“But how do you ensure that students will do the reading for a flipped classroom?” I have heard this question many, many times. The success of the flipped classroom often hinges on whether or not the students have prepared outside the classroom in their individual spaces. How else will they be able to do in-class activities or apply information without… Read more →
Category: Pedagogy
Outlining an Intro Essay for Smarthistory: A Flipped Classroom Activity
In my last post, I posed the question of where does one even start in flipping the classroom. I’ve read a number of blog posts about this very idea. I’ve been to workshops that address the flipped classroom. But I always want tangibles. I want people to give me specific examples so that I can see how they actually did… Read more →
Flipping the Art History Classroom: Where do you even begin? Part 1
[This is post 1 of several posts that I will write about flipping the classroom. Stay tuned!] I recently gave a presentation at our center for teaching excellence about some ways in which I’ve flipped my classes. As a long-time “user” of team-based learning (TBL), I’ve had lots of successes and failures when it comes to flipping the classroom. I… Read more →
Learning to Take Notes about Material Presented in Videos: An Activity Using Smarthistory
Note taking. We all have our own individual ways that we like to take notes. Whatever our system might be, our notes need to help us retrieve information, to organize it, to make it accessible. I often find that my students struggle with note-taking. Not all of them, but many of them. They just haven’t found their system yet. Or… Read more →
Low Tech Digital Art History: An Activity about Metadata
One of the most common things I hear from colleagues who seem terrified by DAH is that it requires too much technology, takes too much class time, or just seems too out there for them. This post is for them, or for anyone else that thinks teaching DAH always has to involve computers, the internet, coding, or complicated software. It… Read more →
Gamification, part 2: Jeopardy (over multiple class periods)
I’ve been using jeopardy as a method for exam review for many years. If you can believe it, I remember making a poster board in one of the first classes that I ever taught that students could use. (It involved a lot of tape and papers flaps, and glitter pens). It always is a fun way to review with students… Read more →
Gamification, part 1: Escape Room
It is news to no one who knows me well that I love games. Board games, sudoku, puzzles, jeopardy—you name it, I probably love it. It is not surprising to anyone, least of all me, to learn then that I create a lot of games to play in the classroom. Yes, they are often fun, but more than that they… Read more →
Teaching in the Face of Trauma
(Trigger warnings: mass shooting, death, fires, depression) I am not one for sharing very personal things, especially in public. This might be one of the only posts that I ever write that is so personal, but I felt compelled to write it. This past semester (fall 2018) was officially the most difficult of my career, and it was personally one… Read more →
Skills vs. Content: How best to teach a “Humanities” Class
In my current position, I teach a large-lecture humanities class every semester. I’ve blogged about it before, so it is no surprise (if you’ve been following the blog) to hear that I have continuously tinkered with this class. Recently, I received a grant (exciting!) to overhaul the class (exciting?). I’ve decided that I am going to redo the entire class… Read more →
Ditch the Textbook: Now what? An Experiment with StoryMap JS
In a recent post I mentioned that I was planning to ditch my textbook for my large-lecture humanities class. Instead, I am going to make podcasts and videos, and assign primary sources for students to use before or during class. It dawned on me recently that another great option would be to use StoryMap JS to introduce some material as… Read more →
To Smarthistory in the Large-Lecture Humanities Class
I’ve posted about how I see my work with Smarthistory as an act of doing public art history, and how the process of working collaboratively for smarthistory has encouraged me to rethink how I teach and how I research (and publish). Well, I am always looking for ways to transform my large-lecture humanities class of more than 200 students. The… Read more →
Transforming Reacting to the Past Games for Large-Lecture Courses
I’ve been hearing about Reacting to the Past (RTTP) games for a few years now. I’m curious to learn more. Normally, I would have attended a conference to play one of these games, like Art and Modernism in Paris in 1889, but I now normally teach large classes of more than 200 students. With so many students, I’m never sure… Read more →
