Your Name and Title: Megan Howard, Director of Teaching and Learning

School or Organization Name: Trinity School

Co-Presenter Name(s): n/a

Area of the World from Which You Will Present: Atlanta, GA

Language in Which You Will Present: English

Target Audience(s): teachers (K-12), administrators, curriculum specialists

Short Session Description (one line):

Trinity School's World Languages Program offers a personalized, online approach to language acquisition where teacher is not "sage" but "guide" in a K-6 blended learning environment.

Full Session Description (as long as you would like):

What happens when a school seriously evaluates the meaning of its mission statement, eliminates its traditional Spanish language program, and adopts an innovative and collaborative approach to language instruction? In this session, participants will learn about a World Languages Program which is a fully blended (online and face-to-face) approach to language acquisition and cultural studies.

Trinity School's World Languages program is shifting notions of teaching and learning from a teacher-centric to a student-centric model. Currently at Trinity, an independent elementary school in Atlanta, Georgia, 480 students in Kindergarten through Sixth Grade are engaged in language immersion through Rosetta Stone's Online Classroom. This self-paced program forces children to take ownership of their learning and provides detailed formative assessment of language learning. Teachers guide and support every student in a unique way as they navigate language learning (a total of 14 languages are currently being studied at the School). Discussion topics will include: role of the language teacher, student directed learning and assessment, program strengths and weaknesses, and student metacognitive growth through self-paced language study.

Websites / URLs Associated with Your Session:

Presentation Site (to be developed): http://bit.ly/Trad2Innov

School Website (Program & Curriculum): http://www.trinityatl.org/academics/world_languages.aspx

World Languages Blog: http://trinityweblog.org/worldlanguages/