I view my role in education as one of facilitator within an environment designed to encourage autonomous decision making and construction of meaning relevant to the individual learner’s needs. In designing courses and learning activities, whether for the traditional or online environment or for majors or non-majors, I employ several strategies to engage learners and challenge them to apply new concepts to their intended careers. These strategies are based on my belief that:
Content is more easily learned if it is accessible and organized into meaningful “chunks” aligned with course outcomes.
In Native American Languages, an online 7 week compressed course, the content is divided into four units to make the compressed format manageable, while enabling learners to focus on the corresponding big ideas.
Collaboration helps both advanced and beginning learners.
In Phonetic Description, teams of learners persisting throughout the course worked in-class problem sets together, with linguistics majors scaffolding the learning of non-majors and tribal members. By the end of the course, all students were proficient in description and articulated appreciation for the diversity of global languages. Two of the tribal members went on to become language program administrators for their communities.
Active learning allows learners to apply concepts and build knowledge.
In traditional introductory general education classes, like Peoples of the World, I engage learners in activity during class, with lectures watched outside class. In one unit, Kinship and Marriage, learners participated in a fishbowl activity: a group of learners wearing clan and gender symbols was on stage while the remainder of class were ‘elders’ making suitable matches. These activities are often most meaningful (and fun), as students practice concepts live. Students reported that engaging in-class activities prepared them for case study/applied exam questions.
Undergraduate research bridges theory and real world application and makes learning relevant to student goals.
In the non-major course Languages across Cultures, students conducted participant observation research to write an ethnographic analysis of the discourse norms of their intended career fields. Several students reported in final reflections that this activity motivated them to think critically about previously unconscious biases they held. One student emailed me two years after the course ended to report that he was still using what he had learned in that project “in real life.”
My research into heritage language education and revitalization reveals that intrinsic motivation is only one part of learning. Whether second language learners in a heritage revitalization program or undergraduates students at a university, supporting students requires not only tapping into their personal goals, but also encouraging them to engage with research and conduct their own investigations, and respecting them as individuals.