Spring 2021 series of informal conversations focused on the theme Striking a Balance in Remote Language Teaching and Learning: Promoting Instructor and Student Well-Being. This series aimed at furthering conversations that help uncover the complexities of striking a balance on the professional, academic, and personal goals to achieve the well-being of instructors and students of languages. In our discussions, we strived to answer the following questions: What are the major challenges in promoting our own and our students’ well-being in the context of remote instruction and the ongoing nature of the COVID-19 pandemic? As language instructors, what are concrete steps that we might take to better care for ourselves and our students?
Individual sessions in the series addressed topics such as work-life balance, issues of equity in access to technology or to functional spaces to teach and to learn, balancing academic rigor with flexibility in language courses, balancing ethical considerations with compassionate approaches to assessment, facilitating meaningful interactions in remote language courses and in co-curricular programming, and new models for student (dis)engagement.
All sessions were scheduled for 30 minutes, 3:30-4:00 pm central, 4:30-5:00 pm eastern. Each session required a separate registration.
Spring 2021 sessions:
- Thursday, April 29: Reassessing the impact of the pandemic impact on well being: Identifying opportunities for growth and innovation. Dan Soneson and Adolfo Carrillo Cabello, University of Minnesota; Session recording coming soon.
- Thursday, April 22: Building of Online Chinese Learning Community. Xuefei Hao, Michigan State University; Session recording coming soon.
- Thursday, April 15: Balancing Independent and Peer/Group Work in Language Class. Takako Nakakubo, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Session recording coming soon.
- Thursday, April 1: Trauma-Sensitive Teaching Practices: A Compassionate Framework for Language Educators. Elizabeth Ablan, Michigan State University; Session recording HERE
- March 25: Language TA Fatigue and Burnout. Jeanne Schueller, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Partial session recording HERE
- Tuesday, March 16: Academic Integrity: Promoting Trust, Reflection, and Accountability in the Remote Setting. Stephanie Goetz and Susanna Coll Ramirez, University of Michigan; Session recording HERE
- Monday, March 8: Connections Beyond the Classroom: Meaningful Projects for Remote Language Courses. Katrien Vanpee, University of Minnesota; Session recording HERE
- Thursday, March 4: Creating Meaningful Communication Inside & Outside the Classroom. Yasmine Ramadan, University of Iowa; Session recording HERE
- Monday, February 22: Recent Developments in Collaborative Online International Learning, and How They Can Benefit Language Learning Classes. Dan Nolan, University of Minnesota Duluth; Session recording HERE
- Monday, February 15: Work/Life Balance in Language Teaching. Kristine Muñoz, University of Iowa; Session recording HERE
- Thursday, February 11: Balancing Academic Rigor with Flexibility in Language Courses, Sabine Gabaron, University of Michigan; Session recording HERE
- Thursday, February 4: Language Collaboratory Spring Networking Session: Strategies to prevent teaching burnout, Dan Soneson and Adolfo Carrillo Cabello, University of Minnesota; Session recoding HERE
Sponsors: University of Iowa, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Language Media Center; University of Michigan, College of Literature, Science, and the Arts (LSA) Language Resource Center; University of Minnesota, College of Liberal Arts (CLA) Language Center; Michigan State University, Center for Language Teaching Advancement; University of Wisconsin-Madison, Language Institute