JWST

UROP Sponsors New Opportunity for Academic Departments

Anonymous — Tue, 10 Jan 2017 17:25:34 +0000

UROP Sponsors New Opportunity for Academic Departments Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 01/10/2017 - 10:25

By Joan Gabriele and Tim O’Neil

What is research like in the arts and humanities? That’s a question students in several CU programs and departments will soon be able to answer thanks to new initiatives in Jewish Studies, Theatre and Dance, and English, which are supported by the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP)’s new Department Grants. With funding generously provided by the College of Arts and Sciences this year, UROP initially offered these new awards to arts and humanities departments to kick start the development of cultures supportive of undergraduate research, scholarly and creative work. Department Grants are now available to any department/program working to help majors understand scholarship in their field and provide opportunities for students to take ownership of their education.

This year, Department Grant recipients will host social events for faculty to share their work with students and initiate collaborations. Because Jewish Studies is interdisciplinary, faculty will come from several departments. English will host discussions with faculty on archival resources and material culture as well as how creative writers produce their work. Both will include field trips. Theatre and Dance will also revise their website to highlight opportunities for undergraduate engagement.

Jewish Studies students will delve into Holocaust denial literature and Jewish renewal manuscripts in Norlin library, working with the Archive Project Director and Chief Archivist. Faculty in Theatre and Dance will integrate research into the curriculum of existing courses. And English students will visit Professor Lori Emerson’s Media Archaeology Lab and Professor Adam Bradley’s Laboratory for Race and Popular Culture.

Students may emerge from these experiences with new ideas for career paths, their own independent projects (including honors theses), a desire to work in the archives, or assisting a professor with their research or creative work. Grant recipients will share their experiences at a symposium in Fall 2017 which will be open to all faculty. In anticipation of the upcoming grant deadline of February 17th, interested departments can get more information at http://www.colorado.edu/suep/urop/faculty

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When Technophobe Meets Technology

Anonymous — Wed, 15 May 2013 06:00:00 +0000

When Technophobe Meets Technology Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 05/15/2013 - 00:00

Dr. Julie Lieber, a professor of History and Jewish studies, is a self-declared technophobe. That is why she was shocked to receive recognition from ASSETT for excellence in teaching with technology. Lieber recognized that while technology was outside her comfort zone, it made up a large part of how her students learn. “I recognized that while writing on the board and reading from textbooks is my comfort zone, that’s not the way students are learning today… Meeting students where they’re at has been something that I’ve learned.”

Lieber uses technology to enhance her in-class experience, by barely including it inside the classroom at all. Instead, Lieber does things like administer quizzes and stream movies on D2L, so that the in-class time she has with her students can be the most productive. “I try to spend most of class time actually engaging with students and having that face-to-face encounter. So a lot of ways I use technology is to preserve that within the classroom.” Lieber says too that technology can maximize the amount of material as well as the quality of learning in a class.

There is a concern that technology, if used improperly, can mean the loss of the human element. Lieber has noticed a significant decrease in the number of students who come to her office hours when they can simply send her an e-mail. In moderation, however, Lieber sees how technology can help students perform better. “The more visual material I give them, the better. Students seem to connect a lot more with images and short clips from films. I have gotten a lot of positive feedback when I’ve used those.” Lieber also allows her students to take their exams on their laptops instead of with blue books.

“Asking students to go into a final exam when they’re being asked to really perform, and write in blue book was dissonant to me. So instead, I have students write their exams during the exam time on their laptop because that’s the way that students can process and produce information in the most productive way… Technology was a way to allow them to perform at their best.”

Lieber advises professors to not be intimated by technology and to be open to experimenting with new things. Lieber utilized the numerous help resources to learn about new technologies. “Find your tech person,” she says with enthusiasm. “They can be of great help.”

While Dr. Lieber may not be breaking the mold with her use of technology, she uses the existing resources to realize her classroom vision. She listens to the needs of her students, stepping out of her comfort zone to give them the best learning experience, and the most full in-class experience.

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Innovative Practices for Learning Biblical Hebrew

Anonymous — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 06:00:00 +0000

Innovative Practices for Learning Biblical Hebrew Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 07/31/2009 - 00:00

If you learned a language in high school, odds are you remember snippets, phrases, or mere words of the language you studied.

Biblical Hebrew Instructor David Valeta’s goal is to teach a language so that students will remember it for years, using what is called Communicative Language Teaching (CLT). This change in his teaching pedagogy and practices will require the use of imagination, technology, and a touch of bravery.

“Usually, you sit down, you memorize vocabulary and rules,” Valeta explains. “But with CLT, they will hear it, see it, speak it. Grammar comes, but only after they’ve already been using the language.”

The approach is modeled after how children most often learn languages: often by hearing it and being immersed within it. Children learn to speak before they learn to read and write. Not only that, but they learn both of those things before they ever learn what a noun or verb is.

Valeta’s plan is to use CULearn, video clips, audio tracks and props to facilitate student learning in his brand new Biblical Hebrew (HEBR 1030 & JWST 1030) class in Fall 2009. All these parts combined will create an interactive and immersive learning environment for first year Biblical Hebrew students.

Valeta has used technology in the past to make his classes more appealing to students, but this will be the first time he will use it with the CLT model of language teaching. “Hopefully, this will be more effective. Hopefully it will be more fun,” Valeta imparts. He imagines that when students realize classes will be filled with videos, music and props instead of countless drills, that they will be more inclined to show up to class.

That’s what other professor’s around the country think as well. To learn the CLT method, Valeta earned an ASSETT Dean’s Fund for Excellence Award to attend the Pedagogy Workshop in Communicative Biblical Hebrew. At the conference, he met teachers around the country who are also implementing the CLT method of language teaching in their Biblical Hebrew classrooms.

Of the four day, 8-hours-a-day workshop, “probably a third of the course was in Hebrew,” Valeta explains. “They taught the method to us by teaching us, as if we were the students in the class.”

Using technology in the classroom should make learning Biblical Hebrew, a ‘dead language’ more accessible to students—allowing them to study in the car with a CD, at home listening to video and audio clips on their computers, and at school with their peers. It’s what you can think of as modern-day language immersion.

David Valeta’s new class is just another example of how pedagogy and technology can pair up and create opportunities to enhance teaching and learning.

Written by: Kate Vander Wiede, CU '09, ASSETT Staff

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