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Professor Ilona Vandergriff by Professor Elizabeth Sommers
From the start Professor Vandergriff's class, which was held in the MAC Classroom (HUM 403), had a serious and collaborative working atmosphere. Professor Vandergriff formally opened the class in German, explaining the day's activities, after which both students and instructor continued talking mostly in German. The group quickly moved to a Daedalus question series, one that had been adapted by Professor Vandergriff from the textbook and prepared in German in the on-line Daedalus RESPONSE sequence. While students were clearly used to working with Daedalus, Professor Vandergriff made absolutely certain they knew how to proceed by also providing a handout of instructions and an overhead on the LCD that showed the prompt series. The students I observed easily started, first intently reading their peers' papers, which they were reviewing anonymously. All students were soon absorbed in writing on-line, working on revising their peer drafts of an appeal and then responding to the six specific prompts that Professor Vandergriff had ready. While Professor Vandergriff explained to me that she often had some sort of computer-related difficulties--with the printer, the disks or the program--these students seemed to have moved beyond technical difficulties, providing one another with response about the intentions of the author and the appropriateness of the target group. The textualized response to one another's drafts seemed intensely absorbing, and students rapidly gained speed, writing their anonymous on-line peer review using the response sequence that Professor Vandergriff had prepared in advance. Professor Vandergriff had a fine rapport with her students, who seemed to feel free to ask questions about texts, about the prompts and about Daedalus. The instructor always responded in German to these questions. As students worked, she moved about the classroom, helping one student, explaining a text to another, discussing rhetorical issues with a third. All seemed willing to speak up, comfortable. Clearly this task made sense to them, and clearly this instructor was well-respected.
In my own computer-mediated classrooms, I have noted that when students are working autonomously, the instructor can feel awkward--no longer the center of attention though still essential. Professor Vandergriff handled these times when students were writing intently very well, walking quietly about the room. While she had done a great deal of work preparing the class ahead of time, she was clearly still vital to the environment--her presence, her interactions with students, her ability to inspire them. Most experienced language teachers know that whoever is using the language skills is doing most of the learning. Professor Vandergriff had set up her classroom so that students were gaining written expertise, responding in text to one another's essays. While she had experimented with other parts of Daedalus--INTERCHANGE, for example, which allows whole group participation--she found these capabilities less useful than response prompts. Clearly she was keeping her governing gaze on the teaching of German while using the computers, a pedagogical stance I found commendable. Later Professor Vandergriff talked to me about the range of assignments students completed for the class: letters, autobiographies, pro/con arguments (as students worked on this day) and much more. I noted that Professor Vandergriff has successfully adapted the process approach widely accepted in first language instruction, using both collaborative learning and computer-mediated strategies when appropriate, through a great deal of thought, hard work and creativity. The class seemed to move very quickly; suddenly, it was almost time to go. Professor Vandergriff was very clear and emphatic as she gave instructions for saving and printing. She helped students with the inevitable problems saving and printing drafts. In a great burst of energy, students wrote their names on papers, showed one another their work, talked in German and English about the assignment. All of us left slowly, seeming reluctant to leave the animated talk, the collaborative efforts, the interesting tasks. Professor Vandergriff, I realized from this visit, is an excellent teacher--well-prepared, accessible, serious and knowledgeable--one we are lucky to have as a colleague at San Francisco State University.
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