Flexibility in Teaching During the Pandemic: An Action-Research Study of a University Foreign Language Class

• In Event: Thursday Roundtable Session 2:30 pm
  In Roundtable Session: Pedagogies for Equitable Access: Reimagining Multilingual Education for an Uncertain World (Table 12)

Abstract

This presentation aims to discuss the limitations and the affordances of the new online environment, and more importantly, to describe the changes a Spanish department in a private ivy league institution made in order to support instructors to be able to meet the challenges of assessment during the pandemic.

Researchers have studied the impact of the pandemic on pre-K to 12th grade, in terms of Internet accessibility and proper technology access for students, but they focused mainly on the inflexibility of school institutions to embrace rapid organizational change and on teacher and student burnout. This presentation aims to shed light on what happens when instructors have the resources and a full university technical support.

In order to accommodate the new online teaching demands our university created spaces (conferences, workshops, blogs, online forums, one-to-one support, etc.) for faculty to come together to talk about how flexibility, accessibility, and equity inform their approaches to designing various aspects of their courses. Instructors talked about the way they modified their course evaluation structure including more process-base assignments and giving the option for students to choose from several options the way they wanted to be evaluated. They created a fixed set of clear and more structured material and guidance for students to follow, so that they could pick up wherever they left off and decide what to do based on their particular situation. Students found class recordings useful even if they had attended class, and that the hybrid environment became a leveled playing field for equity because everyone could get access to the class in real time or get the recording at a later time.
At our department we felt we needed to redesign our course assignments. We created class projects, in which students could display their knowledge of a particular topic and grammatical concepts putting into practice what they have learned during each chapter. We established a committee to create reading, writing, listening, and speaking activities that involved collaborative work, and with topics strictly related to the class, and to the students' personal lives. We also proposed to have a unit wrap-up after every chapter, equivalent to 50% of the final grade. This meant we change the evaluation from 40% (15% mid-term and a 35% final and oral exam pre-pandemic) to 50% (5 unit wrap ups) during the pandemic.

Faculty used the wrap-ups to assess students' learning, because they believed the wrap ups encouraged them to spend more time working collaboratively with a partner and producing their own material. However, some senior instructors were reluctant to use the new assessment format. By modifying the assessment system students were able to negotiate multiple discourses and semiotic signs that circulate in today's super diverse contexts in order to learn a second language. The work the university has done in supporting their faculty has been invaluable. They provided resources, spaces to reflect on our experiences, and were able to create a sense of community for instructors to share different ways to assess our students.

Author

• Maria Eugenia Lozano, Barnard College