Curriculum Development
Curriculum development initiatives, including efforts to create new curriculum or redesign courses for Chinese, Hindi, Indonesian, Japanese, Persian, Portuguese and Vietnamese.
Creation of new curricula in Indonesian and Vietnamese
In partnership with the UH Center for Southeast Asian Studies (CSEAS, a Title VI NRC) and the Department of Indo-Pacific Languages & Literatures (IPLL), the NFLRC will develop new, PBLL-enhanced curricula for Vietnamese and Indonesian, which will be made available to the profession as an OER, and will conduct design-based research activities which will be documented in a 40-50 page report to be published in 2018. In 2015-16, NFLRC will offer professional development on PBLL online [see Fundamentals of Project-based Language Learning] and two intensive summer institutes, which will have a general focus (2015) and focus on intercultural telecollaboration (2016). Curriculum developers and collaborating faculty will participate in those events. As part of the collaboration between IPLL and CSEAS, the NFLRC will closely work with the course developers while the collaborators will provide the resources to teach the courses. Following a DBR cycle of design and redesign, courses will be taught and revised.
Infusing PBLL in Chinese, Hindi, Japanese, Persian, and Portuguese
The NFLRC will realize the impetus and motivation of the UHM and KCC foreign language faculty to create highly engaging language learning experiences for their students by providing professional development on PBLL and instructional development support services. An initial cohort of seven faculty members from UHM and KCC have committed to participating in NFLRC-sponsored professional development activities that will support the design and implementation of substantial PBLL components (minimum of one 3-week project). These faculty have also agreed to cooperate with NFLRC staff to perform design-based research activities on the PBLL components they design. NFLRC will provide guidance on instructional design, technology integration, assessment expertise, and, through the CTL, access to expertise in professional sound, graphic design, and videography and related equipment. The products of this endeavor will consist of detailed project prototypes in Chinese, Hindi, Japanese, Persian, and Portuguese, which will become part of an interactive online repository.