This post is the first in a series at TUSH this year on the relationship between research and the classroom. You can look out for several pieces from regular and guest contributors on a wide range of subjects in the coming months. It’s hard to convey the precise look of horror that spreads across students’ faces…
Interdisciplinarity is a popular yet challenging idea in higher education. For all the important attention it receives, actually bringing different fields together in the classroom can be much harder than it looks. But research with primary materials, be it in a library, digital database, field site or laboratory, is something that, regardless of our disciplines, most teachers…
Students and teachers come to history for many different reasons. My moment was the fourth grade book fair at Hewitt Elementary School, where I bought Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and E.L. Konigsberg’s A Proud Taste for Scarlet and Miniver. I have Austen to thank for my love of literature (and her writing in her…
In history classrooms, there tends to be plenty of writing. Primary source anaylsis, historiography, thesis and interpretative arguments: each is a piece of disciplinary work that factors into most assignments we use. But given the constraints of chronology, whether it’s the sweep of the survey or the detail of an elective, devoting time to actually…
The annual AHA meeting is this weekend, putting forth a program that not only pays considerable attention to pedagogy but also the rapidly expanding field of digital humanities. Digital humanities, a bridge between technology and history, is one of many components within the broader historical profession that engages with STEM: science, technology, engineering and mathematics.…
I have very mixed thoughts about college football, but as much as I am a fan of any team, I root for the Missouri Tigers. And no, not because of the events of the past week. My “fandom” began in 2007 when Chase Daniel (who is one of the, if not thee, most underrated back-up…
It has been several months since the news broke that despite a long-running public campaign to remove Andrew Jackson from the twenty dollar bill, the treasury department would instead combine Alexander Hamilton and a yet to be determined woman on the ten. The treasury cited counterfeiting risks as the reason for the choice. Just before…
A few months ago, Republican Representative Daniel Fisher introduced a bill to the Oklahoma state legislature, HB 1380, that would revoke all funding for advanced placement United States history classes and put in their place a curriculum of the legislature’s choosing. This bill has been discussed in the media – at TUSH and elsewhere –…
For several years I have been a member of a student-run organization at the Graduate Center called the City University of New York Early American Republic Seminar, fondly abbreviated to CUNY EARS. This Friday, May 1st, is our graduate student conference, so first and foremost, my apologies for the unequivocal promotion. But if you are…
This is not a new or particularly original question but it has been on my mind since I started teaching my own course: how do you get a classroom of young, college freshmen to relate to a small group of elite men dead for well over two hundred years? How do you teach a classroom…
