Dr. Sarah Jacoba

I am a teaching-focused Associate Professor of French at Lakehead University. I am passionate
about alternative assessment, effective use of technology in the classroom, and putting
students in the position of creators.
In 2017, I graduated with a PhD in French literature from Queen’s University. My doctoral
research compares Samuel Beckett’s sparse, still, and silent stage images to Jean Genet’s
theatrical décor and provocative costumes. Both playwrights present an increasingly absent
actor who is eventually eclipsed by the very theatre conventions that are meant to give him life;
language never justly conveys the self, the subject never owns his voice, and the body is subject
to an external gaze which reduces it to a mere stage prop. Paradoxically, the self is most aptly
represented by its erasure from the scene.

Since beginning work at Lakehead, I have shifted my research focus to the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL). I am excited to be learning more about community-based language learning (CBLL), peer assessment, and learning technologies. I aim to include at least one technology-focused activity in each of my classes using tools such as Tumblr, Peer Scholar, and Wix. This practice has shaped my SoTL research: at the 2021 Student Language Pedagogies
Conference, I presented the results of my study on the relationship between technology-assisted peer assessment and affective filter (anxiety that affects language production).
I am also interested in using alternative assessment to put students in the position of creators. In 2019, I presented a SoTL conference paper at the STLHE conference wherein I reflected on my experience guiding a student through the design and implementation of a community-based language learning project that saw them conduct a series of song-writing workshops for local high school students. In each of my classes, I aim to include a creative component that gives students the opportunity to “think outside the box”. In 2018, I designed a creative writing assignment using the Google Arts and Culture app for which I won a Teaching Innovation Award. This assignment has been a favourite of mine to grade ever since!