B301 The Crusades
This course on the crusades used two modern accounts of the crusades (one each from the Western and Middle Eastern perspective) and many primary sources. The course goal was for students to learn how to sift through evidence from the past, weigh it, and then create their own historical accounts. Students worked in permanent learning groups in which they discussed historical problems, did in-class assignments, and wrote two papers. Students also wrote one individual paper. For the joint papers, students were given time to plan in class, and developed their papers using the Wiki tool of Oncourse.
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This course was one of the courses studied by the History Learning Project at Indiana University of which I am one of the principal investigators. One of the greatest difficulties students face in studying history is how to use primary sources, a difficulty compounded when these sources conflict. The work of Sam Wineburg and Gaia Leinhardt has shown that students tend to regard primary sources simply as factual sources of information, rather than situated texts, and that when these sources conflict they tend simply to pick and choose which material from the sources supported their view, without trying to account for differences. Yet because we live in a complicated world in which students must learn to assess evidence in order to determine what they believe, these practices are inadequate. I was therefore looking for ways to put students in a position repeatedly where they couldn't go around the need to compare sources or ideas, but had to make an attempt to make sense of them.
To that end, I chose readings that presented different and sometimes incompatible points of view. There were two "textbooks," one from a "western" and one from an "eastern" point of view, and the primary sources came from both Arabic and Latin writers. But I didn't think this was enough. In addition, I decided to put students in learning groups, in which they had to do graded assignments together in class. Sometimes these assignments required them to identify multiple points of view; all of the assignments asked them to provide evidence. I hoped that they would argue with each other as they strove to arrive at a shared point of view, and that disagreements would push them to use the materials in a more nuanced way. Students were to do one of these assignments nearly every day.
In addition to these assignments, I decided that the students would write two collaborative papers. The topics would be assigned and would be chosen to be interpretive, that is, to permit students to develop an historical argument. Students would have regular time in class to discuss their papers, including one full-class period for each. I provided scaffolding for the students in the form of guides for discussion, including the assignment of roles, and worksheets for the papers, which required the students to list the evidence they were using, the hypotheses they were entertaining and the like. Students would write their papers on wiki pages, which would permit all students access to the joint paper at all times and which would also allow me to follow the students' progress in their work and to coach them. To avoid boomerang revisions, students were not permitted to delete anything from the pages until the week before the papers were due. To avoid free-riding, students were encouraged to assign tasks to group members and post that information, so all would know who was responsible for what, and to grade each other's participation.
The aspect of the course that most fully used Sakai's capabilities was the wiki tool, although I did use other aspects of the course site. I posted a syllabus in PDF. Students also turned in assignments and revisions of assignments (students were free to revise their work) and had them returned using the assignments tool. I created a link to my own course web page, which was more colorful, to give students course information in a less dry form than in the PDF syllabus, although more colorful does not mean more effective (this site does not reflect a change at the end of the course, necessitated by my father's death and absence from class for a week, which reduced the papers from four to three). I put maps and readings in the resources page and returned the graded group papers there (because there was not at the time a way to restrict access to a wiki page to a particular group, I did not grade on the wiki pages). Guide sheets were handed out in class (those with recurrent application, such as the essay grading rubric were put in the resources file on the web). In-class assignments were given by PowerPoint. I did not post PowerPoints on the web.
No more than thirty minutes of each class was lecture, usually broken into two separated blocks. I usually began with an image (occasionally a song) for students to analyze and discuss as a whole, and we usually spent ten minutes on that, followed by about fifteen minutes of lecture. Students then had group discussions and in-class assignments, and I and my grader circulated as advisors and facilitators. Groups handed in their assignments in a folder, which they were given every day at the beginning of class. The graded assignments were returned to them in the same way. The groups could thus look over old assignments. I might end with a little more lecture.
While students initially grumbled about working in groups (and they were never really thrilled with the wiki tool), when given a choice about whether to work together or separately on the third paper, six of the eight groups elected to continue to work together, while a seventh retained all but one member. The main difficulty was getting the students to argue with each other (studies, including one recently done at my university by Gihan Osmun, have shown that students would rather do poorly than argue with each other); the one group that did argue at great length on the second paper, wrote a stunningly good paper, vindicating (or at least supporting) the hypothesis. All groups did reasonably well, however, because they pooled the strengths of the individuals in the group and because I or my grader was able to coach them as they were working because of the visibility provided by the wiki tool.
Most of the student groups met outside of class although they were not required to do so; students had face-to-face meetings provided in class. They had available to them the comment function on the wiki page (and sometimes commented on the wiki page) as a virtual community. Instructors were able to monitor student progress, both through handed in materials and electronic materials, and circulated through the class so as interact on an individual level. Students received prompt feedback and had a record of their past work and feedback. The prime evidence for the success of collaboration was the election by the vast majority of students to remain in their groups, including students who had initially been skeptical about working in groups. Because this course was part of a student, we also filmed two group discussions and an observer monitored two others. The students interacted very effectively in these situations. Of course, since we circulated during discussions, we were also able to observe this. One student who otherwise wasn't that happy with the class on the evaluations wrote, "I love my group!" (Groups were assigned, not elective.)
I would add as well that when I was absent from class for a week and students became anxious about their ability to do the planned work for the course, they were comfortable proposing a solution to the problem, which I readily adopted, so collaboration between teachers and students was strong as well.
As a whole the students received sufficient support from the learning materials. Because of the need to reschedule the last weeks of the class, this was not perfect; I also found it burdensome to keep up both with a personal web page and a Sakai site and the former fell by the wayside, although parts were completed. However, any materials or information students needed beyond a given class were available on the web site, including readings handed out in class and perhaps used only in a given class. The web materials did tend to be print-heavy, although class activities did provide visual and audio materials, as well as discussion. For the history of the remote past, there is probably no way around text-heaviness.
The focus in the course was on "doing" history, rather than "studying" it. Students were asked to work extensively with primary sources, to assess them as evidence, to compare conflicting sources, to justify their explanations, and they did this in individual in-class assignments, group in-class assignments, discussions, individual papers, and group papers. We teachers circulated among the groups coaching and listening. When students didn't understand something, I could address it immediately, because I had feedback from them. I could look over a particular groups work to see what problems they had had over time. Students were surveyed after they wrote the second paper about their group experience and what would help them get more out of it. Students were able to rewrite the first two (of three papers) after receiving comments and feedback. Students were consistently called upon to put the reading to use. The one area in which I would do more now and didn't do enough was in the metacognitive area--while students could reflect on their learning, I didn't build that into the course, and students were only explicitly called upon to do this in the survey we did after the first group assignment (the second paper).
On the whole, I was least satisfied with this aspect of the course. The web materials were functional, but not beautiful. I got only a few queries from students about where materials might be found, and generally these were students who were not very familiar with the Oncourse (Sakai) environment. The uploading of assignments in Sakai is DREADFUL, and I had to go over how to do it with students in class (too many clicks required). But aside from that (and some grumbling about the wiki, which required students to learn new protocols) the look and feel was adequate.
Students were provided with four guides/worksheets while working on each paper. Students had to hand these in as well as to post the contents on the wiki site. Instructions for the papers appeared on an informational wiki page that offered students the opportunity to ask questions (although they preferred to do so in person). Students were frequently encouraged to contact the instructors. Readings and other pertinent resources were posted to the site. Students could contact the instructors through the wiki pages, which we monitored, by email either directly or through the course site, by phone, in person at office hours, before or after class, or as we circulated in groups.
My aim throughout my course was to move my students from thinking about history as a series of facts to be memorized (which many students and indeed scholars in non-historical fields still think in college) toward seeing history as a mode of cognition or understanding (see Louis Mink). Although all historians agree that this is the case, the way traditional history courses are taught, by lecture and with exams requiring memorization, reinforces novice expectations. While we TELL students otherwise, our ACTIONS often don't require students to do something other memorize and display (see Barton and Levstik). In this course I set out to do things differently. In one sense, I wanted to expose students to what experts do. However, in another sense, what I wanted to accomplish with the students was different from professional practice. Historians are generally solo practitioners, engaged in virtual conversations. Instead, I had students working together, because they are, for the most part, not going to become historians, and because the ability to reason through a problem together is a skill they will need as modern citizens. For this aspect of the course, the wiki pages available were crucial. I didn't want someone to have the draft of the paper, which would then be unavailable to other students, or for revisions to criss-cross each other. I wanted a virtual discussion and on-going writing process similar to that used by professional writers and what I've used in my own work. As a rule, students didn't like working on the wiki, but it accomplished what I hoped it would.
Student report was that this class was different from anything else they had ever done. Some of them were clear about not liking it--one student didn't understand why I didn't just have the class read Wikipedia about the crusades because they could "learn more." (But what, you ask?) Others complained that the work was very difficult, that they had to pay close attention to what they were reading, that they didn't know going in what resources they were going to have to draw on (just like life). Persistence and attendance made a difference, because only participants in each in-class assignment got credit for the assignment, and these were pretty much daily fare. However, I also had a history major thank me after one of the assignments, in which the groups read three accounts of two incidents during the Third Crusade, had to decide what had happened, and justify their decisions with reference to the evidence. Most of the groups did well on these assignments, while one group not only had virtually perfect attendance, but turned in papers of deep thoughtfulness and care. Not every student got with the program. One group of able students got together and decided the minimum they needed to do to get a B. But in most groups I got a very high quality of work, both in class and in outside assignments. I did something different, and on the whole it worked.
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
| groups-survey-07.pdf | 36.4 KB |
| Groupworkguide1.pdf | 31.84 KB |
| Groupworkguide2.pdf | 33.93 KB |
| Groupworkguide3.pdf | 39.88 KB |
| Groupworkguide4.pdf | 39.17 KB |
| Information page--first essay.htm | 18.54 KB |
| b301#12.07.ppt | 187.5 KB |
| groups-handout.07.pdf | 42.32 KB |
| Groups for B301.pdf | 20.71 KB |
| b301#13.07.ppt | 221 KB |
| b301#15.07.ppt | 175.5 KB |
| b301#18.07.ppt | 152 KB |
| B301-guide.07.pdf | 141.01 KB |
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