Engaged Pedagogies
Playing with Language: Digital Language Acquisition and Community Engagement
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Andrea Fieler
The paper discusses how the foreign language classroom can serve as a connecting link between the pedagogy of experiential philanthropy, a form of service learning, and second language acquisition through positive engagement with the digital environment. Through linguistic immersion in an online game, students in an upper level German class expanded upon their second language skills while conducting a fundraiser and participating in the Mayerson Student Philanthropy Project. The paper offers student learning outcomes, the framework of the course as well as observations and student feedback.
The Application of Real-time Avatars in Business School Sales Training
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session John R Lax
Professional selling, despite its often negative perception in academia, is a fundamental part of business and revenue generation. While the technologies employed by sales practitioners have changed radically in the last few decades the fundamental skills remain much the same and the manner in which universities teach this crucial skill to business students has scarcely evolved since spice merchants traveled the Silk Road. We might speculate that wine merchants tutored their young apprentices in the art of closing a deal in Constantinople much the same as a software vendor coaches hers in closing the deal in a Manhattan high rise. The traditional approach to teaching sales in business schools has been some variation of role-playing, most often with other students, resulting in what is, at best, a poor approximation of the real world. At Saint Leo University, we are breaking new ground in the use of technology-based, situation-specific avatars to simulate a real-world selling experience. This paper offers both academic and practitioner perspectives on this emerging technology and its application in the classroom. This technology has the potential to be extended to other professional development and career preparation courses throughout our universities.
Engaged Pedagogical Action: Teachers on Twitter
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Ronna Mosher
This paper will describe the results of research that examined images of classroom practice posted by teachers on the social media platform Twitter. Online classroom images were examined for the theorizing they represent and produce in order to better understand how teaching and learning are conceptualized in contemporary practice. The images of classroom work within this study are seen not just as technological acts but as acts of ontological and epistemological significance, not just reflections of classroom practice but as constructions of social meaning. Using a combination of visual thematic and interpretive discourse analysis, teachers’ postings are interpreted as moments in which good practice and the teaching self are made visible within currently available vocabularies and as an ongoing project of self-understanding and engaged pedagogical action with others. The presentation will highlight ways that teachers’ curricular thinking is connected to contemporary public and political discourses and how social media practices can engage teachers in the social reconstruction of the public sphere.
Becoming Agents of Change: A Participatory Action Research Study with Language Teachers
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Ansurie Pillay
This paper reports on a participatory action research study that aimed to enable teacher agency. The study, which worked with 14 language teachers, was underpinned by critical pedagogy and shaped by a critical paradigm. Within three participatory action research cycles, interventions were used to facilitate the teachers' understanding and enactment of agency. After each cycle, data was generated using visual representations, opinion pieces, open-ended questionnaires, and written pieces. It was found that explicit teaching about agency is required to enable understanding of the concept. In addition, as the teachers worked within the study, they reflected increased independence in thought, words and action. Further, they recognised the need to be a life-long learner and a reflexive teacher-practitioner, mindful of the possible transformations within their professional identities.
