Teaching Spanish Culture Online Strategies and Solutions for Active Learning

Abstract

A new emphasis in education focuses on Social and Emotional Learning (SEL), the process through which learners acquire and effectively apply the knowledge, attitudes, and skills necessary to understand and manage emotions, feel empathy for others and set and achieve positive goals. Thi article discusses various online learning activities used on the “Pablo Picasso and Spanish Art” course taught online in the Fall semester. Students were given creative and self-reflective tasks. Using the wealth of multimedia material available on the Online Picasso Project, they were presented with the historical and cultural context that led to artworks such as Picasso’s Guernica. Based on that information, students were encouraged to create virtual presentations and collages that reflected their own reaction/experience.  My course goals were to: (1) promote students’ self- and social-awareness; and (2) improve student attitudes and beliefs about self and others.