Week #3 Blog Post - Tamara Tamez

Looking first at Khan Academy I was not able to find any useful content for the subject area that I am certified to teach, which is Advanced Spanish.  Khan Academy geared for more of the math and science subject matters.  So I moved on to the MIT Opencourse page and was able to find the subject matter that was more relatable to the subject matter already mentioned.  MIT OpenCourseWare (MIT OCW) is  described as an “initiative of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to put all of the educational materials from its undergraduate- and graduate-level courses online, freely and openly available to anyone, anywhere. MIT OpenCourseWare is a large-scale, web-based publication of MIT course materials.  The initiative has inspired more than 250 other institutions to make their course materials available as open educational resources through the Open Education Consortium. As of December 2015, over 2,300 courses were available online. Some courses also included interactive web demonstrations, complete textbooks written by MIT professors, and streaming video lectures.

            I was amazed of how many great advance courses were available in for the Spanish language learners!  In order to become familiar with the site, I focused on one particular course : Spanish for Bilingual students, which is described as Spanish course for for bilingual Students at an intermediate level designed for mostly heritage learners, but which includes other students interested  in specific content areas, such as US Latino immigration, identity, ethnicity, education and representation in the media.

Linguistic goals include vocabulary acquisition, improvement in writing, and enhancement of formal communicative skills. Students, who come from diverse backgrounds, engage in structured group activities that offer opportunities to reflect on values and assumptions related to their linguistic and cultural heritage. Films dealing with Mexican Americans, Cubans, Puerto Ricans and Colombians are viewed through this course, as well as team projects are planned and undertaken entirely by students. The first is the creation of a class Web site that focuses on literature, history, politics, music and art.

Each time this course is given (spring semester every two years), students form groups and choose one of two projects. Work usually begins during the last 4-6 weeks of the term and the project is presented the last day of classes. Because of intellectual property issues the projects themselves are not available through OpenCourseWare, but I brief description is available:  One group collaborates on videos in which they interview MIT foreign students from Spanish-speaking countries as well as immigrants who live in the Boston area, such as a cook from the Dominican Republic working in a local restaurant. Students ask questions related to the cultural, sociopolitical and economic issues studied throughout the course. The second group creates a web page that addresses similar topics. Each web page is linked to that of the class two years earlier, so the effect is cumulative, as if it were a single ongoing project. In 1997 students describe the course and include general topics and individual research reports. The 1999 web page opens with photos of César Chávez, an Olmec statue, a couple dancing the tango, and the author Esmeralda Santiago, who visited MIT and read from her works. Topics include Nuestra Literatura, Nuestras Raíces, Nuestro Cine, Nuestra Comida, Nuestra Música, and Nuestra Educación. The 2001 web page, which opens with an animation of the title of the course, features biographies of the students and topics such as Cultura Latina and Latinos en EEUU, the latter with various subtopics, e.g., Bilingüismo, Inmigración, Papel del Hombre, and Papel de la Mujer. A portion of a famous Frida Kahlo painting dominates the opening page for the 2003 online project. Topics of individual student presentations reflect their ethnic backgrounds and particular interests, such as Argentina, Nicaragua, República Dominicana, La Leyenda de Pancho Villa, Fútbol Mexicano and Bailes de Salón Latinos. Students continue the practice from previous years of providing information from the US Census as well as links to relevant local and national student groups at MIT, including the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE), Mexican-American Engineers and Scientists (MAEP) and the Latino Cultural Center.

I will definitely be using this web-site to build on many areas of my final project.