FREN438-Contemporary France
Developing cultural literacy is an
integral part of becoming an educated citizen of the world. The
definition of cultural literacy includes interest and understanding of
social norms as well as politics and current events in a particular
country. In France, cultural literacy in many forms is particularly
valued, especially in professional life, where the expectation is that
you will be able to converse on a wide range of topics outside your
field of specialization. This course is designed to provide you with
some tools for developing cultural literacy in the French context.
Through an introduction to the politics, culture, and society of
present-day France, as well as some aspects of recent French history,
you should come away from this class with a deeper understanding of
social norms and institutional structures, as well as the ability to
follow and understand French media coverage of events as they unfold in
French politics and society. In your travels at home or abroad, you
should feel comfortable discussing and debating social, political, and
cultural issues and current events relating to France.
Pr. Alison Levine and Pr. Janet Horne designed and taught the course
Assistant in charge of the web project (meetings outside the class, workshops, project design and support): Pierre Dairon
This was the second time I worked with Ms. Levine and Horne on the same course.
The course structure was already working very well without using Sakai/Collab and the students worked in small groups to choose the topic of their final project, but eventually each final project was individual.
The challenge was to ahve them to create a website, teach them (in French) how to use new tools, and work together in small groups to create small websites (10 groups divided into 10 themes ; Politic, Economy, Family, Education...) with one common homepage that would describe the general and more specific goal of each group and each student.
This project would not have been possible without a very good organization of the 3 instructors (as the research groups were a mix of students coming from the 2 classes taught by the 2 professors). Thanks to Collab/Sakai, the students could work together and collaborate even without being in the same class.
Course delivered in class but Students had to do team work outside of the class and had to work with students of another class working on the same topic they chose.
Sakai/Collab was at the core of the organization of the course, as the two classes were using a same Sakai site. All the material including the Press reivews they were preparing, the final website project, the documents I prepared for the workshops (how to use the forums, create websites...), the calendars and differents files they used during the differents steps of their projects... were available on Collab, and everything was in the target Language (French).
Some details of their grades :
* Class participation: 25%
o coming to class prepared and actively participating in a meaningful and respectful way
o periodic small writing assignments (“les devoirs”)
o four “revues de presse” (on Collab)
o respectful, regular, and meaningful contribution to the web discussion board (on Collab)
* One term paper, 5-7 pages (as part of a group project/website; paper grade is individual) 25%
* Group work (you will receive an individual grade on your group work; group members may receive different grades): 25%
o project/website (on Collab)
o one 20 min. group presentation
o effective team work (to create the website/final project)
* Final essay/examination, 3-5 pages 25% (which was based on the websites made by their peers ; they had to read the websites of the other students to get ready for the final examination)
Creation of websites as final project, Sakai/Collab being the platform that was used to communicate with/between the students, save the materials, work in small projects groups outside of the class, manage the class and project schedules...
The students managed to work on their research projects, learn how to use new technological tools they did not know in the target language (French) and eventually succeeded in creating a set of websites that include different kinds or media they used to sustain their research and arguments.
The feedback concerning the course was very good regarding the material studied in class and used to develop the final research project that was eventually published.
This was the second time I worked with the two professors on the project (first time in Spring 08), and I was better prepared.
I just feel that having a good website developper embeded in Sakai/Collab would have facilitated the work of the students (they had to use our Language Lab computers - Mac - to create the websites and coul not do it directly online or on their own computers and I had to eventually transfer all the files/websites under the Resouces in Sakai/Collab. It worked fine, the students did a great job, but it was less flexible than having the tool available directly in Sakai).
The students were great and I could answer and resolve all the technical diffciculties they encountered with the help of the Language Lab staff (ASCIT).
As it happened the previous year, I expected some resistance, some problem related to the use of the new tools, the creation of the websites, the lack of motivation when having to deal with the tools, but it was the opposite.
The students were deeply involved, they did their best individually to learn how to use Collab and the iWeb (I organized several workshops in French during the semester to teach them how to use Collab/Sakai and creating websites) and the whole project went very smoothly and everybody produced a nice website on time.
I was impressed and the two professors too.
The teaching innovation has to be
understood within the context of the the class offered ; an advanced
French Language course on Contemporary France.
Innovations are :
-
Integration of technology ;
-
Collaboration between student of
different classes to work on research projects in the target laguage
; -
Teaching the use of technology in
the target language within the framework of a class that is not
related to technology (which allowed to use other vocab and
approaches the students had to learn but never had the chance to
use); -
Thanks to the use of websites, the
students could integrate a wider range of material to make their
point in their final research projects (music, videos, images...) ;
- Final essay/examination, which was based on the websites
made by their peers ; they had to read the websites of the other
students to get ready for the final examination.
-
The final goal of the project
being to create a public website in French, that can be used by high
School teachers looking for new and updated information about France
(this was also a huge motivation as the students new the professors
would not be the only ones to have eventually access to the work
they did, which usually never happens. We had to have them sign
release forms to make it public and only 2 students did not sign it
as they were working on topics they did not want other people to see
outside of the class).
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