The artifact I am planning to work in is the composition assignment for my Elementary Spanish classes. In my experience and from what I heard from other professors, students trend to use google translator or to copy their writing assignments from somewhere. My solution to this problem is to create an structure that their composition needs to fit in, using certain structures and vocabulary. This way the students have to be original. Something that would help this goal as well student engagement is to make the assignment interactive with the other students.
The objectives for the long composition are:
-To improve grammar and vocabulary skills in Spanish in writing that show a proper use of this elements at a basic level.
-To improve student communication at an oral level.
-To provide repetition about the components of the assignment, fostering retention.
-To reflect on ones writing. Metacognition.
4 replies on “Artifact”
Carmen, this sounds like a cool project. I wonder if you also used some process work where students had to turn in smaller pieces of the project earlier on or in chunks if that might help with the Google Translate problem. Could they be tasked with turning in smaller pieces of it or even workshopping smaller pieces of it together? I’m not sure what course structure/mode you have but that could be a cool breakout activity that might cut down on some of that copy + pasting.
Carmen, I love the interactive approach of your composition assignment. As a bilingual writer and former teacher of Spanish, I can understand the challenges you are facing. Having students write letters to each other is a specific way to keep them morivated and focused.
Hi Carmen!
This sounds like a cool interactive assignment. I was going to suggest something similar to Lauren about maybe findings ways to scaffold the assignment.
-Wiston
Hi Carmen, this sounds like a good project to revamp! Having taught introductory Spanish to freshmen in Canada, I understand the problem of students just using Google Translate. I would say that part of the solution is to make the assignment partly oral. For the written part, making them follow a specific structure sounds like it would deter them from using an automatic translator. I also agree with Wiston that scaffolding should help. Students tend to use copy-paste and other easy solutions when they are lost as to how to approach an assignment, in my experience. I’m curious to hear how your artifact turns out!