Department Hosts 3-Day Seminar on Curriculum Construction in College German Programs

The department was proud to host faculty from institutions across the country in a three-day seminar (Oct. 11-13) on curriculum construction in college German programs. The 24 participants from 13 different universities had been selected from a total of 108 applicants from 79 institutions. They had applied for this professional development opportunity to the AATG, which had obtained funding from Netzwerk Deutsch of the Sonderprogramm zur Förderung von Deutsch in USA und Kanada sponsored by the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany in Washington, DC.

Using their own rich experience based on the department’s nationally and internationally recognized genre-oriented and task-based curriculum, two of our own faculty members, Heidi Byrnes and Marianna Ryshina-Pankova, offered theoretically and empirically grounded presentations on curriculum development; engaged the participants in lively discussions and hands-on work on how to enhance their programs’ contributions to the educational mission of their institutions through innovative curricular thinking;  and sent everyone back energized by the experience and with plans to continue the conversation at future professional events.