丁香园AV

Grant program: Multilingual Classroom

Grant recipient: Andrew Hawryshkewich, School of Interactive Arts & Technology

Project team: Betty Ackah, research assistant

Timeframe: August 2019 to December 2020

Funding: $4380

Course addressed: IAT 235 鈥� Information Design

Final report: View Andrew Hawryshkewich's final report - includes full findings as an appendix (PDF)

Description: The project brief in my course tends to be very text-heavy for students 鈥� see  for an example. While there are other parts of the course that help support student鈥檚 understanding of what projects will expect of them 鈥� in-lecture and lab oral introductions, exercises to help guide project development 鈥� the project brief provides the most relevant details of expectations and requirements. I believe this can be an impediment to student鈥檚 understanding, particularly if reading English and terminology specific to our discipline can be a challenge.

Given different types of English comprehension challenges such as oral, written, academic, and cultural, I believe that there is an opportunity to help all students鈥� comprehension of the project by exploring other avenues of presenting the brief itself. As the course itself is on Information Design, I believe it is an ideal opportunity to explore combining text and other media (images, linking, audio, video, etc), to try and support students鈥� comprehension of the project and its expectations.

Questions addressed:

• Does the work students turn in suggest they have understood the project brief?
• Do students feel they understand the project brief?
• What do students feel are the strengths and weaknesses of the project brief?
• What suggestions do students have for improving the project brief?
• Are there differences in students鈥� understanding of, opinions about or suggestions for the project brief(s) based on their linguistic background?
• What do faculty think are the strengths and weaknesses of the project brief guidelines?
• What suggestions do faculty have for improving the project brief guidelines?

Knowledge sharing: I intend to present my findings to the faculty at one of our school鈥檚 鈥渢eaching corners鈥� 鈥� a time during school meetings in which we share our work/research around teaching.

Keywords: Multilingual learners, project outlines, guidelines for writing