When We Empower Students to Become Experts

Join Chelsea on a tour of this assignment in the 4-minute video above.

How might you blend research, group work, video creation, and friends and family into an empowering and equitable learning experience for your students? In the 4-minute video below, Chelsea Cohen from Laney College, will show you!

Chelsea’s students, who are English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) learners, engage in a multi-stepped project, beautifully scaffolded into managing meaningful chunks. Each step of the way, students collaborate and increase their knowledge of a particular topic. Chelsea will demonstrate how extending discussions beyond the classroom or Canvas and into a students’ circle of family and friends can foster more diverse dialogue that situates a student as an expert. Can learning get more meaningful than this?

3 Steps to Becoming an Expert

  1. In groups, create a video using Adobe Spark based on your research paper.
  2. Share and discuss your video with friends and family (Extension: share the videos with your Twitter communities).
  3. Reflect upon the experience with your classmates in our class discussion. Summarize the ideas that came up with your friends and families and how it felt for you to facilitate the conversation.  

Accessibility tips! If you have a student in your class that uses a screen reader to navigate the web, you will need to provide an alternative to Adobe Spark Video. Also, if you have a student with a hearing impairment, have at least a few students caption their videos before sharing them with the class. To caption an Adobe Spark Video, download it from Spark, upload it into YouTube, and edit the auto-captions.

We suggest surveying your students in week one to let them know about your multimedia project plans and ask if they will need any accommodations. They'll appreciate your efforts to support them!

An Equitable Ice Breaker Using Google Maps

Does your online ice breaker need a refresh? Chelsea Cohen has a great idea that will get your students connected and take the edge off the start of a new course!

In the 4-minute video embedded above, she will take you on a tour of her course and show you how she blends a Canvas Discussion with an interactive Google Map to create a 2-part assignment. Her students, who are English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) learners, drop a pin on a Google Map that designates their home town and add a photo of that location. As you will see, the map transforms into a contextual representation of the students’ backgrounds, inviting them to share meaningful experiences.

If you use Google Maps in your course, include a link to Google's Accessibility in Google Maps page to ensure all your students can engage with the content. And offer an alternative pathway for students to contribute their content if they experience challenges.

Let Chelsea be your guide -- click the video above and enjoy the ride!