A resource aggregator (index) of professional learning experiences for world language education

About AMPLIFY

AMPLIFY is a resource aggregator (index) of professional learning experiences for world language education. Professional learning activity is usually tethered to a particular institutional unit, location, and time. AMPLIFY was built to create a common space for sharing professional learning activities, events, and related resources that were created for world language education. Through AMPLIFY, participating units can share their expertise and activities in this area with a broad community of language educators.

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From Professional Development to Professional Learning Experiences

A professional development event usually encompasses the delivery of content created to enhance or improve performance in a particular activity (e.g., teaching). Professional development events can include a wide range of activity: a live, in-person, event bound by a particular time, day, and location that is shared with a captive audience; an event that is delivered online, increasing the scope yet still bound by time and place; an event that is digitally recorded and are then distributed for asynchronous access. Some professional development materials may consist of a combination of the products of such events with materials that enhance the experience. For example, a TEDEd lesson may include a video of a professional development lecture, ancillary text, and an interaction component (quiz or discussion).

The term professional learning has been used to make the distinction between professional development activities that are associated with a transmission model of learning (e.g., PD lectures), and learning experiences for learning professionals that build relationships among them and are intensive, ongoing, specific to teaching and learning in a particular discipline (e.g., world language education), and often connected to other institutional initiatives (e.g., an institutional drive to improve accessibility, equity, etc.) [1]. In AMPLIFY, all events are considered experiences to emphasize that professional learning can endure beyond a single event and that it can expand from an event-driven model to include content-driven resources. Experiences can include an array of various activity designs, delivery methods, and artifacts. By referring to professional learning experiences rather than professional development events, we broaden our conception of what expertise we share within the language education community and how we share it.

How can AMPLIFY help Language Centers?

AMPLIFY can be used to:

  • Promote professional learning initiatives, particularly those that can be shared across institutions;
  • Learn what professional learning offerings are provided by other centers or university units specific to world languages;
  • Identify institutions or individuals with expertise and experience in professional learning in particular areas of world language education and related fields;
  • Gain access to a comprehensive schedule of professional learning activities and events across participating institutions (past, present, and future);
  • Identify potential partners (institutions or individuals) for projects of common interest.

Example Use Cases

Publish a previously held event that has been subsequently post produced and combined with additional material.
Example: high-leverage-practices-in-blended-language-teaching

Publish (announce) a live online experience. 
Example: fundamentals-of-online-language-teaching

Publish an experience that is part of a series of online workshops.
Example: python-level-3-exploring-python-libraries-for-studies-in-human-language-technology

 

How AMPLIFY Works

An Author Account is required to add, modify, and remove experiences. Author accounts are granted to individuals in representation of their organization, center, department, or unit. Author Account users should only publish experiences that their unit is directly sponsoring, facilitating, or producing. It is the responsibility of the Author Account user to ensure that permission has been obtained to share the information entered into the system.

Published experiences are displayed on the site according to the calendar information provided in their descriptions. For example, if the experience date is in the future, it will display in the “Upcoming” list on the home page. If a newly published experience has a date that is in the past, it will display in the “Recently Updated” list on the home page. Previously published experiences that are later updated (E.g., materials were added or a video artifact was post produced) are also listed in the “Recently Updated” list.

Experiences are listed with their related meta information. For example, each experience can be further explored to learn about:

  1. other experiences each presenter is associated with,
  2. experiences that may be part of the same series,
  3. experiences that share a common descriptor, or
  4. how to access related materials, audio/video, and external links.

Ensuring Authentic Provenance

Authors should publish experiences that originate from their own organizational unit. That is, the provenance of published resources should be directly attributable to the unit represented by the author. This is a form of community curation where the resources in the collection emerge as an authentic reflection of the professional learning activities and expertise within the community. Professional organizations that facilitate many events relevant to our community (e.g., ACTFL, CALICO, IALLT, etc.) are considered the “publisher” of those events, so as such, a representative from the organization would be the one contributing events that are sponsored by it. 

History

AMPLIFY is one of the five projects that emerged from Pathways to Collaborations, a design-thinking event organized by the Language Flagship Technology Innovation Center. The event was held in conjunction with the 2019 IALLT Conference at the Yamada Language Center, University of Oregon. The original group, which named itself PDLANG, proposed creating a common architecture for sharing professional learning resources and events that would allow participating institutions to open existing events to a broader audience, and share institutional expertise in areas of common interest. After a productive collaboration, AMPLIFY reached its Beta testing stage and was launched on August 12, 2020. Participants in the original group (PDLANG) included members from the following institutions: Colby College, the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center, Michigan State University, Rhodes College, San Diego State University, University of Michigan, University of Minnesota, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

The following people and institutions are part of the PDLANG working group: Branka Sarac (the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center), Felix Kronenberg (Michigan State University), Wonneken Wanske (Rhodes College), Trevor Shanklin (San Diego State University), Julie Evershed (University of Michigan), Dan Soneson (University of Minnesota), and Dianna Murphy (University of Wisconsin-Madison).

References

[1] Darling-Hammond, Linda & Wei, Ruth & Andree, Alethea & Richardson, Nikole & Orphanos, Stelios. (2009). Professional Learning in the Learning Profession: A Status Report on Teacher Development in the United States and Abroad.