everybody should know a little bit.
Um, so one of the phrases thatwe like to use a lot is we are
(29:02):
about breadth more than depth.
Um, and you, you kind of hintedat this in a few different ways.
Um, but this idea that we're reallytrying to get a lot of people
to know at least a little bit.
Um, of course that doesn'tmean that it will take care of
all the accessibility needs.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.