History of the Medieval World
The
centuries after the “fall” of the Roman Empire
have long gotten a bad rap. Petrarch, writing in the 1300’s, declared that he stood on the
precipice of a new age that looked back to the glories of Rome across nearly a
thousand-year “dark age.” Later generations would follow his lead, and hail
fifteenth-century Italy
as the home of the “rebirth” of culture: the Renaissance. But a remarkable world did exist during those
thousand years, a world that is very much unlike modernity that would follow.
Let’s embrace the weird…
none
I have been working with online instructional tools since I began teaching as a TA at the University of Virginia with the very primitive Toolkit. At Gannon University and again at Virginia Tech, I used Blackboard to great effect and have only very recently begun to make the transition to Scholar. Like my students, I live online, and so I strive to make all aspects of the instantly accessible via the website. Doing so is, I believe, an important component in connecting with the Millennials.
We meet twice weekly for a 75 min period in which I lecture for the majority of the time using a fully animated and musically-scored PowerPoint presentation. However, for each lecture I include at least one piece of primary source evidence that the students are expected to examine ahead of class, print, and bring with them to the lecture. I give them 5-10 minutes to discuss the evidence with their partner, and we then discuss it collectively. My classes have around 50 students, so this is the most effective blend of lecture and discussion that I have found to date.
I have collected anonymous online evaluations for all my courses, with specific questions on the lecture experience, the website, and the method of examination. Said one student, Mr. Alexander has been one of the most interesting and informative instructors that I have had so far at Virginia Tech. His uses of multimedia capability such as music and video clips in his PowerPoint lectures made his classes his classes very interactive; moreover, the clips added relevance and depth to the discussion topics. I feel that his approaches added context to facts, which is notoriously what history classes revolve around. I loved his approach!
I emphasize the big picture over the minor detail, and before each exam we spend an entire day reviewing the material collectively. I call it "concept mapping," and it simply involves me standing at the whiteboard and allowing the students to guide what names and ideas I write. We then make links between these pieces of evidence to creat the "map." I encourage my students to make similar maps when they review their notes, telling them that this is "active" studying that more firmly encodes the information into their memory. To ensure they actually do it, I have the students submit one concept map the day of the exam in exchange for some extra points. Said one student, the concept maps helped me define my study parameters, and I believe that they improved the scores on my exams significantly. Because they were due on exam days, they forced students who usually procrastinate to start studying before the last minute. Concept maps are the perfect way to get your students to study without giving them a 'cheat sheet.'
The Millennials are visual learners, and so I make my PowerPoint lectures visually rich. I strive to have an image for each point that I make, so that the students have "something to hold onto" when digesting the information. Student performance on the exams consistently demonstrates that this approach increaes retention of important material, as well as allows the students to deploy that evidence to support their arguments in the essays.
My best evidence is ample student feebadk:
- I think the online materials were very beneficial four the course. I like being able to go over the slides when I am reviewing for exams, and you used the website in a good way for your students to stay on track and up to date with the course.
- I loved having all the class materials available on the website, free of charge. Some classes seem to just have a text book for the sake of having one, but the diversity of both primary and secondary sources available for this class was outstanding.
Again, I cite student evaulations as evidence.
- One could definitely tell that he loved teaching, because the amount of help was so extreme. Thank you for being a wonderful teacher, and thakn you teaching it in such a fun and interesting way!
- I LOVED the lectures and REALLY REALLY loved the music and movies. It honestly made me retain much more information and it kepy my attention. The class in general was incredibly interesting to me and inspired me. I might even specialize in the Renaissance in Graduate School. If I become a professor or whatever subject, I will base my leture style of Prof. Alexander's.
I am using my Scholar website to reduce costs for my students by making all course materials available online - there are no books to buy for my course. Moreover, I use the wiki tool to allow the students to work cooperatively on their term paper in which they are asked to compare and contrast two biographies of Charlemagne written two generations apart.
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