Crowdsourcing Successes and Challenges
This summer, a group of technologists and second language acquisition professionals formed the Teaching Languages Online Consortium to provide professional development opportunities to all University of Minnesota language instructors system-wide, including the workshop series that was offered August 10–14, 2020.
The Consortium has the following message of support and encouragement to all instructors preparing to launch into the unknown next week:
As we head into the new semester, we recognize the pressure you are under to provide the best possible educational experience for our students. While we are eager to provide opportunities to explore best practices for engaging language learners online, we don’t want to burden you with more meetings to attend as you settle into the semester. For now, we would like to focus on two things:
-
Success stories: We will resume this feature of ElsieTalk in the fall. No story is too small to share!
-
Challenges: What challenges are you facing in online/remote language instruction? We will share challenges anonymously and crowdsource solutions. The most popular solutions will be shared on ElsieTalk so all instructors can benefit.
In addition, we are offering one-on-one consultation services to help you address specific questions or issues that arise in your classrooms. Please email the Language Center at elsie@umn.edu to get started.
The Teaching Languages Online Consortium is Adolfo Carrillo Cabello, Beth Kautz, Dan Soneson, Language Center; Marlene Johnshoy, Kate Paesani, CARLA; Shana Crosson, Colin McFadden, LATIS; Alyssa Bonnac, CEI.
