How will I teach this course next time? What changes will I make? What worked? What flopped? These are the questions that all teachers must ask themselves. As “Witnessing the Sixties” draws to a close, I am reflecting on its second coming, which will occur in January 2020. Demonstrating growth and willingness to improve a…
Visiting one of the museums here in Bergen, I walked through the rooms of Edvard Munch’s work, stopping in front of Ungdom (Youth). Ungdom is a large portrait of a boy with a multicolored background behind him that looks, in many ways, like waves. As I stared at the portrait, I walked closer and peered…
If you’ve been following my posts at all this year, you likely have a good sense of who I am and what I value as an educator. In my first post, I advocated three hundred sixty degree understand of historical events and the cultivation of “healthy critical” students. I’ve promoted authenticity, through crafting thoughtful assessments…
Teaching United States History is excited to present Teach My Book, a series of posts where distinguished authors reflect on their work and how instructors might integrate their insights into the classroom. Our thoughts today come from Emily Conroy-Krutz, Associate Professor of History at Michigan State University, the author of Christian Imperialism: Converting the World in…
We are pleased to present this guest post from Christopher Bishop on his experience as a first-year community college instructor. When I was in college, content was king in history courses, even in general education courses. We listened to lectures, took notes, read four books a semester, and took bluebook exams that required so…
The Fulbright program has provided me with the opportunity to connect with scholars and students not just in Norway but across Europe as well. Last fall, I had the opportunity to travel to Warsaw to speak with students about the life and work of Frank Yerby. During my presentation, I talked about some of the…
I just wrapped up a week-long trip to Morocco with my senior Global Studies students. After a fall term of exploring what globalization is and a winter term case studying a country–this year, Morocco–the course is predicated on the idea that you can not even begin to grasp the inner workings of a nation-state without…
In crafting assignments, we strive to help our students find depth of knowledge while allowing them to explore topics located off the beaten path. In my course, Witnessing the Sixties, students read classics like Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique and yet I also want them to encounter Sixties phenomena that are revelatory due to their…
Historical empathy can be a powerful tool for fighting hatred. But are we teaching it wrong?
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…
