CURRENT COURSES

There I stood, with a harpoon in hand. On a perfect summer day, I had what my colleagues said was an unenviable task: teach a group of teenagers, all of whom would have rather been at the beach, about Nantucket’s whaling past. Luckily, I had an endless array of material at my disposal. A sperm whale skeleton hung from the ceiling. A range of objects relayed not only the daily drudgery of being onboard a whaler but also the incredible artistic skills of sailors who produced great works of beauty. Then, there was the ordeal of the Essex and its crew—the story that inspired Moby-Dick; or, The Whale.

 

My job as a museum educator taught me valuable pedagogical lessons, including but not limited to having a “hook,” being flexible, and knowing your end goal. Over the past sixteen years, however, I’ve learned that it takes much more to be an effective educator. It’s especially essential that I continually improve my teaching by doing the following: learning from proven practices that leverage student interests; creating authentic learning opportunities; and employing technology in the quest to enhance the cognitive, disciplinary, and affective parts of education.

 

I began my teaching career as an on-campus high school history teacher at a “second chance” boarding school. I had little-to-no formal training in history pedagogy, and as such, I started what has since been a personal mission to stay up-to-date with research that supports improved student learning outcomes. As a high school teacher, my approach harnessed some of the best features of history education. I helped students exhibit empathetic behavior when engaging with primary sources on difficult topics. In addition, I assisted students through a number of design processes as they tackled challenging writing projects. Right away, I saw that one of my strengths was scaffolding research papers and creative projects in a way that helped students solve problems. More recently, my ability to scaffold the research and writing process resulted in three students in my section of a history capstone sweeping the departmental writing awards.

 

From early in my teaching career, I’ve pursued pedagogical improvement through active participation in education coursework, professional development opportunities, and active participation in local and national learning networks. As a doctoral student in Social Studies Education, I enrolled in courses that built my educator’s toolbox. This included courses that focused on how to teach issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Doctoral seminars also introduced me to additional scholarship on history education. I learned about the best practices for inquiry-based history education, including the process of breaking down primary source analyses, critically examining visual source material, and developing learning experiences for students to make positive contributions to real-world problems.

 

When I was an instructor at Teachers College, Columbia University, I taught master’s students what I had learned about designing rigorous and relevant history lessons and units. In courses on teaching methods, I modeled lessons where I translated theory to practice. I had graduate students complete the kinds of inquiry-based lessons that I wanted them to introduce to their secondary students. This involved hands-on activities with primary sources, debates over the strengths and shortcomings of historical arguments, and engagement with digital media. Most class sessions focused on how to turn students into producers of historical knowledge. By the end of each teaching methods course, graduate students shared one of my hopes for historical thinking and literacy education—to have students be healthy skeptics of the information they consume.

 

My comfort with a range of teaching methods—not to mention teaching modalities—has transformed me into a fearless experimenter in the classroom. The transition to online teaching during the worst of the pandemic, for example, challenged me to rethink the U.S. history survey. Rather than obsessively trying to cover content, I wanted my survey to be a space where students could learn more about themselves and their interests. To accomplish this, I developed a “choose your own grading adventure” where students select the topics they engage with and the assessments they complete. The course is built on a zero-based scoring model, with students earning points for assessments they turned in. Each lecture and primary source has a low-stakes quiz attached to it. But students can also complete harder, longer, and higher-point assignments. These activities, along with dozens of skills-building and writing assessments, help students gain the confidence and historical content knowledge to complete such tasks as analyzing academic articles. It has also been an opportunity for students to understand the viewpoints of others, particularly since there are over 150 primary sources included in the survey. My approach to teaching the U.S. history survey offers an innovative way to rethink introductory courses, as evidenced by being featured as a research-based article in The History Teacher, a journal devoted to more effective teaching of history.

 

Effective use of technology plays a crucial role in my teaching as well. I apply instructional design principles and use collaborative tools to engage and support student learning and to expand students’ authentic, real-world learning experiences. Recently, I have reframed a number of course assessments to more accurately reflect authentic challenges students may face in their careers. In The History of Sexuality, for instance, the mid-semester assessment involves students literally rewriting The American Yawp to include topics covered in the class. Students receive a “Call from the Press” to serve as the textbook’s new editors. In small groups, students learn how to use and design their revamped chapters for The American Yawp in PressBooks, a digital publishing platform formatted for use in educational settings. During the assignment, I take on the role of “executive editor” at the press. In this position, I offer some parameters for what the press would like from the new editors’ revisions. But ultimately, through the use of technology like PressBooks, I have students create, adapt, and personalize their learning experiences. This helps me foster independent and collaborative learning experiences that accommodate students' historical and contemporary interests.

 

I also apply instructional design principles to create innovative digital learning environments to engage and support student learning. Once again, designing authentic, real-world assessments is integral to this part of my teaching. For America in the 1960s, for example, I stage a competition between teams of independent contractors looking to design an exhibit for the National Museum of American History. This assessment challenges students to create a theme for a digital exhibit on the Sixties and to design educational and promotional materials that could be employed to teach and market their exhibit. Since I want to empower student learning with technology, I offer various tools that they can use to manage such an expansive project. I show them how to use Artsteps to create a digital exhibit. Groups use Slack to communicate with each other. And students must develop their project management skills by using Trello. Introducing students to tools like Slack and Trello helps them think about and through solutions to problems that have no clear answer. Experimenting with new technology, including tools that might be used in their future workplaces, ensures that students thrive as they complete these authentic, real-world assessments. By the end of projects like the museum exhibit, students learn how to communicate, collaborate, and produce novel historical artifacts.

 

In addition to employing technology to create authentic assessments, I’ve focused on building my teaching quality throughout my career. I structure each class session to include some kind of hands-on activity that culminates in either a small or whole group discussion. It’s necessary for college and career success for students to know how to effectively communicate their ideas. Importantly, I open up conversation and discussion with students to build on each others’ thoughts, avoiding the “boomerang effect” where a student makes a comment and I offer my thoughts on the topic. This approach means that the viewpoints of the students are front-and-center throughout discussions. But since I want to hone their thoughts, beliefs, and feelings, I’ll occasionally ask follow-up questions to help students improve their verbal communication abilities, which is one of the skills necessary for success in the twenty-first century.

 

My approach to teaching and assessment receives high marks from students and colleagues alike. Course evaluations highlight students’ appreciation for me to individualize their learning. Students note how the “choose your own grading adventure” in the U.S. history survey uses technology effectively to design and implement a variety of formative assessments that accommodate learner needs. Since I design assessments to be investigations of real-world topics worthy of deep interrogation, many students enjoy the opportunity to turn their historical knowledge into something tangible. Although I’m capable of ushering and having students succeed in traditional research and writing assignments, I’ve grown much more dedicated to developing authentic, student-centered activities and assessments that recognize a range of student strengths. In the future, I hope to create other assignments, whether they be producing documentary films or writing and recording podcast series, where students learn by solving concrete problems that involve hands-on solution sleuthing.