This piece is part of a series by participants in the Spring 2024 Open Knowledge Fellowship, coordinated by the Mina Rees Library. Fellows will share insight into the process of converting a syllabus to openly-licensed and/or zero-cost resources, as well as their experiences teaching undergraduate courses at CUNY.

A. Ngamaleu teaches French in the Department of Classical and Modern Languages and Literatures at The City College of New York. His research interests include poet(h)ics and critical reception of transgressive self-writing, as well as memory and testimony issues in contemporary French and Francophone literature and cinema.

OER  and Classroom Extension: Involving and Merging Cohorts by A. Ngamaleu

There are three main reasons why I decided to apply for the Open Knowledge Fellowship (OKF). Firstly, my desire to improve and align my classroom practices with the digital era. The Fellowship is an excellent opportunity for interdisciplinary collaboration. It provided me with interactive training on how to find and implement openly licensed resources for the intermediate French course I’m currently teaching at The City College of New York. Secondly, the OKF’s objectives are very clear, relevant, attractive and exciting for me. One of the crucial objectives for me when applying for the Fellowship was to create “a set of unique strategies for inviting students into the creation of open resources, centered on the goals for [my] course!”  Thirdly, I always propose group projects in the field to get students out of the classroom through interviews, reports, etc. The Fellowship helped me build on my experience by giving me a lot of tools to create  an open access course site where my cohorts can publish their group projects, as well as other course-related content.

During the Fellowship, I adapted the syllabus for the course I’m teaching at CCNY. Although the textbook (Vis-a-vis: Beginning French) used in class is not shared on the site because students have to pay to access it, my site has very helpful open access resources related to France and the French language and culture. My CUNY undergraduate students have more useful, cost-free OA content available and they’re able to chat or interact through the site of the class, which is really exciting and engaging! The opinions of the students for whom this site is primarily intended confirm the importance of the OKF.  Allow me to quote a few extracts from students’ opinions published on the course site:

The Pont Mirabeau calligram by Guillaume Apollinaire

“Using this [course site] helps by allowing us to express ourselves with not only French but English. We also get to learn through the eyes of our classmates in some sense. I feel like we grow better with the feedback we receive also. This site allows us to […] basically post like it’s our own personal Instagram and I like that. Even though the class is small we get to understand and gain more knowledge as a small group.” (Dalia Smith-Harding)

“This academic commons site allows us to share our experience of the class with each other and the professor. We can post pictures of our day tips for class as well as even ask questions. I like how it’s kind of like a portfolio of what we do over the semester. It’s also another way to access class information and connect with the professor. Lastly we can always come back to revisit the class and can help the students that come after us.” (Nia Almareles)

“Basically I personally think that this site really helps us connect more with one another and […] this really allows us also to interact with each other and comment on each other. And also we get to know one another more. I honestly love this idea!” (Binetou Diop)

“This Course site is useful for me because I can use it to express myself. I can also use it to get to know my classmates better. We are a small class so our post can help us in class study tips. We can also help future classes with our tips and posts. This course site is basically our own little blog.” (Nabiha Farooq)

As you can see from the students’ opinions, this site functions as our collective learning journal through the posts (visual and textual content) made over the week according to lessons taught: videos, poems, prompts, spontaneous photos, questions, answers, comments, and so on.

In brief, my Commons course site is both educational and fun for students. I intend to invite other colleagues teaching French to encourage their students at the same level of study to produce and enrich these open resources using activities linked to the course objectives. This becomes a crossroads for student exchanges. A cohort’s story or achievements will not be limited to a single classroom and a single semester. The achievements of each cohort will combine in one great story of their practice of the French language, not forgetting that these living digital traces will remain an excellent resource for memories and networking.

Finally, I’d like to thank all the brilliant specialists who took part in our various sessions during this 10th edition of the OKF. Their patience, tact and professionalism helped make this adventure even more exciting!

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