Please join the Department of Spanish & Portuguese in congratulating Jamie de Moya-Cotter, winner of the 2024 Pedagogical Innovation Contest! Contestants submitted a detailed proposal involving the incorporation of artificial intelligence into an existing lower-division Spanish and/or Portuguese course. All submissions underwent a rigorous review by a committee of language acquisition and teaching and artificial intelligence scholars.
Jamie’s winning submission involves students reading and reflecting on a brief passage from Miguel de Cervantes’ Don Quijote de la Mancha. In groups, those students then role-play Sancho Panza, the beleaguered squire to the knight-errant, don Quijote, whose role will be played by ChatGPT. The role-play setting will take place in the immediate aftermath of the excerpt students have read, which details one of the most famous moments in the novel when don Quijote prepares to attack a collection of windmills, believing them to be giants. As Sancho Panza, students are tasked with using the subjunctive mood and verbs of influence to convince don Quijote to not attack the windmills and to make suggestions for what ventures don Quijote could pursue instead. The effectiveness of their arguments will depend on their ability to correctly use the subjunctive and their variation in verb use.
Congratulations, Jamie, on this fun and creative context with which to teach grammar concepts to our students!