History Lab: rethinking the Western Civ course

So, I finally get to teach a college course this semester. Way excited! But I refuse to do the normal lecture format. Seriously, we are still stuck on that teaching method after all the research and scholarship about the best ways to teach? (These all came up as results for searching in Google Scholar with the terms “how students learn” and “scholarship of teaching and learning”, which returned over 3.7 million results.)

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over 600,000 results for “scholarship of teaching and learning” on Google Scholar
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Over 3 million hits for “how students learn” on Google Scholar. You’d think we would know how students learn by now…

I still believe the “learning pyramid” has merit despite it’s obvious over-generalizations and fabricated percentages. Lecturing has it’s place, but not in my class room. If anything, I want to be less boring. 🙂

Apparently false learning pyramid, created by me.
Apparently false learning pyramid, created by me.

So, I got to thinking, what format do I want to use for my Monday-Wednesday-Friday, History 100 Western Civilization class? I landed on a discussion based lecture format for Monday and Wednesday, and what I’m calling a History Lab for Friday. The sciences have this same format. Lecture on two days a week, then go to a lab where you practice what was preached. I figured we could do the same thing with critical thinking skills taught by the humanities. Monday and Wednesday will be a bit of me talking about the time period, with a healthy dose of questions and comments from the students based on the reading they have done. Then on Friday we have a History Lab where we critically examine a primary document from the time period we are learning about. I’m open to other ideas on what to do during the History Lab. I’m excited to see if any students offer suggestions.

Popsicle sticks!
Popsicle sticks!

Today was our first History Lab, and it went very well, I think. I will get the students opinion on Monday, to make this exercise an all around learning experience. For today’s History Lab I divided the students into groups of five (any more than that gets a bit unmanageable). They each picked a popsicle stick I had in a cup at the front of the desk. There were five popsicle sticks with the same color, but a different “filter” written on each of the five sticks. The filters are the biases, or lenses through which to look at history. They included race, gender, science/technology, social class, art, religion, and politics/government. After the students organize into groups, I give them a primary source document to read together, then discuss the document based on the filter that they have. After enough time to allow individual groups to discuss, we discuss altogether as a class. To track participation, attendance and provide accountability, each group had to write a summary of their discussion on the back of the paper, including their names and which filter they had, to be turned in at the end of class.

This seemed to work out pretty well, and the students had great comments. We looked at “The Spartan Creed”, a poem written by Tyrtaeus in the 7th Century B.C. (unfortunately no reliable source found, just this post in a forum). The most noticeable thing about this document is how heavily male centric it is. Granted, it’s a man writing about war, but there is absolutely no mention of a female. It can be implied by the use of the word “children”, but no fighting for the protection of wife and family, just city and children. Here are some of the comments the students made on their papers for a few of the filters.

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Directions are an absolute necessity for group work to function well.

Gender: Men are dominant, only men are warriors. No reference to women. The society was very male dominated. Women had no role in the Spartan military, so the code is less relevant to them. Females are not even mentioned in the creed, so men are obviously the dominant gender. Among the men, they are expected to be strong, courageous, honorable, every trait that makes them a mighty soldier, a protector of their city-state.

Art: War is their art, the structure of their army, how they fought, etc. It doesn’t specifically say anything about art, but the way this is written is a form of art and the way the author makes out a man to be is like a piece of art.

Religion: War was treated as a religion. Soldiers were treated as gods when they returned. In death, a Spartan man becomes immortal as his memory is honored as if he is a god. To understand this one must know that in his life he was worshiped for being a good fighter and so that is carried over in a glorious death. Religion and personal values seem to all be related to war; gods are mentioned but the creed is centered around the personal honor of a warrior.

I was pleased with the results. All of the students were engaged in the group work and came up with something intelligent to write about. The beauty of this model is that each student has a focused purpose to look at a historical document, and then is held accountable for sharing something.

Do you have ideas for what we can do in our History Lab? Leave a comment below, and I’ll give it a try!

[Post image from Wikimedia Commons: Glass containers, experimental magnifiers and chemical or alchemy paraphernalia in the Lavoisier Lab 1775 by Jorge Royan. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Munich_-_Deutsches_Museum_-_07-9631.jpg]

Prep for Orals – Teaching Plans

I will invariably get a few questions about how I would teach modern European history as a professor. To prepare for these types of questions I wrote down (actually, I typed them all in, no pencil or paper used 🙂 ) the three nations I’m looking at and some themes, events, and books I would like to use in a course. I struggled with which people, if any to focus on.

A theoretical question I could be asked is: Say you have to teach a course on (Modern England, Modern France, Modern Germany, Modern Europe, World Wars in Europe, etc). What themes, events, people would you focus on and what books would you include? What would be the layout of the course?

I focus on individual countries below, and for a general European course, I would just draw from each of the countries. The books I pull from are only the ones on my Orals reading list. I would most likely supplement with other books after doing some research if I were really teaching a course.

Another thing to keep in mind, is that I probably would never just go chronologically through a time period to hit big events and “important” people. History is very subjective. We look back on events and information with a certain set of “filters” on. For example we view Germany with political filters, focusing on governments and politicians. Or we may focus on France with cultural filters, looking at food, society, entertainment and arts. It’s impossible to get a full picture or sense of the past. Just as it’s impossible to gain a full sense of the present. There’s just too many people, too many viewpoints, too many sides to the same story, and too many filters to encompass everything. What’s the point, then? The point is to do what we can. Find what interests you and study the past through that filter. There’s nothing wrong with learning about one slice of the pie, as long as we don’t think our slice represents the whole thing. With that said, then, I would probably pick a few themes and have the books, discussions and (unless totally unavoidable) lectures focus on those themes. See the very bottom of this post for a couple of teaching ideas.

Trafalgar Square, London, England. 1915

England

Themes:

Industrial Revolution (political and economic changes), gender issues, education and society (state vs individual), nationalism, modernization, imperialism

Events:

Industrial Revolution

Chartists

Imperialism (changes)

Boer Wars

WWI – inter war – WWII

post-WWII

People:

Books:

Thompson, E. P.: Read sections to show the idea that class was created through Industrialization. Shows argument about quality versus quantity, and averages dilute the results.

Berlanstein: shows importance of Industrial Revolution and the different ways historians view the past based on present circumstances. Shows how historical works are influenced by current situations.

Thompson, Dorothy: Shows the beginnings of political uprisings supported by the common people.

Davidoff & Hall: Shows the beginning of the Victorian ideals, the separation of men and women spheres, and the “traditional” gender roles. Gender and economy seen to influence each other (gender roles determined by occupation, work and public sphere influence gender roles).

Porter: A good look at imperialism/British colonialism, the change from economical to ideological. Shows colonialism as a European power struggle. Addresses the masculinity of imperialism and fears in rise in feminism (Boer Wars)

Mandler: Brings up issue of state control versus individual liberty and accountability.

Eiffel Tower, Paris, France. 1900

France

Themes:

Political revolutions, class changes, colonialism, gender, religion, memory, nationalism, antisemitism

Events:

French Revolution

Political changes through 1870 (republics, monarchies, and empires)

Third Republic

Colonialism

Dreyfus Affair

WWI – interwar – WWII

Fourth Republic

Algeria

Fifth Republic

People:

Napoleon, Dreyfus, de Gaulle, Petain,

Books:

Ford and Weber: compare different ways of looking at nationalism in France. Bottom-up and Top-down show many ways and nationalism was sculptured.

Hazareesingh: Argues that concepts of citizenship and a weaker state government were first established during Second Empire, rather than in Third Republic. Sources based on elite writings, so it shows what they wanted, not necessarily what happened, since there was much restriction of local governments and individual rights.

Nord: Unique way of looking at how Third Republic lasted so long, not how it could end in Vichy. Shows how Third Republic implemented political ideas that Hazareesingh shows the Second Empire wanted to use (decentralized govt., create sense of citizenship, etc). Shows building of “traditional” Victorian ideals about gender, public/private spheres, middle-class bourgeois life shaped by and influenced politics in France.

McManners: to show the decline in religion, the issues of church and state (infalibility of pope)

Forth (or other book on Dreyfus Affair): Discuss why Dreyfus Affair was so influential in France and elsewhere. The issues of antisemitism in places other than Germany, and the masculinity complex in France and Europe.

Prochaska: To show importance of colonies, especially Algeria, to France. Stresses that Algeria was France, so issues there were similar to issues in France. Perhaps also read with Horne about the Algerian wars and end of France occupation to show the story from occupied and occupiers.

Weber: Show the interwar years as decisive in France allowing Nazis so much influence in France.

Paxton and Rousso: Show the involvement of Vichy with Nazis, and the national conundrum that places on French narrative.

Hecht: To address the issue of France dealing with their national image and turning to technology and technocrats as the source of narrative building.

Marktplatz in old town Goslar Germany. 1882

Germany

Themes:

nationalism, colonialism, fascism, religion, memory, antisemitism,

Events:

Napoleon’s unification of Germany

1848 Revolutions

Unification

Imperial Germany

Wilhelmina Germany

WWI – interwar (Weimar, Nazi) – WWII

post-war (Ground zero)

East and West Germany

re-Unification

People:

Bismarck, Wilhelm II, Hitler,

Books:

Kent: Show the unification of Germany and the role Bismarck played in shaping German politics and culture in nineteenth century.

Chickering: Discuss the reasons for WWI and Germany.

Bessel and Gay: Bessel for a traditional account of Weimar, Gay for a look at the social impact.

Allen: Look at the rise of Nazis.

Kershaw: Look at the mythos and sensationalism surrounding Hitler

Koonz: Look at women and their roles in Nazi Germany.

Kaplan: Look at the plight of the Jews in Nazi Germany. Unique look from the bottom up, from the woman and mother’s viewpoint.

Fullbrook: formation and existence of East Germany.

Jarausch & Geyer: How to deal with Germany’s past, and how best to interpret and write history. Also a good book to address methodology, how should historians write, there are too many ways to explain and recount history than just political. OR Koshar for the same reasons, but he focuses on buildings as monuments which provides a tangible reference to the discussion rather than the theoretical discussion by Jarausch & Geyer.

Europe

Themes and events to focus on for European history:

Nationalism is the biggest one. Look at political change, republics, democracies, socialism, and communism.

Decline in religion and the increased reliance in science. Modernization.

Economies of scale. Global markets and capitalism vs socialism vs communism. Role of Industrial Revolution and colonialism, class and gender.

Colonialism/imperialism as economic, political and cultural motivators.

Gender issues. Defining gender in Victorian period, creation of “traditional roles”, affect of industrial revolution and capitalism on changing role of occupations. Changes in legal rights for women and men.

Rise in class consciousness, workers unions, political movements. Failure or success of communist ideals.

Teaching in a classroom.

Teaching Ideas

History Filters

Study of history is always dependent upon the “filter” through which you want to look at it. It would be fun to divide the class into sections, and each group take a specific “filter” (gender, culture, politics, economy, class, race, etc). Each group either gets their own reading list or they have to pull the specific themes from a general list. Then each class period, each group takes a turn discussing history viewed through their filter. Have the other groups not presenting write one question before class and one question after for the presenting group to answer about their “filter.” (Questions could be done on a blog.)

Timelines

Have students make a timeline of the time period the class will be studying. Then in the first lecture share what my points are and argue them. Have the students keep their timeline throughout the semester. They will argue their points, especially if they change them, taking ideas from the texts. Final paper is a well argued timeline.

(PS. All images are from Flickr Commons.)