Cohort July 2023: Faculty of Arts – Janet Um, Weixi Lin, Yifan Xu, Zoe Duquette
Project background
Our project seeks to redesign SANS 300, a two-term, 6-credit Introductory Sanskrit language course that fulfills the language and literature requirements for degrees in Arts and other faculties. The course typically enrolls undergraduate and graduate students of linguistics, history, philosophy, world religion, South Asia, and the ancient world. It also attracts heritage learners–students exposed to Sanskrit or related Indic languages in their homes–who are interested in gaining a deeper understanding of their respective cultures. Along with UBC students, lifelong learners from the community who practice yoga and Ayurveda take the course for both personal and professional development.
Project details
Despite the academic and socio-cultural diversity of the SANS 300 classroom, traditional Sanskrit-language pedagogy is based on the assumption that incoming students are already familiar with both linguistics and premodern South Asian culture. This assumption can create challenges in terms of course learning outcomes and engagement. Through the vision of its student partners, our project strives to make the course more accessible for all of its learners. Specifically we plan to incorporate more robust linguistic, cultural, and historical content into the curriculum in the following ways:
- By re-assessing current course materials in consultation with student experts.
- By creating supplemental learning materials, such as interactive lessons and web resources, to embed within the course Canvas.
- By providing greater access to course content by better aligning the current and new course material with the principles of UDL (Universal Design for Learning).
Through this curricular redesign, our project aims to create a more inclusive, equitable, and accessible learning environment for all SANS 300 students by reflecting formally on how the partnership approach informs our project, and by sharing our reflections with other language programs, we envision broadening the impact of our work beyond the individual language classroom.