Henrietta Yang, co-director of the UM Chinese Flagship Program, is among those presenting classroom technologies in San Francisco in March. Photo by Nathan Latil/Ole Miss Communications
OXFORD, Miss. – Representatives of the University of Mississippi’s Chinese Language Flagship Program will travel to San Francisco March 9-10 to participate in a workshop hosted by the Language Flagship Technology Innovation Center at the University of Hawaii.
Language programs from across the country will work together to identify best practices for technology integration and give priority to the effective use of blended learning, the feasibility of extending practice across languages and the likelihood of adoption by students and other instructors.
UM Chinese Language Flagship Program co-director Henrietta Yang, flagship instructor Rongrong Hao and flagship capstone-bound student Brendan Ryan have been invited to present “A Flipped Course through Blackboard Discussion Board.”
Yang said one of the most successful practices she has implemented involving technology includes posting video resources and reading materials to the Blackboard discussion board, allowing students to report what they’ve learned and discuss the video and supplemented articles.
“Since students learn at different rates and have diverse learning styles, technologies play an important role in helping to enhance language learning and to differentiate instruction, as well as to increase learning motivation,” Yang said. “In this type of classroom setting, time is allotted less to directly teaching the material and more toward finessing the skills students have discovered on their own prior to class.”
Using using this method, students have improved their overall reading, writing and listening skills outside of class, allowing them to use the target language as much as possible to communicate in the classroom, Yang said.
“Every student made significant progress after one semester’s training,” she said. “Students have commented that this kind of learning not only provides a tremendous sense of accomplishment, but also provides great fun.”
The Tech Center will provide financial support for all Ole Miss participants, including a student travel stipend.