Bloomin' Apps--Apps to Promote Higher Order Thinking Skills

Ever since I received an iPad through a TTU instructional technology grant, I have been searching for apps that I can use in the classroom. This past spring, my GERM 3020 students used my garageband app to record and produce radio Werbespots for major German cities. We listened to a variety of authentic Werbespots before we analyzed what they all believe an effective Werbespot required. I envisioned this project as a pure creation exercise to fulfill my presentational mode requirements, and garageband certainly helped us in that regard. Still, I wanted to discover apps that could help my students on all levels of thinking skills...and today I just found a great resource. I plan to download all of these apps for the upcoming semester. I only wish there were some sort of guide about best practices with these apps, but some of them seem clearly analogous to the taxonomy.

http://www.schrockguide.net/bloomin-apps.html

Which have you used? Which do you find the most helpful?

101 Proficiency Review

For 101 students, it can be easy to overlook how much they have learned, especially during the semester when they are trying to master a seemingly endless list of new vocabulary and grammar. That's why during the last days of my 101 course, I decided I needed a way to stress to my students how much they had already mastered. What better way is there than having them reflect in groups? 

I also designed this to be a self- and peer assessment exercise. While compiling their lists, students asked others and themselves if they could achieve the objectives they listed. After the assignment, one student told me that she was surprised how certain objectives were built upon other objectives [e.g., expressing what one likes to do and why]. 

GERM 1010 Objectives-Proficiencies Fall 10

Review of Translations

Nimrod just informed my co-translator William G. Wright and me that the critics over at Newpages have reviewed our translation of Trakl's "De Profundis":

"several fine translations of poetry originally published in Turkish and German."

 

Our rendering can be found in Nimrod, Volume 54 Number 1, Fall/Winter 2010.

Total Physical Respose in GERM 101

While attending UVA's Course Design Institute this past Summer, we discussed why it is important to vary creation assignment types. Not only is variation important to reach different learning styles, but variation can also reinforce and solidify material already learned. GERM 101 assignments tend to focus on written and verbal production, but it can be difficult to engage kinesthetic learners. Thus, in this assignment I required my 22 students to break into two groups and fill in empty frames with objects we had learned at the end of chapter 1 of Deutsch Heute. 

After the drawing phase, students were required to verbally describe something from the other group's picture. While similar Bildbeschreibung exercises exist in our textbook, the fact that students had drawn our pictures engaged my students all the more.  

Current CV

Article accepted for publication

I was just notified that Seminar will feature my article "The Comic Frustration of the Comedic in Hauptmann’s Der Biberpelz." Their editor Raleigh Whitinger had some helpful insights, and I hope to work with the journal again in the future. 

Class Outreach: Transatlantic Climate Bridge Initiative

Thanks to a grant we secured from the German Embassy Information Center, my "Umwelt und Energie" students organized three main outreach events in conjunction with Germany's Transatlantic Climate Bridge Initiative. This program and our outreach focused on talking to students and community members about the causes, effects, and solutions to climate change. Along with an exhibit designed by the the Embassy, my students created and implemented two unique, interactive exhibits whose goal was to help people visualize environmental issues.

More pictures and details will follow. I just wanted to post a capture of UVA's homepage, which featured my class (and me) and our efforts last week. 

And here's a closer look