Course and Content Creation

Online Portuguese Language Textbook

My most important accomplishment has been the creation of an online textbook tailored to the needs of our Portuguese language learners. Recognizing the evolving landscape of education, especially in the digital age, coupled with the prohibitive costs of modern language textbooks, I sought to replace traditional textbook limitations by utilizing technology to create a three-semester textbook free and available to our students via Canvas. This innovative textbook integrates multimedia resources, interactive exercises, and real-life scenarios, facilitating a more immersive learning environment than those of other Portuguese language textbooks currently available. By embracing digital tools, I hope to democratize access to high quality language education.  The Portuguese language professors here at UF have access to the text and are able to adapt and modify the textbook to meet the needs of any beginning language course.

Online Beginning Portuguese Courses

I developed, with a grant from the Center for European Studies, a two-course year-long sequence of Portuguese for both traditional brick-and-mortar students as well as the growing and important UFOnline program. The creation of the online Portuguese courses as also aided in increasing the enrollment of beginning Portuguese languages by 100%. These two courses, POR 1130/1131, use the Canvas textbook I created as well as the addition of Brazilian online language partners, interactive asynchronous lecturers via VoiceThead, and the Portuguese language videos and exercises from the University of Texas’ Portuguese Communication Exercises.  Again, these two courses are not cost prohibitive to the students and the additional materials cost less than twenty dollars per credit which in line with the Affordable UF initiative.

Soccer Explains the World

The most noticeable accomplishment of mine has been the creation of a Quest 1 course, titled PRT 1515 Soccer Explains the World.  The course quickly became one of the most popular Quest courses at UF for its approach to sports and society.  Students are reeled into the course by the temptation to discuss soccer and sports, but are then confronted with deep questions about justice and power.  The success of the course didn’t go unnoticed, and my syllabus has served as model for many other syllabi.  Additionally, my course was featured in the LearningWell magazine, a magazine focused on higher education, for its innovative approach to engaging big topics with first-year university students.