Lit Review: Broadening Student Understanding…

A good friend of mine recently brought my attention to an article in Social Education 77 (5), pp. 228-231, by Lee Ann Potter entitled “Broadening Student Understanding of Wartime Experience through Original Works of Art and Personal Accounts”. It is a most interesting article that discusses the incorporation of various sources (i.e., oral history, photos, correspondence, videos, etc.) to encourage critical thinking. The author outlines how this is done. Here's my take on what she said.

The students are provided with some sources and challenged to identify if they think any sources are missing. If so, what types of sources? Then challenged again to identify what the missing sources might add to their understanding of the event. As the new sources are provided, the students are asked to speculate on the creator, title, and date of the new item(s) and then create a list of questions based on these sources. After that list is built, the students are given the metadata about these items. As a group, the students discuss how this changes their view of the event. Then, the students are shown a video (or videos) that are directly related to the event, adding another dimension [I would love to do this with my classes]. The group discussion that follows incorporates the newest information from the video. How are the students’ views changed about the event or the items that reflect the event? Finally, the students are asked to read the relevant section in their textbook to build and understanding of the event. [Now comes the best part.] The students were asked to produce their own interpretation of the event based on the more-rounded information, using the various sources. [Are you wondering what my sessions might be doing next term? If I can find a class with which this will work, I will let you know!]

One From the Song Book

Some time in August, the planning began for a course for which I had done a session before, but not using my new methods. Of course, I had to completely change the session to incorporate speed dating, discovery, interrogation, and – yes – music. The prof, who is open to new things, was in total agreement. We decided to offer the session twice so that the class of 40 students could be divided into two sessions of 20, each lasting 1.5 hours in length. The class assignment was a choice of one with historic textbooks, an archival collection, a historiographic essay, or an oral history.

To get those creative juices flowing, part one was a speed dating exercise with the historic textbook collection – I called it Timeless Texting. I have used this method many times for various classes. The challenge is to select only 20 or 25 books out of the 2200 titles we have in this special collection, ranging in dates between 1800 and 1983 on all topics. Normally, the class has a subject area to which I can limit my search, but Educating Canadians covers the entire scope of this collection. I limited myself to two titles for each decade, spreading out the subjects as evenly as possible to provide comparisons. During the 30-minute activity, we discussed biases when approaching a book, making fun of old textbooks, and expectations on content. This was also an opportunity for me to explain the purpose of speed dating, which is not apparent to everyone. I explained that the students need to learn and practice skills for assessing a source and collecting bibliographic data – speed dating.

Between this exercise and the next one, I played some music for the students. Years ago, the Archives recorded the campus Choir singing and chanting Acadia-related songs and cheers. Many of the students had not heard these before. The music interlude was directly relevant to the class and the students enjoyed them. Very effective.

The next part was discovery with archival collections. As I have in other sessions, students were given five collections related to the topic with the correlating finding aid. They looked through the boxes for one item of interest, completed an information sheet, and we openly discussed the records and items at each table (lesson plan here: http://archivallessons.blogspot.ca/2013/12/hunting-and-gathering.html). The purpose was to practice gathering historical details and information. This part took about 30-minutes. Then, I had more Acadia-related music and song books to share with the students before we began the next exercise.

Part three was the interrogation section and would help with the oral history assignment. The purpose was for students to practice interrogating sources and to brainstorm new ideas. First, I instructed the students to switch tables. You see, in part two they had heard about the records at the other tables and I suspected that something may have caught their interest. Now was their chance to check out another group of records. After the switch, everyone selected one item, completed a sheet of questions, and then brainstormed about other sources of information that could be helpful. (lesson plan here: http://archivallessons.blogspot.ca/2013/12/thinking-outside-box.html). As the students packed up to leave, I played the song that is part of the Acadia convocation ceremony. Many had not heard it before, but everyone understood the significance of playing it at the end of this class.

Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Nothing Blue

At the start of September, I was asked to bring two, large classes of History students to the Archives. Because the reading room can only accommodate 25 students comfortably—up to 40 students uncomfortably, each class was divided into two sections. Fortunately, the History Librarian was able to work with the other section of students each time and we swapped at the mid-point. This is a strategy that works well for me, the Librarian, and the professor. The students especially benefit as they learn about primary and secondary sources in one class.

The first of the two classes was Environmental History. The prof wanted students to be able to evaluate primary and secondary sources through the lens of an environmental historian. I had 45 minutes to excite and educate them. I turned to one of the workshop format lesson plans of last year, modified it to suit the topic and time-frame, and developed a new lesson plan for this class (http://archivallessons.blogspot.ca/2013/11/no-paving-projects.html). I learned several things while this session was in progress and, luckily, had enough time to make alterations during the first session. First, let the students look through the material without having the questions in hand. When the questions are in hand, the students are less focused on the discovery aspect and more focused on answering the questions. The purpose of the questions is to give the students a focus AFTER they have looked at the archival material after all, the instructions are to select one thing from the box, take a good look at it, and then answer the questions. Second, I need to allow sufficient time for student to talk about the sources they found. Some students want to talk more than others so this part is hard to judge, but if I am prepared with interesting details about each collection than I can keep the discussion going. Sometimes the discussion can come back to the questions that the students have been asked to answer. Third, there is merit to allow time for students to go to another table and look at other sources of interest. We have just discussed these sources as a group and I expect something may have peaked their interest. Give the students exploration time at another table.

I tried a new idea for the History classes this year. I introduced music that was relevant to the topic. For example the Environmental History class left the room listening to Big Yellow Taxi by Joni Mitchell, although I also had Midnight Oil’s Beds Are Burning ready to go. For the next class, Pre-Confederation Canada, music was more of a challenge!

The second of the two classes during the first week of September was Pre-Confederation Canada. Again, I taught the class in two sections, swapping at the mid-point with the History Librarian. This was class a re-run of the Pre-Confederation lesson plan done in 2012 when I tried speed dating resources (explained here http://classroomarchivist.blogspot.ca/2012/11/snapshot-impressions-4-fourth-class-of.html). I did modify the sources somewhat but the questions and format remained the same with one exception. I asked the students to reflect on how this item was similar to or different from the one they saw before. That question intuitively came out of the Critical Dietetics conference session and, I felt, need to be considered during the exercise. What music did I end up playing? Kastin’s Akua Tuta, as there was a prominent indigenous peoples section and assignment in the course. I also had chosen a song by Susan Aglukark as a backup.

Overall, the introduction of music was not a huge hit for students—not in these classes anyway. In the next class, I used it more effectively.

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!