Local Literatures of Hawaiʻi: A “Talk Story” and Place-Based Approach to an Online Literature and Culture Course

Session Description
Drawing upon the concept of “Talk Story” and place-based pedagogy, this instructional design focuses on a 16-week English 272: Introduction to Culture and Literature course (ENG 272) at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. Themed as “Claiming Culture and Place Through Local Literatures of Hawaiʻi,” ENG 272 explores the ways local literatures establish local identities and complicate issues regarding whose voices are privileged within local communities, challenging metaphors of Hawaiʻi as a “melting pot” or “mixed plate.” ENG 272’s designation as a Writing Intensive course also emphasizes the development of students’ abilities to read, analyze, and interpret literary text through written form.

The focus of this course draws upon place-based writing theory and practices to facilitate students’ connections to Hawaiʻi. Scholars in the field of composition have advocated for place-based writing to be integrated into classrooms because writing that’s tied to place and community encourages students to seriously consider the effects of their interactions, their intended audiences, and underlying purposes of their content (Esposito, 2012). Through the course’s Canvas website, students will engage in “Talk Story” activities through Flipgrid that analyze works from both Native Hawaiian and local scholars and writers while responding to the ideas and questions posed by their peers. By engaging with place and literature, students can explore their relationships and responsibilities to the communities in Hawaiʻi, which are lessons students from Hawaiʻi, the continent, and other countries can benefit from.

Presenter(s)
Avree Ito-Fujita
Avree Ito-Fujita, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, HI

Session Type
LTEC Session
Audience
All Audiences

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E-Portfolio Development & Pathways of Learning for Middle Schoolers

Session Description
Attending the School of the Future Conference inspired the idea of creating an e-Portfolio to prepare the next generation of the workforce. With a 49% of the college graduates not meeting the employers’ expectations, the idea of creating an ePortfolio to prepare eighth graders to obtain the essential skills to meet these expectations. These 8th graders will be directed to a website where they will find mini-lessons. These mini-lessons display activities that are related to the HA concepts as well as the 21st Century principles. The students collect evidence of their best academic and multiculiculars activities while making sure that they complete the requirements from the mini-lessons.
Presenter(s)
Maeva Anderson
Maeva Anderson, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, HI
Maeva Anderson is a 2nd year student in the Learning Design and Technology at the University of Hawaii Manoa.
Melanie Chan-Vinoray
Melanie Chan-Vinoray, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, HI
Melanie Chan-Vinoray is a 2nd year student in the Learning Design and Technology at the university of Hawaii Manoa. She will graduate from the program at the end of this Semester.
Session Type
LTEC Session
Audience
All Audiences

A recording of this presentation is available.
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Farrington High School Faculty Resource Portal – Usability Study

Session Description
Many organizations use internet portals or intranets to unify update their employees with current up-to-date information and resources. Hawaii Department of Education (HIDOE) is moving towards digitizing many of their resources that were once in physical form (papers, brochures, attendance sheets etc.). Educators need support in finding these digital resources. Many of these digital resources are useful, but the links to them are hard to remember and type.

The purpose of this usability study was to create and evaluate the ease-of-use and navigation of Farrington High Schools Faculty Portal (https://www.farringtonhighschool.org/faculty/). This website is a portal with access to many of the DOE resources and Information that faculty at Farrington High School need to complete their duties. The portal was designed with modern website design principals as well as the Gestalt’s Principles of Universal Design. The website’s usability was judged using Nielson’s severity rating scale. The usability study recruited 15 participants (3 rounds of 5 participants) who judged the navigation and usability of the website based on various scenarios. Three rounds of usability testing were conducted. Participants filled out and completed a survey during the study. Results collected indicated positive user experiences and many of the data was used to improve on website iterations. We will further explain the approach to the usability study and its outcomes. We will look at the methodology, design techniques and strategies, results of the student and discuss the lessons learned from the study.

Presenter(s)
Joshua Dimaya
Joshua Dimaya, University of Hawaii at Manoa, HI
Joshua Dimaya grew up in Honolulu, Hawaii. Upon receiving his degree in Management Information Systems and Secondary Education at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, he has worked in the IT fields for 4 years before deciding into moving into the DOE. Joshua is a computer science teacher and tech coordinator at his alma mater. He credits his experience in the private field in helping to modernize the tools and technology structure available to students, educators and faculty at the school. He is always constantly looking into improving and evolving the technology infrastructure of the school. He is a second-year LTEC master’s student at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa.
Session Type
LTEC Session
Audience
Novice

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Arrière garde: Learn from astern

Session Description
Nelson Mandela (1995) has been credited with having conceived of the notion “leading from the rear” to characterize his theory that “great leaders” resemble shepherds who guide their flocks from behind, acting as an arrière-garde rather than as a vulnerable avant-garde that pierces forward open to attack. Indeed, as Dunigan (2018) notes, “the dynamics and principles of great leadership are universal”; teachers who lead effectively will all follow the same four principal “arrière-garde” tactics, even if they do not realize it: Foresight, visioning, partnering, and motivating will promote purposeful, cooperative environments that stimulate learning.
Presenter(s)
Katherine Watson
Katherine Watson, Orange Coast College, CA
Dr. Katherine Watson has been teaching French, English, ESL, linguistics, anthropology, and journalism for more than five decades, at first among farm laborers in picking fields, then in traditional classrooms, and ultimately online. She co-conceived, developed, and taught the first online adjunct to a telecourse offered by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Annenberg Learner’s French in Action. Then, she launched the first completely-online course in California’s Coast Community College District. Her publications have concentrated on language and thought, as they are transmitted and learned through time, space, and mode of delivery, as well as the transdisciplinary nature of learning. Dr. Watson is also a professional translator and interpreter and a swimmer in any sea.
Session Type
45-Minute Interactive Session
Audience
All Audiences

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Active Learning: Getting Students to Work and Think in the Classroom

Session Description
This paper addresses the question of how to incorporate active learning into your curriculum and transform your classroom into an exciting, dynamic learning environment. The study involves building of websites in a business course in the Business and Information Systems Department at the Bronx Community College/City University of NY, New York. (1) Online discussion forum using Piazza to encourage effective collaboration; (2) course management online tool – Blackboard; (3) Starfish, a CUNY-wide online early alert and communication system to connect students with professors and advisors; (4) website project-based learning to increase student investment, motivation, and performance; & (5) online publishing will be discussed. At the end of the website project, feedback from students was collected to bring out the students’ opinion on the implementation of their projects to help develop their technical (HTML, CSS, & JavaScript) and writing skills. After the analyses of both the quantitative data and the feedback of the students it was found that the websites fulfilled most of the criteria for a good website.
Presenter(s)
Kwi Park-Kim
Kwi Park-Kim, Bronx Community College/The City University of New York (CUNY), NY
Kwi Park-Kim is Associate Professor of Business & Information Systems Department at
Bronx Community College/The City University of New York
Session Type
20-Minute Session
Audience
All Audiences

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