I've never been one to get along easily or be easily understood, so sometimes I worry that what I'm saying and what students are hearing are two different things. Perhaps that's what happened with the exchange below.
| | hi professor Albert, i was wondering where i went to get the information on the topic for the precis
|
| | student signature
| From: Daniel Albert
| Subject: RE: precis
| To: student
|
| Hi Student,
| You have me worried as I mentioned this several times in class and because the materials are right on the front page for the course, the links with the Maya face. This, combined with your difficulty in grasping the goals for the literature review make me wonder how much of your attention you're able to devote to class.
|
|
| | From: Student
| | Subject: precis
I've realized that it was on another link. But I do have a learning disability, sometimes it's hard for me to grasp the material right away, and to understand it but I am trying, esp with getting all my work done.
Friday, November 14, 2008
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
The Class Wiki
The class wiki has been an experiment in trying to get students to experience DOING history rather than just learning history. I like the line about math class: sitting there watching the teacher have all the fun on the blackboard. The point is they should do math and they should do history.
Typically this "doing history" means working with primary documents. Primary documents are great when the students have the background to understand them and make use of them. This is easier in, say, US History than in World History before 1500. But that's only one part of doing history, interpreting primary sources. There are two other parts. One is the detective work, usually done in an archive, but done in all kinds of other ways from oral history to data mining. The other is the midrash, the argument about the argument. (My friend Dave described the difference between being a history undergrad and a grad student: "As undergrads we argued about books; as grad students we argue about footnotes." So, how to get the students to argue about history when they have done, and perhaps can do, very little reading?
Enter the Blog. The idea is that they post blog entries in favor of any given historical event/thing/person. The key is in the comments. Students than comment on their classmates blog entries. For instance, once said Buddhism was important. Another agreed but said Buddhism should be characterized as a religion.
It is very bare bones and open ended. And giving them specific grades for it is time consuming. In the future, it could be more focused and the grading could be more flexible (participation grades, etc.).
The fun techno part is that I can feed all the blogs to my igoogle homepage.
Typically this "doing history" means working with primary documents. Primary documents are great when the students have the background to understand them and make use of them. This is easier in, say, US History than in World History before 1500. But that's only one part of doing history, interpreting primary sources. There are two other parts. One is the detective work, usually done in an archive, but done in all kinds of other ways from oral history to data mining. The other is the midrash, the argument about the argument. (My friend Dave described the difference between being a history undergrad and a grad student: "As undergrads we argued about books; as grad students we argue about footnotes." So, how to get the students to argue about history when they have done, and perhaps can do, very little reading?
Enter the Blog. The idea is that they post blog entries in favor of any given historical event/thing/person. The key is in the comments. Students than comment on their classmates blog entries. For instance, once said Buddhism was important. Another agreed but said Buddhism should be characterized as a religion.
It is very bare bones and open ended. And giving them specific grades for it is time consuming. In the future, it could be more focused and the grading could be more flexible (participation grades, etc.).
The fun techno part is that I can feed all the blogs to my igoogle homepage.
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Reboot
We've rebooted since the midterm and now we're spending time doing things I thought they could do for themselves going in. I turns out I have one class with 15 out of 27 students who are brought to us by the "learning center" meaning they've been identified as not having the skills to do the class. They're supposed to be in a special section with 20 students, and of course the instructor is supposed to know their status, but now I'm learning that the Learning Center doesn't do its job, or so I'm told.
Meanwhile, I'm prepping for next term: World History Since 1500 and US Transportation History, an upper level class. I'm toying with the idea of team instruction, sort of groups on steroids. That still leaves the course content to be worked out, but it's slowly slowly coming together.
Meanwhile, I'm prepping for next term: World History Since 1500 and US Transportation History, an upper level class. I'm toying with the idea of team instruction, sort of groups on steroids. That still leaves the course content to be worked out, but it's slowly slowly coming together.
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