Document Type
Article
Publication Date
5-22-2024
Publication Title
Die Unterrichtspraxis/ Teaching German
Volume
57
Issue
1
First Page
52
Last Page
56
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1111/tger.12273
Abstract
In response to a series of enrollment challenges, I have developed online sections for all German courses, usually offered simultaneously with synchronous instruction within a single course, as well as introduced labor-based grading, eschewing summative performance assessments. This Forum article outlines these efforts and describes how they are fostering program gains. For a decade, my small program at a Midwestern metropolitan university has been under pressure to grow in a difficult environment. In 2018, the board of the largest suburban school district in the region ended middle-school German. Disciplines that have historically awarded the bachelor of arts have begun to offer the bachelor of science to circumvent the four-semester language requirement. Dual enrollment options for high school students have increased, which promotes undergraduate recruitment but automatically shrinks introductory and intermediate courses. Finally, an ongoing budget crisis in our university system has threatened small programs. Meanwhile, as the sole full-time professor in a language program that includes both a major and a minor, I develop and maintain the dual-mode curriculum—both in-person and online—for a regular rotation of 14 courses, as well as providing all the student support required for program upkeep, such as advising and rapport- and community-building. These circumstances have made it impossible to launch the high school outreach to which I aspire.
Recommended Citation
Cliver, Gwyneth E., "Retaining students through labor-based grading and dual modality" (2024). Foreign Languages and Literature Faculty Publications. 32.
https://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/foreignlangfacpub/32
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Funded by the University of Nebraska at Omaha Open Access Fund
Comments
This article was published open access under the open access publishing agreement between Wiley and the Big Ten Academic Alliance, which the University of Nebraska at Omaha is a member.