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 →
Tag: active learning
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 →
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 →
The Balancing Act of the Large Lecture Class
For any of us who have taught large lecture classes (let’s say 100+ students), we are all too familiar with the huge demands on our time and energy. I regularly teach of class of 200+ students, which for me breaks down (on average) to: 6-7 hours of office hours/appointments with students/week 6-10 hours of class prep/week (usually more, but I’m… Read more →
Creating a new Digital Art History (#DAH) Class
Working with a wonderful colleague this past year, I helped get a digital humanities (#dh) minor approved at Pepperdine. She did the lion’s share of the work, but I was excited by the prospect of creating the new minor to provide students with a foundation in #dh. Plus, it seemed an exciting way to encourage myself to think more about… Read more →
Games/Activities for Review
I am always on the search for new, interesting ways to engage students and break up my lectures into more manageable chunks. This past semester (fall 2016) I was faced with a couple of new challenges that forced me more than ever before to develop in-class activities. I was returning to work full time after a semester of maternity leave… Read more →
Goals for 2017
I keep telling myself that I will add a new post every 2 months, but then I always seem to forget (blame sleep deprivation). My goal for 2017 is to post more actively, for me more than anyone or anything else. I find that if I draft a post about what I’ve been doing in class, it helps me think… Read more →
Activities for the large lecture class
Now that the Fall semester has ended, I’ve started to reflect on what types of in-class activities worked well and which ones failed or simply need tweaking. In the end, I realize that activities that are successful might eventually work less well depending on the time of the semester. For this reason, I can’t stress enough how important it is… Read more →
