University Scholar Series: Ruma Chopra

Choosing Sides: Loyalists in Revolutionary America On April 30, 2014, Dr. Ruma Chopra spoke in the University Scholar Series hosted by Interim Provost Andy Feinstein at the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Library. In this talk, Dr. Chopra discusses colonial resistance to the American Revolution. Dr. Chopra’s book, Choosing Sides: Loyalists in Revolutionary America, details arguments given by America’s original colonists, including slaves and Native Americans, against the formation of the United States. Even hundreds of years into America’s existence, these arguments are echoed and championed both within and beyond our borders. Dr. Chopra is an Associate Professor in the Department of History at SJSU.https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/uss/1030/thumbnail.jp

Moving beyond access: widening participation in post compulsory teacher education through the integration of LAMS

The School of Education at Greenwich University offers a range of courses in primary, secondary, higher and community teacher education from foundation degrees to doctorate programmes. The postgraduate certificate in teaching in the post compulsory sector registers approximately 2,000 students on its part-time, flexible, full time and subject specialist additional diploma courses every year. In addition, 28 Further Education colleges in London work in partnership with Greenwich University to provide these teacher education courses. Over fifty per cent of course participants at Greenwich University belong to Black and Ethnic Minority groups. This paper explores integrating LAMS (Learning Activity Management System) for developing flexible learner centred teaching/learning strategies for the delivery of English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) teacher education programmes. Currently the Additional Diploma (ESOL) subject specialist programme has paper based study guides to support course participants. Feedback from course participants has indicated that the study guides are limited in providing interactive activities, are text heavy, undifferentiated and do not lend themselves to collaborative work outside the class context. Developing differentiated multimodal activities through LAMS may enable people to engage with course content through a variety of learning preferences and work collaboratively outside the class. By drawing on a pilot project and the work of Burns & Walker (2009) this paper will explore the use of LAMS: 1. To design multimodal and multicultural Additional Diploma (ESOL) resources for supporting active and reflective teaching/ learning practice. 2. As an e-learning tool that encourages reflective thinking and supports differentiated, self paced, inclusive and collaborative ESOL teaching/ learning practice