Video summary
Elena Lanza and Reyes Moran, associate professors of Spanish instruction at Northwestern University, presented their Open Educational Resource (OER) project titled "Temas de OI en Latinoamérica," which is designed to help students reach an advanced-low proficiency level. The project was developed over the last year with support from specific grants and significant assistance from Lauren McCain, an open education librarian. The materials focus on contemporary topics in Latin America using a communicative and content-based approach that centers student learning around three modes of communication: interpersonal, interpretive, and presentational. To facilitate this, the course utilizes a flipped classroom model where students complete preparatory assignments involving reading, listening, and writing before attending class, allowing for more focused interaction during sessions.
The OER site, built on Google Sites, is structured into four modules that follow a consistent design featuring reflective questions, learning objectives aligned with ACTFL benchmarks, and introductory readings to spark further exploration. Each module is divided into parts corresponding to 50-minute class sessions, beginning with homework assignments that students must complete independently before arriving at class. These preparation tasks often involve working directly in Google Docs, where students create their own copies of materials to submit for evaluation. In the classroom, instructors guide students through activities that build upon the homework, encouraging discussion and deeper analysis of the topics introduced in the readings. The site also provides supplementary linguistic resources, such as vocabulary lists, grammatical guides, and templates for describing places or expressing opinions, all available for download as PDFs.
Assessment in this course differs significantly from traditional models by eliminating midterms, finals, and standard quizzes in favor of ongoing evaluation through various creative tasks. Students are assessed via video vlogs, debates, essays, and a final capstone-style project where they research topics of personal interest to reflect on their learning journey. The presenters emphasized that while the homework load is substantial, it is essential for the course's success and that the design was created in-house without external graphic designers to maximize the affordances of Google tools. Although the resource is not yet hosted in a major repository like Open Textbook Library, it will be launched soon, and the creators are actively seeking feedback from colleagues who can adapt the materials for their own institutions, whether using quarter or semester systems.
The presentation concluded with an acknowledgment of positive student reception to the materials, noting that while some students find the volume of homework challenging, they appreciate the depth and structure of the content. The presenters highlighted their inspiration from a similar project seen at a previous conference and their decision to use Google Sites for its ease of use and collaborative features, such as the ability for students to easily duplicate documents. As the final session of the conference, this presentation served to showcase how OER projects can evolve in sophistication, offering valuable resources for instructors teaching intermediate and advanced Spanish levels who wish to integrate contemporary cultural topics with rigorous linguistic practice.
Read the full video transcript
foreign
I see that everybody is back in the room
um and so for our final presentation
today we have Elena Lanza and Reyes
Moran
and the title of their talk is temas De
oi in Latino America
so Elena and Reyes you have our
attention
all right well thank you so much to
everyone for for coming to to the very
last presentation and um
um and and and just being with us um
today thank you and thank you very much
to providing this opportunity to to
present our project as well
um so as Carl said um uh we are going to
present our project it's called demaseo
in Latino America
and uh real quick we just wanted to
um just give you a very quick overview
of this new oer that we've been
developing for the last year or so but
that we are planning to launch in fall
2023. uh we will we will go into the
site in a little bit but um uh we also
wanted to quickly introduce us
um uh ourselves my name is Elena Lance
as you can see also on the screen my
colleague Reyes Moran and we are
Professor associate professors of
instruction of Spanish at Northwestern
University we've been working together
for a long time
um uh developing these types of projects
this one in particular
um has also been made possible thanks to
two grants that we received other
presenters have been talking about the
importance of being
um
compensated somehow for all these uh
work that we do
um uh we were compensated uh thanks to
this Grant and but most importantly too
um we were given uh Support also
um um especially from Lauren McCain who
couldn't be here today but she is an
open education librarian at Northwestern
she's been helping us tremendously
through the whole uh process
um and also thanks to Google Google
sites Google Docs Google Slides which
are the the the foundation for this
project as well as as you will see uh
very shortly
um the proficiency level of these
materials are um aimed towards an
advanced low level of proficiency
according to actual guidelines the
students that arrived to these scores
already have an intermediate mid
intermediate high in some of the skills
uh but we we hope that by the end of the
course they've
they've touched upon Advanced law uh at
least in in a few skills and um also uh
the prereqs to get to this course are to
complete four semesters of a Spanish or
in our case six quarters since we are on
the quarter system
the methodology that we use in this in
this course is communicative and
content-based approaches
um we um we are framing
um contemporary uh topics in Latin
America in this um in this uh in this
again methodological framework and all
the activities that we have created as
well as the lesson plans are all the
student centered
um we also uh designed all the materials
that you will see around the three modes
of communication
um and we also follow the flipped
classroom approach which um also helped
offload a lot of the tasks in the three
modes of communication to the
preparation assignments which are very
very important in this course and
actually Central and then uh you know to
be able to spend a bit more time in the
interpersonal mode of communication when
when in class we also have ongoing
assessment throughout the the course
um
although we do have certain evaluative
tools that we use
um uh throughout the the Border in our
case to assess progress in in our
students we don't have the traditional
midterm and final exams in in this
course and we also got rid of uh of
quizzes that we used to have but we we
decided that they didn't serve the the
purpose that that we were hoping for so
this is just to give you a very quick
overview
so we want to take you to the site right
now
um and uh
I think uh Reyes will be sharing in them
chat perfect thank you Reyes
okay so let me just minimize a little
bit my
um my gallery otherwise okay so
this is how the site
looks like when when you go to initio it
will take you to this landing page and
and again we've we've built this around
Google sites so
um it's been also a bit of a learning
curve for us uh since we had to learn
how to use Google sites we were not
familiar with it so it was it was part
of the of the process so
um The Landing site
um contains the and the the four modules
that we cover in this course
La historia
associated
and it also contains just a little bit
of information here
um about us as authors and about
um also Lauren
um in her work she also has a great blog
um on oers so
I just want to show you real quick from
here
um I want to take you to the contenidos
which functions as an index for us so it
kind of presents
um the whole content is like a a quick
overview of everything that we cover in
all the modules as you can see the the
modules all follow the same exact
structure they always start with this
bigger reflective questions that we try
to address throughout the the different
sessions
um dedicated to the to the each module
they're open-ended questions as well
um and so students also have the
opportunity to
um to do a lot of research in this
course and to answer them uh based on on
what on on everything that they are
learning
um both in class and through through
their individual learning uh process we
also present here the the learning
objectives for each module and uh all
the all the learning objectives are
aligned with the content that we are
presenting in the course and also all
the um linguistic functions and uh
benchmarks that actful also
um uh proposes so they're all aligned um
throughout the four units so
every module is also divided into Parts
each part would correspond to a class
session each class session for us is 50
minutes so depending on the institution
this could be
made longer or shortened depending on on
the amount of time that you have to
cover certain things so for each part we
have a preparation part which is the
homework assignment they have to do at
home before coming to class and then in
class we will cover these different
um objectives the objectives are of
course directly tied to what they
covered uh or what they had to complete
for Preparation okay
so I'm just gonna take you to uh the
first module and
um show you a little bit how it looks
like
um so the each module again it follows
the same structure
has the same design
module 3 and module four
so we're just going to stick with module
one for now but again you have the the
site so you can explore a little bit so
it starts with the learning objectives
for the module
and they pre it presents uh an
introductory reading that we have uh
authored we have created the intro
reading basically presents just general
information General content from which
that serves as a starting point for uh
students to then explore specific
sub-topics that they may find in there
so
um they're not too long they're very
manageable but it provides a little bit
of a baseline at least for them to to
just get started and and to be able to
start
um thinking about
um some of the homework activities Etc
it provides just a quick overview as you
can see also the vocabulary is presented
um in context and highlighted these are
words that we want them to hopefully
recycle in the homework assignment or in
some of the activities that we do in in
class as well and there's also access to
these documents via Google doc as well
okay I mean sorry I just I knew I was
gonna
do that and then it was it would kick me
out okay
so um
[Music]
yes so then I'll just go real quick to
the preparation so we'll just go to part
two contenidos again it presents the the
objectives for the day so for the
preparation they will go here and they
will work on all these assignments
presented here there's videos there's
some um reading listening comprehension
and then there's in this case for
example there's a reading
um with some active vocabulary that we
want them to recycle somehow in their
own
um written product afterwards
they can also access the Google Doc
and this way students can complete this
assignment here they'll they're all
forced to make a copy and then they
complete it here and then they can share
this link with the instructor however
they see fit they currently do it with
us they just submit it on canvas for us
um
this preparation is tied to the lesson
plan
that we then cover in class
and so this is the lesson plan and these
are again some activities that we are
proposing that again are tied to the
work that they did in the homework
assignments also they have some reflect
reflective reflection questions that
they have to come to class to class
somehow prepared for you know to talk to
talk about them in class with some um um
classmates
and this is how a lesson plan typically
looks like okay
these lesson plans that we propose for
the students sorry
are also here for the instructor and
they are annotated so in this case for
instance you can see here in the notes
just some suggestions for
um usage in the in the classroom the
time the approximate time that we
dedicate to to some of them Etc
okay and then at the bottom of each
module we also include this uh
linguistic resources so they are all
supplemental materials to help a
students achieve the the learning
objectives for that
um
for that module okay so in this case for
example we want them to talk about
identity in all its multiple forms so we
provide there some terms that may be
helpful these uh documents can also be
downloaded as PDFs
for example we also provide some
supplemental materials to help them
describe a place because that's one of
the tasks we are asking them to complete
so we give them this guide to help them
do that linguistically
and we also provide some grammatical
resources so for example in this case if
we're asking them to give opinion then
we provide these very basic materials to
do so and again we we have worked on
this so this is again this is what every
module does and then I just want to go
real quick to information so this uh tab
basically is it serves a little bit as a
user guide and so it it explains both
students and instructors a little bit
how the site is uh is a structure the
importance of preparation the modes of
communication the general objective for
this course the learning objectives and
it also provides the evaluation rubrics
for all the different assignments that
um we we have for this course okay for
instructors too we have here a more
theoretical explanation of our
methodological approach and how we
integrate the different modes of
communication in the in the course
okay
anything else right yes yeah you can go
to the the questions like frequent
um yes and then we'll we will just get
out of here yes and then are you seeing
my uh the PowerPoint okay perfect
okay so these are some questions
um so the site uh the site directly
cannot be embedded into a course
management site you can embed the link
um but you cannot embed all the
different materials that we have shown
you however you can break them down and
you can upload it to your course
management site which is how we've been
using them uh up to this point all of
those components we've just organized
them in the in the in the site and and
they've been they've been working very
well too
instructors can modify the materials uh
we just uh you know we can provide all
the links to the
um PowerPoints for instructors and then
um we can give you uh permission to edit
those
um users can download the materials all
of them
um the oer
um it is not yet in the open textbook
library on in or in any other oer
repositories it is going to go live
hopefully in the next few weeks but for
now you have you have the link to
explore and we would love love love love
to hear your feedback
we will be sharing these um uh this
PowerPoint as well but uh um Reyes I
don't know if you wanna share the form
too for the the feedback form I can do
that too later on the chat uh if if uh
if colleagues can take a look at it and
give us your opinion
um it would be uh wonderful we do have
feedback from students from the first
two quarters we used it in full we've
used the materials also this quarter
students really like it and uh and on
that end there don't seem to be a lot of
issues they do say that we assign a lot
of homework but that's true uh but
um yeah I think that's the
um that's the gift of what we wanted to
share today with you guys
I don't know if if I went over a little
bit the time but uh I'm so sorry this
[Music]
is a lot to share a lot to share yeah
well thank you both I think we do have
some time uh you're the last ones of the
day so we'll have some questions and
I'll start off Amelia Moreno asks um I
see that you know no longer use quizzes
and exams so
um how do you assess your students
yeah we have like a different uh uh
assessment uh during the during the
along the the course as for example we
have like some video Vlogs or if you go
to videos
you will see that we have like for
example video blog we have two video
Vlogs we have like a a in order to
assess like the presentation or mode of
communication we have like Mesa Arizona
for interpersonal and also a debate
also we have for uh a presentational
written to essays uh also like um yeah
we have like different components along
the course but we don't have uh we don't
have like a final exam you know it's not
what we're doing aim for for this class
we have though like a final uh
presentation uh uh presentation and also
a final
essay that is more like for the students
also to to research about their own
topics of interest and uh and to reflect
about about them yeah
yeah it's like a cup like sort of like a
mini Capstone no project for the course
yeah
and another question
um is about how you organize all of this
content is it just a a single semester
course
um how would you
how would you divide the course if you
were in in order systems Maybe
so this is this is uh this is used in a
quarter system
um so yeah so it's it's uh it has a
total of 26.
class sessions okay it's 26 class
sessions that would take that would be
two that would be 50 minute long plus
the homework assignments in preparation
for those that it's that's extra
obviously that's outside the classroom
so yeah
um and I have a question
um generally so you this is beautifully
designed did you work with a a graphic
designer with for the project
with it we did we were the designers too
yeah
well it shows and that's important
design is important
um so I it's also fully it takes
advantage of of all the affordances of
Google docs clearly that was a a
decision that you made did you look at
other platforms and decide that the
Google sites was just the best for what
you wanted to do
yes we did and uh actually we our our
big inspiration we got it last year from
the conference uh from pluma so uh yes
we we saw her project and and we just
loved it so uh we we asked her and and
she said yeah Google Google sites allows
you to to to do this for us it just
worked just based on on how we were
conceiving the the course and just the
flow of all the assignments and the
materials
um
so yeah and um well I know that um we've
had many talks today they're using press
books as a platform but of course the
Google Docs as you showed in your
presentation that students can then make
copies of of all the materials and then
create their own very easily so that's
one of the affordances of of the Google
Docs right that is so exactly so easy to
publish and share all the materials
within within the site
yeah
well so I just want to thank everybody
for their attention and for uh hanging
with us till The Bitter End but this was
a wonderful way to finish this
conference
um again on behalf of coral and olrc at
Kansas University we want to thank you
all for attending and
um I want to remind you that in a couple
of weeks we will have all the recordings
uh of all of the sessions that are
available
um so check back on our website at
coral.university of Texas at Austin and
also olrc at uh University of Kansas and
there is my partner there uh Natalie's
been helping behind the scenes so
everything went off beautifully today so
thank you all for your participation and
just let's keep in touch and help each
other in the sharing our resources thank
you all
thank you thank you so much for coming
thank you
it's okay
you thank you
there's now a closing right
there's like a closing at
are we done done are we done done yeah
we're finished okay oh okay I thought
there was yeah that's my general remarks
thank you that was your wrap up okay
that was my rap thank you all right
thank you so much for another great
great conference that was it was amazing
yeah thank you bye-bye glad that we have
people who are now working on Advanced
and intermediate and advanced because
most of the activity was a beginning
level and so this is really it's
interesting to see it's growing in
sophistication
yeah so really nice job I think we're
all getting a lot of inspiration from
each other so that's that's what's great
about this yeah thank you very important
thank you thank you for sharing
foreign
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