Sticky notes

I've chosen the OER textbook going to use as the bones of my 1411 class.  I have it in an editable format.  My next step is to present it to my dept chair.  After that I present it to the dean.

Today I had an epiphany:  I can use my creativity to truly make this class fit the needs of the students I teach.  My son made a great recommendation:  teach the class 1 way for students who just need 1 semester of Spanish and teach it a different way to those who will continue on for another semester.  In a perfect world that would be something to explore, but not for now.

Eventually I want our campus to offer conversational Spanish which is a 3 hr credit instead of a 4 hr credit, but I want to get this new curriculum up and going before I tackle that task.

For now, I can look at the concepts that typically cause the most trouble for students in my 1411 and do what I can to help make those pinch points less tricky.  One thing I'm addressing is that the last chapter has all the hardest concepts which makes a stressful time in the semester even harder.  It doesn't have to be that way.

I made sticky notes of everything we'll cover:  1 color for vocab & pronunciation, another color for grammar and a third for culture.  (Yes, I believe culture should be integrated in as much as possible but for course design I'm separating it out).

I intentionally planned each chapter to have balance of a easy and challenging concepts.

Kathy, our campus library's director, is an excellent resource through all of this.  She loaned me her personal copy of a book guiding me as I design an online class.  

I did a lot of work to design this online section and quite a bit to improve it last spring.  I feel like it's very strong.  However, switching the curriculum will be quite an undertaking.  I'm glad to have this book as a guide as I embark on this journey.

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