麻豆视频

CU-Boulder launches intensive, online course in ancient Greek. You could call it 鈥榖oot camp.鈥� Just don鈥檛 call it a 鈥楳OOC鈥�

Perhaps you鈥檝e concluded that reading 鈥淭he Iliad鈥� in English dilutes the power of the epic poem. Maybe you鈥檙e heading to graduate school and realize that learning ancient Greek is required. Perhaps you attend a college that does not teach Greek or Classics, but you want that background.

For the past two summers, the 麻豆视频 has met those needs. It has offered a concentrated online course that immerses students in ancient Greek, allowing them to take two semesters of Greek鈥攁nd study an entire Greek textbook鈥攊n 10 weeks.

This course was the brainchild of a former CU-Boulder Classics student who saw the unmet need and helped fund the labor-intensive endeavor. It is taught by Laurialan Reitzammer, assistant professor of classics, and Mitchell Pentzer, a Ph.D. student in classics.

To be clear, the course is online, but it is not a Massive, Open Online Course鈥攐r MOOC鈥攚hich have unlimited participation, low completion rates, and minimal interaction with instructors.

Reitzammer has this to say about her course: 鈥淚t is听蝉辞听not a MOOC.鈥� It is small, extremely interactive and rigorously scheduled.

鈥淭eaching ancient Greek is a delicate, complicated, very difficult, and at times, unfortunately, miserable-for-the-student process,鈥� Reitzammer says. The online ancient-Greek course is limited to 25 students per session, to ensure the necessary level of engagement with students.

鈥淲hat we wanted was constant interaction with the students. That鈥檚 why this class is incredibly time-consuming in terms of teaching,鈥� she says.

In addition to recording a lecture for each of the 50 chapters in the textbook, Reitzammer and Pentzer record 鈥渄ialogue鈥� videos of themselves, in which Pentzer pretends to be a student discussing the lessons with Reitzammer.

Additionally, students can join two or three online chat sessions with an instructor each day.

鈥淭o teach ancient Greek, you need a lot of hand-holding鈥� and small class size, Pentzer says. 鈥淪ome students just can鈥檛 wrap their heads around participles, while other students can鈥檛 understand declining a noun.鈥�

In class, an instructor can correct a student immediately. 鈥淲hen you鈥檙e doing it online, you don鈥檛 get to answer every student鈥檚 question, or you don鈥檛 get to correct them live all the time, so to deal with that, you have to correct their homework much more stringently, much more intensively.鈥�

That鈥檚 another reason the class is capped at 25 students, Reitzammer adds.

鈥淲e鈥檙e doing 50 chapters, two semesters, in 10 weeks, over the summer,鈥� says Pentzer.

鈥淲hich is insane,鈥� adds Reitzammer. 鈥淚t鈥檚 boot camp.鈥�

"When you鈥檙e doing it online, you don鈥檛 get to answer every student鈥檚 question, or you don鈥檛 get to correct them live all the time, so to deal with that, you have to correct their homework much more stringently, much more intensively.鈥�

The full course includes 50, short lecture videos (about 15 to 20 minutes apiece), one video for each chapter. In those videos, which are narrated PowerPoint presentations, Reitzammer introduces students to concepts and grammar.

Then there are the 50 dialogue videos, which simulate the classroom setting. 鈥淚f they were taking a real, brick-and-mortar class, they would get this kind of experience.鈥�

Students are expected to read each chapter, then watch the corresponding lecture video, then try to complete the homework assignment and, to check their work, watch the dialogue video.

Additionally, they take a quiz every day and a test every week.

MOOCs are called 鈥渁synchronous,鈥� because students can study at their own pace, irrespective of what the instructors are doing. But CU-Boulder鈥檚 online, ancient Greek course is synchronous, meaning students and instructors interact each day. 鈥淚t is not self-paced,鈥� she emphasizes.

Pentzer also recorded introductory videos about orthography鈥攈ow to write letters. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 something you do if you鈥檙e in a classroom but is very difficult to do if you don鈥檛 have a whiteboard,鈥� he says.

Pentzer uses a digital whiteboard, which allows him to record how to write Greek letters. 鈥淚t鈥檚 all very elementary, but it鈥檚 a brand-new alphabet for these students. You don鈥檛 want gammas to look like cursive y鈥檚 or alphas to look like lowercased a鈥檚.鈥�

Former student and donor John Nebel helped fund the online course.

When Nebel took the course in CU-Boulder鈥檚 brick-and-mortar setting, Pentzer recorded all of his lectures and posted them online. The idea was to help students handle the large amount of material even with the limited number of hours during which students had contact with instructors. Nebel, who works in computer science, thought the idea was inspired.

鈥淗e is passionate about the classics, but he鈥檚 also hip to the times. And he thinks that if Classics wants to stay afloat, we need to start moving things online,鈥� Pentzer says.

As Nebel phrased it, 鈥淟earning Greek and Latin is the price of admission to studying the Classics.鈥�

Nebel wanted CU-Boulder to bring Greek to the world. Nebel lives in Boulder and could come to campus, but many people live elsewhere. An online Greek class addressed several needs and constraints. One is that demand for the course in any one place is generally small.

鈥淲hat鈥檚 great about this class is that there are a lot of people in this country and other countries who really want to take ancient Greek for very particular reasons,鈥� Reitzammer says.

Greek is not just a language but also a system of thought.

For instance, the course serves those who want to attend graduate school but might have decided too late in their college careers to take Greek and Latin.

The course also serves those who don鈥檛 have easy access to a post-baccalaureate program, students who might be home for the summer, students attending colleges or universities that don鈥檛 have classics departments.

A minority of those enrolling are CU-Boulder students鈥攖hree or four out of 25 in each of the past two years.

Reitzammer empathizes with those who find themselves needing Greek and Latin after earning a bachelor鈥檚 degree. Her own degree was in comparative literature.

鈥淚 decided after I had my B.A. that I wanted to study Greek and Latin, that I wanted to go to grad school for classics,鈥� she recalls. So she moved to Los Angeles to attend UCLA鈥檚 post-baccalaureate program in Classics.

鈥淚 spent three full years doing nothing but reading Greek and Latin, essentially, before I went to grad school.鈥�

The CU-Boulder online ancient Greek course essentially allows such people to take a year鈥檚 worth of Greek in a short time.

鈥淭o really flourish in a graduate program, you鈥檝e got to have Greek and Latin,鈥� Reitzammer says.

The online course is a concentrated way to get that first year of Greek under one鈥檚 belt. 鈥淓ither way we cut it鈥�10 weeks or 32 weeks鈥攖heir Greek tool bag is full. They鈥檝e met all the different grammatical functions, all the different declensions and conjugations. It鈥檚 just that they aren鈥檛 as practiced using them yet.鈥�

Reitzammer and Pentzer have several answers to the question of why one should learn Greek and Latin and study Classics.

鈥淲e teach classics because we want human beings to be able to think in the world and make decisions and think critically, and a classics degree gives you all this,鈥� Reitzammer says.

Learning Greek and Latin is 鈥渋ncredible exercise for your brain, and you get to delve into the structure of this highly complex language.鈥�

Pentzer tells students the study of classics will help them enjoy life more. 鈥淭hey鈥檒l understand much more of the world around them. They鈥檒l understand art, literature and movies, because these are only the two most influential cultures for the last 2,500 years.鈥�

Greek, Pentzer says, is not just a language but also a system of thought. 鈥淲e often don鈥檛 think about how we think in a language until we learn another one. When that other language is so radically different from your own native language, it has that much more benefit for you.鈥�

People solve problems with thoughts and think in language, he says. 鈥淪o the more languages you have, the more modes of thought you have, the more angles you can come at a problem.鈥�

To learn more about CU-Boulder鈥檚 Online Classical Greek course, click听.

Clint Talbott听is director of communications and external relations manager for the College of Arts and Sciences and editor of the听College of Arts and Sciences Magazine.