Cohort July 2023: Faculty of Arts – Nesrine Basheer, Roua Aldas, Sama El Sayed, Hammad Jabr
Project background
ARBM 450 “Advanced Studies in Arabic Language and Cultures” was designed in response to heritage and native Arabic-speaking students’ desire to take a course where they can develop their proficiency in Standard Arabic, celebrate their diverse Arab identities, and engage with questions unique to the Arab-spring generation. The course creates space at UBC for Arabic-speaking students to examine and co-create knowledge through alternative, often-marginalized epistemologies, and in so doing enrich their own learning experience and the process of knowledge production on campus.
Project details
The course was piloted in 2023W2. Students provided positive feedback regarding the course content and their overall learning experience; however, instructor observations and students’ comments in the Student Evaluation of Instruction suggest that the course would benefit from major redesign to include more conceptually challenging topics and to provide students with adequate linguistic support to engage with these topics. We believe a Students as Partners (SaP) approach is key to the success of this redesign as it puts the cohort’s experiences and needs at the heart of their learning process. The faculty partner will provide linguistic and pedagogical guidance. This project involves three activities:
- Revise course topics to integrate Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI): The course covers 12 topics, one per week. We noticed that certain topics seemed to create discomfort during class discussions. Some students self- censored and/or switched to English. These discussions were mostly related to EDI in the Arab world (e.g., marginalization of Arab queers). Prior to joining UBC, students in ARBM 450 had learned Arabic within education systems that avoid “taboo” and “divisive” questions. We will replace the least engaging topics with ones that help students practice vulnerability, reflexivity, courage, and empathy as antidotes to toxic positivity. For each topic, we will select an authentic text (e.g., academic lecture, podcast), provide a list of related vocabulary items, create pre- class tasks where students research and reflect on the topic individually, and design classroom activities that promote dialogue and critical thinking (e.g., structured debates). The student partners will select the 12 course topics.
- Scaffold the assessment tasks: We anticipate that the change in course content will increase the linguistic demand for the students. For example, debating religious freedom requires rich vocabulary beyond everyday language, complex sentences, and the ability to present ideas coherently. While ARBM 450 students speak their regional variety fluently (e.g., Iraqi Arabic), their proficiency in Standard Arabic (the written variety) differs depending on the quality of previous instruction. To provide all students with equal opportunities, especially to engage with challenging topics, we will design formative assessment tasks (e.g., ungraded peer-feedback on a draft presentation) and incorporate iterative feedback (e.g., students submit a draft debate notes, receive feedback, and revise and resubmit for grading). The student partners will decide the type and frequency of support needed for each assessment task.
- Incorporate diverse voices: Once these two activities are completed, the student partners will facilitate a focus group with potential students to elicit feedback and insure a wider range of voices are represented.