This Course Review and Approval Tool (CRAT) is the “workbook” that faculty …
This Course Review and Approval Tool (CRAT) is the “workbook” that faculty use to design and plan their course with best practice in mind that addresses: curricular alignment with objectives, learning activities, practice assignments and quizzes, and higher-stakes assessments. The 10-tabbed spreadsheet is a digital multitool that centralizes and aggregates the entire course development, review, and approval processes. This tool is used to plan the course prior to its build in the Learning Management System (LMS) as part of an eight-module LMS-based support course that steps faculty through the process and gives them a learner-based perspective on how the tools work together and the features available to them for use in their own courses.
In addition to facilitating communication with multiple stakeholders who may share the document, the process MODELS a self- and peer-reviewed authentic assessment strategy that adapts itself well to any curriculum, whether for training, orientation, or credit-bearing coursework. It supports and models features of an intersection of agile design, backward design, and reflective practice in addition to encouraging authentic and formative assessment strategies. Providing all necessary documents in one easily accessed and bookmarkable document facilitates the process of course development by providing both a model and a touchstone for faculty who are often overwhelmed with the complexity of the process of developing or redeveloping courses regardless of delivery modality. While most of our faculty came to the program because of requirements for online or hybrid learning, most have exclaimed happily that they now apply this process to all of their courses and their learners have shown appreciation for the clarity and consistency that the tool promotes and supports.
The document also includes a dynamic link to future updates for anyone who adopts it and wants to follow its evolution. Feel free to adapt!
This presentation introduces practical considerations for new world history educators or for …
This presentation introduces practical considerations for new world history educators or for educators looking to incorporate world history methods into their classrooms. The presentation considers challenges educators may face such as choosing the chronology and pivot points of the course and choosing a textbook. It also offers strategies for student engagement and world history resources.
Students learn about and discuss the history of apartheid in South Africa, …
Students learn about and discuss the history of apartheid in South Africa, the long struggle against it, and Nelson Mandela's legacy as a leader in that struggle.
The New Deal and World War II unit features lessons ranging from …
The New Deal and World War II unit features lessons ranging from Social Security to the dropping of the atomic bomb. It includes a Structured Academic Controversy examining whether the New Deal was a success, and an Inquiry into Japanese-Americans internment during the war. In the Social Security lesson plan, students evaluate historical claims and examine primary documents from the period. Students explore causes of the Zoot Suit Riots in California, and take part in a structured role-play where groups are asked to choose an image that commemorates the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
These lessons focus on events surrounding the Cold War. The first is …
These lessons focus on events surrounding the Cold War. The first is an inquiry into its causes, comparing Soviet and American perspectives. Opening Up the Textbook lessons ask students to question textbook accounts of the CIA's covert operations in Guatemala, and compare how North and South Korean textbooks cover the Korean War. Students analyze declassified government documents about the Cuban Missile Crisis, and try to determine whether the U.S. intended to escalate military operations in Vietnam before the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. In the lesson on Truman and MacArthur, students gauge public response to MacArthur's dismissal by analyzing memos and letters sent to President Truman.
The Reading Like a Historian curriculum turns students into historical investigators. Students …
The Reading Like a Historian curriculum turns students into historical investigators. Students may find this change jarring after a steady diet of reading a textbook and answering questions. The three lessons in the Introduction--Lunchroom Fight, Evaluating Sources, and Snapshot Autobiography--help students recognize skills of historical inquiry they already practice everyday, such as reconciling conflicting claims and evaluating the reliability of narrative accounts. The challenge is to apply these skills while reading. Reading Like a Historian classroom posters remind students what questions they should be asking as they read historical documents.
The lessons in the Colonial Unit introduce students to many of the …
The lessons in the Colonial Unit introduce students to many of the themes in the curriculum. In the Pocahontas lesson, students question Disney's account of Pocahontas's encounter with John Smith. Students engage in three additional inquiries: one about the Puritans, one about the causes of King Philip's War, and one about the causes of the Salem Witch trials. The Colonial Unit is unique in that it introduces students to different types of historical evidence such as maps and passenger lists, and asks students to consider what claims can be made on the basis of these special documents.
The Revolution and Early America Unit covers the standard eighteenth century topics …
The Revolution and Early America Unit covers the standard eighteenth century topics that would appear in any textbook. These lessons, however, will push students to dig deeper as they read the documents and develop historical arguments about topics ranging from the Great Awakening (why was George Whitefield so popular?) to the Stamp Act (why were Colonists upset about the Stamp Act?) to the Constitution (why did the Founding Fathers keep slavery in the Constitution?). Each lesson offers primary documents that promote conflicting interpretations. The unit will introduce students to historiography, as they contrast Bernard Bailyn's interpretaton of the Declaration of Independence to Howard Zinn's account. These lessons will emphasize the historical reading skills students will practice all year.
Unit 4 primarily cover topics dealing with westward expansion during the nineteenth …
Unit 4 primarily cover topics dealing with westward expansion during the nineteenth century. The exceptions are the lessons on Nat Turner and Irish immigration. These are included for chronological reasons, and to show students how historical trends can occur simultaneously. Both themes (slavery and immigration) are revisited in Units 5 and 6. This unit features several elaborate lesson structures: a Structured Academic Controversy (SAC) and and Inquiry. In the SAC on Lewis and Clark, students debate whether or not Lewis and Clark were respectful to the Native Americans they encountered on their journey, while the Inquiry asks students to investigate what motivated Texans to declare their independence. Several lessons, especially on Manifest Destiny and Indian Removal, ask students to consider the perspectives of historical actors whose world views may seem foreign or even incomprehensible.
In the Civil War and Reconstruction unit, students engage in contentious historiographic …
In the Civil War and Reconstruction unit, students engage in contentious historiographic debates about the period--Was Lincoln a racist? Was Reconstruction a success or failure? Was John Brown a "misguided fanatic"? Did Lincoln free the slaves, or did the slaves free themselves? The unit includes two Structured Academic Controversy lessons, an Opening Up the Textbook lesson on sharecropping, and a look at Thomas Nast's political cartoons.
The Gilded Age unit brings awareness to the turbulant changes that characterized …
The Gilded Age unit brings awareness to the turbulant changes that characterized the end of the nineteenth century. Students investigate the rise and fall of the Populist movement, the textbook's account of the Battle of Little Bighorn, the lead-up to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, and the historic labor clashes surrounding Homestead, Haymarket, and Pullman. Three lessons--Populism and the Election of 1896, the Homestead Strike, and the Pullman Strike--help students develop the skill of close reading as they carefully go rthough documents and interpret the author's rhetorical choices.
This unit explores perspectives on the central issues of the Progressive Era. …
This unit explores perspectives on the central issues of the Progressive Era. Students examine the middle class reformers' attitudes towards immigrants; draw inferences about historical context by analyzing documents that relate to segregation of San Francisco schools in 1906; and question the reliability of Jacob Riis's photographs as accounts of the past. The unit includes cognitive modeling lessons - one that compares the perspectives of Booker T. Washington and W.E.B Dubois, and one that juxtaposes muckracking journalist Lincoln Steffens with political boss George Plunkitt. The Background on Woman Suffrage prepares students for the Anti-Suffragists lesson plan on why Americans opposed woman suffrage.
The World War I and 1920s unit explores political, social, and cultural …
The World War I and 1920s unit explores political, social, and cultural tensions that gripped a rapidly modernizing America. Lessons ask historical questions about key events: Why did the U.S. enter the First World War? Why did Congress reject the League of Nations? What caused the Palmer Raids? Were those who criticized U.S. involvement in World War I anti-American? Why was Marcus Garvey a controversial figure? What was life like for Mexican and Mexican-American laborers during the 1920s? Why was the Butler Act controversial? What led to the 18th Amendment? Included is an Opening Up the Textbook lesson on the causes of the 1919 Chicago Race Riots.
Teacher Jeremy Howard takes a history lesson about the Holocaust and makes …
Teacher Jeremy Howard takes a history lesson about the Holocaust and makes it personal. By showing students video testimony of survivors and how prejudice can lead to eventual genocide, they not only learn what events led up to the Holocaust, but question themselves as to what they would have done in similar circumstances. It is a lesson about personal responsibility, the meaning of empathy in today's world, and choosing to do the right thing in their daily lives.
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