CONNECTIONS
SEP 2023 VOL. 11 NO. 9
THE LANGUAGE OF LEARNING: NHPBS TOOLS AT WORK
To foster learning in her classroom, veteran educator Claudia Decker finds inspiration in everything Claudia Decker Department Head, World Language from Flamenco Nashua High School North demonstrations on GREAT PERFORMANCES to food culture lessons from THE GREAT AMERICAN RECIPE. As head of the World Language Department at Nashua High School North, Decker taps public television content to encourage her students to view, discuss and write about what they see and learn, ideally to ignite their own imaginations and share their stories. “The content of public television is done so thoughtfully, so intelligently,” says Decker. “Teaching students to be proficient in language learning means using authentic products, perspectives and practices – and public television programs like THE GREAT AMERICAN RECIPE offer all three.” As students and educators across the Granite State head back to classrooms this fall, New Hampshire PBS is always available as a resource for educational content that expands and supplements classroom offerings. “PBS Learning Media is a collection of educational resources from PBS stations all across the country,” says Jasmine Torres Allen, NHPBS’ community and education engagement coordinator. “It serves as a hub that offers educators everything they need by subject and grade, but also shows how to use the content, so they can build their own lesson plans.” In addition, at the local level, NHPBS created the LEARN AT HOME website to help educators find appropriate subject matter quickly and easily. “LEARN AT HOME offers a fresh web page every day with a distinct theme, where content is curated from throughout the PBS learning tools universe and collated under that daily theme,” says Torres Allen. Curated pages serve as actionable packages
for classroom educators, home schoolers or anyone seeking educational materials for alternative learning environments. For Decker, working with NHPBS also meant a semester-long project where her students created their own video productions around the topic of food, exploring traditions from their own heritages and reflecting on ethnic restaurants in the Nashua area. Learning about effective content creation from NHPBS producers and hearing critiques of their work was part of the learning process. Rooted in language and culture, the collaboration also touched on how producing media can be a channel for sharing one’s culture and language with the wider world. “Getting students to believe that their stories matter, are authentic and have a potential audience is a powerful learning tool,” says Decker. Decker’s family emigrated to the US from Colombia decades ago. She recalls watching public television programs like SESAME STREET and ZOOM to learn English as a child. This year, she was named Teacher of the Year by world language associations in both New Hampshire and the Northeast region. As she now competes for a national award, Decker has a message for her fellow educators: “Public television is free, and we need to support it,” she says. “Public television in your classroom offers a pathway to some of the executive functioning skills that students need to be healthy, to be creative, to contribute.” To access NHPBS’ curated collection of educational resources, visit the NHPBS LEARN AT HOME portal: nhpbs.org/learnathome. Educators can also sign up for a weekly e-newsletter, containing information on educational features and programming, by submitting their email address here: nhpbs.org/education.
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