First Year of Funding

This project focuses on the creation of a library of multi-media pedagogical materials to supplement the textbooks used in the First-, Second-, and Third-Year Russian courses (Russ 1010, 1020, 2010, 2020, 3010, 3020). The library materials will be primarily directed towards the development of students' listening skills and cultural competence, and aims to improve listening competence, increase motivation, and provide greater diversity of assignments for communicative language practice.

Second & Third Year of Funding

Our project is a continuation of our interactive video project that has been generously supported by LTi since Spring 2018. The success of this project motivated us to continue the initiative in the higher-level Russian courses. Our teaching experience during the pandemic prompted us to introduce significant changes into our RUSS1010 and 1020 curriculum. First of all, we started using our interactive digital materials created with LTI funds more systematically on a regular basis. We used them in order to modify the flipped classroom experience in a way that did not negatively affect students’ learning process. Secondly, with the help of our multimedia pedagogical materials we devised a system that allowed us to cut grading time without sacrificing the quality and quantity of homework assignments. Thirdly, by moving half of the assignments online, we managed to reduce the number of hours that students spent on completing and submitting homework without changing the number of assignments. Last, but not least, our multimedia resources allowed us to provide our students with no-cost course materials. Based on students’ feedback, the changes we introduced have had a positive effect on their learning experience. Therefore, we do not want to stop there and plan to bring similar changes into RUSS2010, 2020, RUSS3010 and RUSS3020 course curriculum. As a short-term goal, we believe, this will significantly improve student’s experience during their post-pandemic return to grounds. As a long-term goal, we plan to create a collection that will be permanently housed in the UVA Slavic Department and will be superior to any online Russian textbook currently available. As our materials are specifically tailored to the department’s goals, we are confident this will assure continuity between our language courses and provide our students with no-cost materials at all levels of Russian. As a result, we will increase student satisfaction, motivation and retention in our language program.