Who Killed the Apple

Personally, I have a great relationship with a professor or two in Nutrition. This is the second time I was invited into a Nutrition class. But, this is the first time I have considered myself a “performer” as much as an instructor. Why? I didn’t have the Archives to back me up. The class was too large to bring to the Archives. I had to go to them. I needed a new tactic. A performance was the answer—infotainment. I walked into the class prepared for a murder mystery show. It was the afternoon of 31 October.

“Historical research is similar to that of an investigation,” I told this research methods class. “So, today we are going to undertake [laughter] a murder mystery.” Then, I dramatically removed a cloth that was draped over the following crime scene…

“The question is, Who killed the apple [long pause] industry in the Annapolis Valley?” More laughter followed.

Remember this was a nutrition class, so I needed to link in nutrition somehow. First though, I briefly proved that the Valley was once full of orchards by showing then/now images of places they recognized. Then, I lined up unlikely suspects such as the witch in Snow White, Isaac Newton, etc. Using primary and secondary sources, we discussed the history of the apple, its nutritional value or the loss thereof as a suspect, and the varieties of apples. Eventually, after looking at historical images of farming equipment, cartoons about Maritime Rights, diaries, posters, government reports, and newspapers, a possible ‘murderer’ became more apparent. But I left the question of who killed the apple hanging in the air, careful not to answer it. I hoped that they students would see that the journey to find the answer was the real reason for the class. After all, archives are a place of questions—not always a place of answers.

Yes, I stressed over this one. I used a power point—something I rarely do. I like flip charts and white boards. I wrote out my presentation as a speech—something I rarely do. I like to speak naturally and go off topic now and again. But once I started to think of the class as a “performance” instead of my usual class, I was a bit more settled with it. I prefer activities that use lesson plans and archival sources, but this was fun too.

Dietetics Adventure=Archives Discovery

In August, I gave a session at a conference for critical dietetics. It was a small but totally engaged group of academics that came to the Archives for a session. Remember the first Nutrition class that came to the Archives in September 2012? (see posting http://classroomarchivist.blogspot.ca/2012/10/snapshot-impressions-1-first-class-of.html) This conference session recreated parts of that lesson plan (posted here http://archivallessons.blogspot.ca/2012/10/nutritional-archival-sources-now-being.html) so that participants could share the students’ experience.

We had a delightful afternoon learning about the history of nutrition at Acadia and the development of the teaching of nutrition/home economics/hygiene in grade schools. I hope that the participants were inspired to find ways to use historical sources in their own classrooms and build relationships with the university archivists.

Education students come to visit -- more than once

Back in July, I had the pleasure of spending an afternoon with a group of M.Ed. students. Whenever Education students come to the Archives, the prof and I have great fun as we work so well together. This is an opportunity for me to co-teach a class. The students were given ample time to do their activity (modelled after http://archivallessons.blogspot.ca/2013/03/more-than-just-pretty-face.html, which was created for a History class) with five groups of records that were challenging and applicable to their curriculum studies course. After completing the activity, the class discussed primary sources in the grade school curriculum. My assessment is that the class was both engaged and challenged. That said, the students were a bit anxious about the activity at first, which is to be expected (see soap box below). My teaching method may not be what they had anticipated in an archives.

SOAP BOX: My method in class is to give few detailed instructions about the activity. Instructions are on the handout after all. I opt to talk less and give more time to work with the sources. That makes students uncomfortable. But being uncomfortable is part of the process. Even if I explain the activity in great detail and set up the sources with lots of information, I have observed that the students are still uncomfortable. Why? This is often their first time with primary documents; the first time in an archives; anxiety is high. Each student has to come to terms with these circumstances on their own. My approach is to treat them like adults instead of coddling them. Give them the tools they need and let them go to it. I am always in the room to answer questions and provide one-on-one support if needed. END

The professor thought the July class was successful. So much so that she brought her two other Education classes back in October to do the same activity. Again, I selected sources that were relevant to the curriculum for their target grade-levels (elementary and secondary). This time, I set up the activity as a competition between the five groups in each class. They accepted the challenge and blew us away with their ideas for potential displays. During both classes, the room was an explosion of noise! It was rewarding to facilitate those classes.

NOTE: How do I judge if my lessons are successful? By noise level. I feel that noise level equals student engagement. I encourage all my classes to be noisy during the activity. The Archives is closed during my classes, so no one is being disturbed—it’s all good.

A wealth of lesson plans save the day

Oh my! Upon looking back, it seems that I have not written about any of my classes since April or reported on my classroom activities since May.

No, I have been in hibernation—quite the opposite. Since June, I have delivered ten lesson plans and spoken at two conferences. Now that mid-November is here, and I anticipate a bit of a lull, perhaps I can tell you about all of these experiences.

The best thing about my teaching this term is that I have greatly benefitted from the research that Amber and I did in 2012/2013. The lesson plans and methods to develop those plans were adaptable to this term, allowing me to switch up components as well as easily build new components. For example, I could return to a lesson plan for one class, modify it slightly according to our observations, and re-offer the lesson; it was essentially and “off the shelf” package. Indeed, that was one of the goals of our research. In other classes, I could take parts of two or more lesson plans and combine them to suit the course to build new objectives. Finally, I used our six methods (discussed here http://classroomarchivist.blogspot.ca/2013/04/i-just-have-to-tell-folks-about-this.html) to develop new lessons when I could not find a plan that was suitable. All in all, the term was less stressful because I had a wealth of lesson plans and methods to develop new lessons. Whew!