{"id":189,"date":"2013-03-12T10:49:06","date_gmt":"2013-03-12T15:49:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/dorer\/?p=189"},"modified":"2014-10-03T10:50:00","modified_gmt":"2014-10-03T15:50:00","slug":"pa-gang","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/dorer\/2013\/03\/12\/pa-gang\/","title":{"rendered":"P\u00e5 gang"},"content":{"rendered":"

A number of students have been asking me what I’m up to this semester since they didn’t see my name listed teaching classes this semester.<\/p>\n

I am happy to report (albeit it old news that I’m just now having time to blog about) that I have received the St. Olaf College Faculty Time Release Grant for the 2012-2013 academic year.\u00a0 Each year at St. Olaf, one faculty member is awarded a semester to work on a research project that they propose.\u00a0 This year it is me!\u00a0 So I taught full time this fall and during interim and then have the spring to work on my project.\u00a0 It isn’t a full-on sabbatical; I’m still\u00a0attending many meetings a week\u00a0for various committees, attending dept. and faculty meetings, advising students, advising students\u00a0for study abroad, etc.\u00a0 So, it is not\u00a0a semester devoted entirely to this project, but it is\u00a0still a\u00a0much needed break from my regular schedule.\u00a0 I’d never finish this project without\u00a0the significant chunks of time to concentrate\u00a0that I was awarded.<\/p>\n

Here is some information on my project, taken mostly from the proposal I wrote.<\/p>\n

My project is called\u00a0P\u00e5 gang, An Online Intermediate Norwegian Language Curriculum<\/em>.\u00a0 It furthers the novice level curriculum that I have co-authored with\u00a0Nancy Aarsvold<\/a>,\u00a0Sett i gang<\/a>.\u00a0 I believe that there is an immediate, nationwide need to develop new intermediate Norwegian language curriculum that draws on the research of language acquisition to better meet the needs of our North American learners.\u00a0This need has been identified and discussed at length at the departmental and national level.<\/p>\n

Our project is actually not new- the beginnings of this project actually began over 8 years ago together with Nancy; however, completion of the project has not been possible because of the time investment necessary.\u00a0 Drawing on the research findings from my dissertation on student use of\u00a0MOODLE<\/a>\u00a0and Nancy’s new role as Assistant Director of Instructional Technology at St. Olaf,\u00a0P\u00e5 gang<\/em>\u00a0is entirely online.\u00a0 By developing a curriculum that is entirely digital, it will give students a multiscensory experience through videos, visuals, authentic and constructed texts and tasks. Through the texts and tasks students develop intercultural competence by reflecting on their own culture in conjunction with Norwegian society.\u00a0 This also gives learners more opportunities to explore beyond the classroom walls.<\/p>\n

One of the main tenets of P\u00e5 gang<\/em> is that it uses a theme-based model of\u00a0Content Based Instruction<\/a>\u00a0(CBI).<\/p>\n

CBI is a model for curriculum writing used in many foreign language intermediate level courses where the target language is \u201cthe vehicle through which subject matter content is learned rather than as the immediate object of study” (Brinton et al., 1989, p. 5).\u00a0 CBI emphasizes the negotiation of meaning (Lightbown & Spada, 1993) and incorporates a variety of thinking skills and learning strategies that lead to rich language development. (Curtain, 1995; Met, 1991).\u00a0 Additionally, CBI offers the flexibility many faculty desire at the intermediate levels as there are more opportunities to adjust to the needs and interests of students.<\/p>\n

Stoller (2002), a frequently cited expert in CBI, explains that the success of CBI \u201cdepends on the details of its implementation\u201d (np.) and argues for a \u201cdual commitment to our students\u2019 language and content learning needs\u201d (np.).\u00a0 In order to achieve this, Stoller believes that a successful CBI framework considers these four points, which will guide the development of\u00a0P\u00e5 gang<\/em>: (1) sound teaching practices that lend themselves to natural integration of language and content, (2) methods of promoting the acquisition of content, (3) the techniques for incorporating levels of complexity into instruction and (4) the approaches for building curricular coherence.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

P\u00e5 gang<\/em>\u00a0<\/em>has three main components: a novel, themes chosen from the novels, and a grammar guide.\u00a0 I’ll write more about each of these and how these work together in my next post.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The\u00a0St. Olaf Norwegian Department<\/a>\u00a0has a long history of curriculum development, most notably in language instruction.\u00a0Additionally, the department places high value on the development of pedagogical materials as evidence of significant professional activity. Receiving the Released-Time Grant while I am in the fifth year of my tenure track couldn’t be better timing!\u00a0 Having a semester to focus on this project allows me the time necessary to meet the expectations for professional activity before my dossier is submitted this fall.\u00a0 In addition, there is great benefit of this project to the Norwegian department at St. Olaf College as well-developed pedagogical materials will greatly impact student learning, motivation and satisfaction.
\nThe curriculum is currently in its first year of being piloted.\u00a0 It will be revised and expanded before it is piloted once more during the 2013-2014 academic year.\u00a0 Then, in 2014, it will be disseminated.\u00a0\u00a0This is an important year as it\u00a0also the bicentennial anniversary of Norway\u2019s independence.\u00a0 There will be large celebrations in Norway and in the Norwegian-Americans communities across the US.\u00a0 Completion of this project in time for the celebratory events will be a part of how St. Olaf celebrates this important historical event and reaffirms its ties, strengthening the bonds with the past to keep our college\u2019s cultural heritage vibrant.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A number of students have been asking me what I’m up to this semester since they didn’t see my name listed teaching classes this semester. I am happy to report (albeit it old news that I’m just now having time to blog about) that I have received the St. Olaf College Faculty Time Release Grant […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":901,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/dorer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/dorer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/dorer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/dorer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/901"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/dorer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=189"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/dorer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":190,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/dorer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189\/revisions\/190"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/dorer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/dorer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/dorer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}