At a Glance
Institution:
McGill University
Instructor:
Sun-Young Kim
Course Name:
Introductory German
Course Material in Use:
Tschimer, Kontakte, 9e
Resource in Use:
Connect + Adaptive Learning Assignments
Course Type:
Face-to-face
Integration:
Blackboard + Canvas Learning Management Systems
Course Enrollment:
150 students total per academic year
When reviewing online teaching and learning platforms for her Introductory German course, there were many important factors that Dr. Sun-Young Kim considered. Any platform she considered adopting had to be user-friendly with a variety of activities in an online workbook and the ability to integrate her own material. She also wanted the tool to be adaptable for her students’ specific needs, strengths, and weaknesses. Finally, she wanted the resource to be cost-effective so that her students could afford it. Luckily, Dr. Kim found all these criteria were met by McGraw Hill’s digital learning solution, Connect.
“Connect is a user-friendly tool with activities that help students practice grammatical concepts and vocabulary in diverse ways. Students who complete these activities on a regular basis retain the material well and are successful.”
Dr. Kim found it easy to implement Connect in her courses due to the training and support provided by the McGraw Hill team. When she was new to the program and before the start of term, a McGraw Hill representative trained her and other instructors. Any new instructors to Introductory German also receive the same training. At the beginning of each term, a representative provides Dr. Kim with PowerPoint slides that help students register in the Connect course. She also takes time during each class to go over features in Connect to ensure students know that they are required to register and complete activities on a regular basis.
Dr. Kim began using Connect in 2013 and, during the pandemic, started including even more online activities, making the transition to online learning smoother. Before the pandemic, she assigned 20% of student grades to Connect content including weekly homework in Connect (grammar, vocabulary, and listening activities). After the pandemic forced courses to move online, she began assigning more asynchronous activities available through Connect and increased the weight of grades to 40%. Most of the Introductory German course assessments are now carried out in Connect and tests were adapted and altered from the test bank to help facilitate online learning.
“Students genuinely enjoyed using Connect and some even missed it when they used other products in their higher-level courses.”
Dr. Kim and her fellow Introductory German instructors have enjoyed the ability to copy Connect courses from one semester to the next. In courses with multiple sections, it’s also possible to share or copy activities with colleagues. This helped save time and allowed instructors to instead focus on lessons and course management.
The flexible assessment policies available in Connect also enabled Dr. Kim to accept late assignments with a small penalty per day and gave her the ability to annotate students’ compositions or short answers. This mimicked corrections on paper and helped provide specific feedback to individual students which was important for a Language course like Introductory German.
Dr. Kim and her colleagues also assign optional Adaptive Learning Assignments for students that want additional practice. These exercises adapt to the strengths and weaknesses of each student, helping to promote individual active learning.
Both students and instructors enjoy the use of hyperlinks in Connect to help them move from topic to topic. This feature helped diminish the divide between grammar explanations and communicative situations that are presented in different sections of the text. Students also indicated to Dr. Kim that they enjoyed the assignment calendar because it allowed them to stay organized.
“I learned a lot by trying things out and consulting with my McGraw Hill representative when I got stuck.”
Sun-Young Kim earned her Ph.D. in German Studies at the University of Michigan. Before joining the Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures at McGill in 2012, she taught German at universities in Canada and in the U.S. Her interests in the field of language pedagogy include teaching literature in language courses and integrating the use of technology in language courses..
Dr. Kim provides recommendations for fellow instructors to help them adopt Connect into their courses:
- Start with the learning goals instructors have for their course and explore how the individual tools and assignment types in Connect could help achieve these goals.
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McGraw Hill’s representatives are dedicated to supporting digital implementation and they are a great resource to use if instructors have questions, therefore Dr. Kim also recommends speaking to them to learn about Connect features and to try them out one at a time.