SLCTLS 2022

Following two years of virtual events, the 2022 SLCTLS was finally held again in person on August 18-19 at the Big Ten Conference Center in Rosemont, IL, with accommodations at the Aloft Hotel.

The symposium started with the key takeaways from the past events, where panelists highlighted the benefits of collaboration, and focused on the reasons behind sharing and supporting LCTL programs. The panel then closely examined different course sharing models through the lens of those who have experienced different types of models at different institutions. The panelists reflected on the modality of language classes, flexibility of the sharing models, and ongoing challenges.  

The next day started with the discussion on college language enrollment and the potential increase of it with the introduction of credentials after the completion of the language course. Following the discussion on the recent growth in course sharing, panelists reflected on the changes the pandemic has brought to it and even looked at the psychological side of teaching.  

See below for:

  • videos of the SLCTLS sessions
  • downloadable agenda
  • panelist information
  • short summaries of presentations

 

Agenda: 

Click here for the downloadable agenda, which includes our speaker list.

Thursday, August 18

  • 2:30 – 3:30pm Check-in and refreshments
  • 3:30 – 5:30pm SLCTLS Official Welcome and Course Sharing Model Discussion
  • 5:30 – 7:00pm Dinner in the Main Dining Area

Friday, August 19  

  • 8:00 – 9:00am Breakfast in the Main Dining Area
  • 9:00 – 9:15am Introduction to day’s event, Updates on projects
  • 9:15 – 10:00am Language Enrollments and Responses
  • 10:00 – 10:45am Scaling Up Sustainably: Affordances and Challenges of Shared Language Courses
  • 10:45 – 11:00am Break
  • 11:00 – 12:15pm Instructors’ Voices: Post-COVID (Shared) LCTL Instruction – Where are we now?
  • 12:15 – 1:15pm Lunch in the Main Dining Area 
  • 1:15 – 2:15pm Strategic Sharing: What Can We Share, What Should We Share, How Can We Share
  • 2:15 – 2:45pm Reflection, Recap, and Farewell (including final evaluation and announcements)

Panelist Information and Highlights

SLCTLS Official Welcome and Course Sharing Model Discussion

  • Simon Gray, Program Officer, Global Liberal Arts Alliance, Great Lakes Colleges Association (Virtual)

    Simon started his presentation with a brief history of Great Lakes College Association and then proceeded to talk about Shared Language Program, which is one of the six projects in this consortium that was created to diversify the curriculum and strengthen language programs in member schools. He addressed some major concerns that the faculty had prior to sharing courses and outlined steps taken to ensure successful collaboration, such as faculty development, regular evaluations and reports to the dean. As a final note, he emphasized the need for the faculty to get together first and then arrive at the conclusion to share languages.

  • Felix Kronenberg, Director, CeLTA; Associate Professor, Michigan State University

  • Terry Randolph, Regional Vice President of Academic Partnerships, Acadeum

    With over 430 public and private institutions, cross-registration and leveraged financial aid, Acadeum has a lot to offer for the future of course sharing. In his presentation, Terry discussed major concepts that lie within Acadeum and shared the ways that make this asymmetrical exchange viable. More importantly, Terry discussed and answered the questions on credit transfer process, student enrollment through pre-approval and a policy for publishing a course online.

     

  • Deb Reisinger, Associate Professor of the Practice; Director of Shared LCTL Consortium, Duke University

    Just like other consortia, Duke-UVA-Vanderbilt Partnership stressed the significance on high quality in-person classes with students from member institutions zooming in. There, instructors experimented with implementing project-based tasks and other engaging activities to make classes more interesting. Based on their experience, they developed trajectories to successful collaboration, such as advertising courses, scaling up with new languages and documenting F2F interaction.   

  • Emily Heidrich Uebel, Associate Executive Director of the National LCTL Resource Center, Project Manager of LCTL and Indigenous Languages Partnership, Michigan State University

  • Janna White, Director, Five College Center for World Languages

    In the same vein, Janna talked about Five College Consortium and its major pillars and then elaborated on the strengths of this collaboration, which include a geographical proximity between member institutions, cross-registration and three models of instruction. Based on the previous models and initiatives, she outlined the importance of practicing oversight, flexibility and collaboration (shared curriculum and joint appointments). Janna concluded that consortium can be successful even with a few institutions participating and a couple of languages shared.  
     

     

      

Language Enrollments and Responses

  • Catherine Baumann, Director of University of Chicago Language Center,“Now You See It, Now You Don’t.” 

    Catherine examined closely undergraduate and graduate language enrollments and outlined that there is a peak in college enrollment, which does not transfer over to language classes. According to her study, a lot of students see college as a direct pathway to finding a job and being practical as they are; they do not see the reason in taking a course that has no career applications. She illustrated how the University of Chicago is working to boost language enrollments by reframing language skills as marketable professional skills. For example, students can obtain official certifications in language proficiency or a Global Honors academic track.

  • Dianna Murphy, Director, Language Institute; Co-Director, Russian Flagship Program, University of Wisconsin-Madison, “Why undergraduate students are not taking language courses (and what students tell us we can do about it).” 

    While a lot of studies focus on reasons for taking language courses, Dianna set out to explore the reasons for not enrolling in them and looked at the possible ways to encourage students. Schedules and focus on credentials were among the factors influencing the course enrollment, whereas career plans alignment and job requirements were determining factors in choosing a course. She noted that students who are underrepresented in language courses present opportunities for recruiting. 

Scaling Up Sustainably: Affordances and Challenges of Shared Language Courses

  • Mia Li, Instructional Learning, University of Michigan (Virtual)

    Mia described the process of implementing the course once the instructor reached out to her. For a course to be successful, she advises starting with the development of it first and then thinking about the format. Planning and regular reports to the deans are important as well as getting faculty together. Thus, they will get to know each other and share the resources. 

  • Lauren Rosen, Director of Collaborative Language Program, University of Wisconsin System (Virtual)

    Lauren focused on the goals they had in mind and what they had accomplished. To make the semester run smoothly, they implemented introductory modules for students and had instructors choose their format of teaching. In line with the global seal of biliteracy, they handed students badges with four language skills assessed and level determined. As a recap of the previous talks, Lauren emphasized the need to leverage infrastructure with course share increase. 

  • Nicholas Swinehart, Multimedia Pedagogy Specialist, University of Chicago,

    In his talk about CourseShare, Nick first outlined the importance of stability, the essence of which lies in giving students access to the course over the entire course of study and for instructors to have sustainable shared course over a long period. Then he proceeded to discuss long-term views in fostering LCTL sharing and the ways to withstand short-term fluctuations. For course share to be successful, there has to be commitment to support LCTLs at home and enough resources should be devoted to partnership building, marketing and administration support. 

  • Stephanie Treat, CourseShare Specialist, University of Minnesota,

    As Stephanie pointed out, instructor’s and students’ needs can be abundant and to address these needs, one has to approach collaboration from two different levels: institutional and system. Institutional level revolves around three important pillars – reflect, research, and reach out. At the system level, there should be a focus on developing shared systems and automation.

Instructors’ Voices: Post-COVID (Shared) LCTL Instruction – Where are we now?

  • Lioba Gerhardi, Director of the Self-Instructional Language Program, Vassar College, “Shared Courses: Classroom-to-Classroom vs. Fully Online.” 

    Lioba introduced Vassar-Williams Portuguese Shared Project, in which students practice self-instruction models and work with native speakers in small classes. She outlined the importance of proper classroom setup and the ways to bridge the gap between learning spaces and technological issues. As a collaboration that practices hybrid format with a member institution, Lioba’ suggestion was to juggle between two formats. 

  • Alba Girons Masot, Director of the Catalan and Basque Language Programs, University of Chicago

    Alba, who is the instructor of Catalan in the University of Chicago, discussed their model and proudly talked about the increase in language enrollment. Instructors designed meaningful activities, which were the core of the curriculum and which prompted students from other institutions to join the discussion. In one of these activities, students from different universities watched a movie in Catalan and then had a movie director join them virtually to discuss the themes. Alba highlighted the importance of having a professional collaborative community of fellow teachers to share ideas and resources with. 

  • Magara Maeda, Distinguished Instructor of Japanese, University of  Wisconsin River Falls,“Japanese Course through the Collaborative Language Program (CLP).” 

    As different instructors and officers talk about different ways to build the community, Magara shared her techniques in getting students together through Padlet and Flipgrid. She emphasized the need to build the community before the start of classes and develop introductory course modules for students. Taking a different stance, she encouraged instructors to focus on pedagogy instead of the format and stressed the significance of practicing self-care. 

  • Noriko Sugimori, Associate Professor of Japanese, Kalamazoo College,“Shared Languages and Concerns among Instructors at GLCA Colleges: the Cases of Chinese and Japanese.” 

    Noriko analyzed the responses of Japanese and Chinese instructors, their interest in participating in GLCA consortia model and their views on course share after the pandemic. She looked at technological, administrative, marketing and scheduling issues; and pinpointed that due to the pandemic instructors increased their familiarity with online format. Yet they still preferred in-person classes.  

  • Leihua Weng, Chinese Endowed Assistant Professor of Chinese Language and Literature, “Challenges and Proposals: A Perspective from a Language Instructor at a Small Liberal Arts College.”

    In her talk, Leihua addressed the challenges of course share, such as high learning curve of technology and lack of communication between faculty and administrators; and proposed viable options in making collaboration run efficiently, among which are sharing resources and syllabus, discussing instruction methods and developing shared abroad study websites.  

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