I have struggled to finalize a topic to discuss this month. The chaos of the semester coupled with the state of our nation and the world, in general, has made it difficult to consider what teaching techniques I can share. As I scoured my mind to identify a topic that I feel is relevant, I…
Every day our social media threads and email inboxes are inundated with perspectives about the best way to deliver remote instruction. I have added my own two cents to the milieu of advice as well. However, what I have found is that the most effective way to adapt to my new teaching reality is to…
For the past year, I have taught an American history survey course online. I inherited the basic structure and assignments of the course from other instructors I underwent a learning curve during the first semester. One of the main obstacles I faced during the first semester was that I found myself frustrated over the number…
For the past couple of years, I have taught my students to understand the role that nature played in historical events. Viewing the past from the perspective of the natural world helps students to check their biases by thinking about how different people, groups, and organisms understood the spaces they inhabited. Each semester I introduce…
I am not sure about all of you, but mid-semester is rough for me. I am exhausted, my students are tired, and I find the Fall semester particularly difficult because of the holiday season. A few years ago, I introduced a movie into my American History survey curriculum to give my students a break from…
Over the summer, I had the opportunity to teach a one-week crash course on United States History to a group of university students from China. The students arrived in Utah in late July and stayed for three weeks. They took four college courses which consisted of one and a half hours a day for seven…
Teaching Slavery and Southern Identity in the American History Survey Course: Part Two In my last post, I discussed how I use a chapter from Walter Johnson’s book, Soul by Soul: Life Inside the Antebellum Slave Market in my United States history survey course. I also assign an interview with historian Kerri Leigh Merritt recorded…
Every semester I assign the chapter titled, “Turning People into Products” from Walter Johnson’s book, Soul by Soul: Life Inside the Antebellum Slave Marketto my survey-level American History students. As historians are painfully aware, slavery is one of the most misunderstood, overgeneralized, and downplayed topics in American history. My objective is to expose my students to…
Getting my students to complete the course readings is one of the biggest challenges I face as an instructor. I know that there are many debates about the effectiveness of a textbook, but I have found that most students feel comfortable with a text because it provides general information in chronological order that helps them…
At the beginning of each semester, I, like most others, spend some time evaluating my syllabus to assess if it meets the needs of my students. While over the years I have placed many assignments and activities on the chopping block, I continue to schedule a midterm and a final exam. When I first became…
