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(70) Hammering out the parameters and purposes of the CBI projects
We pursued the question: 1) After this course, what can you be expected to know (good category for analysis), tell / write (better category), and DO (BEST category)? 2) How might you actually USE your projects? We then narrowed down the range of activities to what was realistic. For example ("tell / write"), you cannot be expected to produce an entire book about CBI, or even an article like Levine's; but you could well express your knowledge in a conference presentation or job interview. With regard to what you might DO, you cannot be expected to design and deliver a multi-year CBI curriculum, but you could prove your employability be staging a demo lesson (could be a conference presentation too!) or submitting a design for an entire course that, say, a community college might hire you to do when you have your new MA. With regard to MONEY (aside from employment), you could certainly apply for small (<$1000) grants.
There will be 3 projects:
Project 1: a single lesson (30'-60') that shows that you can demonstrate your CBI capability right on the spot; could also serve (after you try it out in an actual class) as the basis for a conference presentation or small grant application; the finished project will contain essentially ALL of what would go into the "box" that a teacher - yourself or someone else - would need to replicate the activity; it should briefly document WHY you are doing CBI in your classroom, and describe some sort of assessment of student learning or other relevant response;
Project 2: a module / thematic unit (example from college level: 20' lessons for 6 class meetings over two weeks); could be used in an existing conventional course if you have enough freedom to sneak in the lessons along the way; could also serve as proof that you could develop many more such units or even an entire course; the finished project will contain an outline of all the lessons, one lesson in full (with instructions for teacher), samples of support resources (props, worksheets, etc.), and an assessment tool;
Project 3: a design for an entire course (college: one-quarter; K-12: one grading period); ••more to come
We also thrashed how to adjust the first versions that people had done of what was supposed to be Project 1 but often tended to be attempts at Project 2. The discussion raised three points: 1) We don't want people to waste time or effort getting started on their next project and thinking about Project 3. 2) It is useful for practical purposes (flexibility in employment possibilities) to have the projects illustrate your ability to do CBI with TWO distinctly different base language proficiency levels (example: P1 at IntLow, P3 at IH/Advanced). 3) Somewhere in the collection, the projects MUST show that you can take on a new subject area and, particularly, that you aren't indulging a tendency to do the conventional food-and-music "culture box" of conventional language instruction, without actually turning it into CBI.
About deadlines:
Either Project 1 or Project 2 by next Tuesday (6 May), and the other Project by 20 May (Tuesday).
Project 3: Last day of classes (and, we hope, ready for a "Project Fair" during finals week)
About lesson plans for FL classes: Rifkin in FLA (Summer 2003)
About thematic modules and the National [Foreign Langauge] Standards
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