What differentiates learning outcomes at the survey and elective levels in American history courses? This semester I taught ONLY the U.S. survey. Next semester, I’m teaching the survey, a team-taught introductory American Studies/transnational course on Nazism and American culture and politics, and an upper level elective in U.S. Economic History (History of American Capitalism). As…
In my last installment of the “survey of the survey” series I’m working on, I looked at what themes continuously reappear in our surveys. Moving from the top down, this post examines the learning outcomes—and in particular the skills—developed in survey level history courses. I look at this topic as the middle point between the…
Last spring I conducted an unscientific poll about teaching practices in the US survey. One of my goals in this survey was to get a sense of the different themes that we emphasize in our classes, across the halves of the survey. In my review of the results, I am risking preaching to the choir.…
Last year I began thinking about compiling a survey of approaches to the US survey. I conducted a poll, in which more than 50 people kindly participated, and began gathering my thoughts. (And then I had a baby, which derailed things for a bit…they are so high maintenance!). So as I turn back to this…
This month I’m reflecting on an experimental grading practice that I implemented in my Historical Methods class this semester. In this offering, in addition to introducing students to the nuts and bolts of historical research (archives, primary sources, citation, paragraph construction, etc.), I focused heavily on developing their historical thinking. I emphasized the 5 C’s…
This month, before I start digging into the details of the formats, structures, and options used in different surveys, I’m reporting the results of the poll that I posted last month. While admittedly unscientific and self-selected, the results provide a sense of the variety of offerings and approaches used by historians to teach the different…
For quite some time I have been thinking about doing an overview of the different approaches taken to teaching the U.S. survey. But before I do that, I thought it might be prudent to take a survey of the different strategies in use out there and to gather thoughts on other approaches that I have…
This semester I’m teaching two out of my three courses online because I’m expecting a baby in April. While I’ve taught online regularly for the last five years, teaching two courses at once has led me to streamline and simplify what I’ve been doing. For me, recording online videos has been a bit of a…
As I prepare for a new semester, I often escape onto social media for respite. Last night, I found no succor. Instead, I was confronted by a random gathering of posts either disparaging or misunderstanding a liberal arts education. Oh how the stars align. Instead of thinking about the last minute changes I need to…
This semester I offered my first U.S. elective as a hybrid. The course, America Meets the Modern, 1920-1945, met once a week for an hour and fifteen minutes, with the other “half” online. Teaching in hybrid, or blended, format brought up similar feelings I have regarding the lack of comfort I tend to have with giving up “coverage,”…
