Category: Teaching
-
Do Space Innovation Fellowship
The Do Space Innovation Fellowship was created to allow teachers, nonprofit workers, and librarians the space, time, and resources to create community learning projects for Omaha and beyond. I’m proud to say I coordinated the efforts to launch the first year of the fellowship. Though my move to Grand Rapids didn’t allow me to lead…
-
Who’s Afraid of History?
Contemporary US society. (That’s who) The College Board revised the AP history exam to better reflect actual historical knowledge and scholarship. Manufactured political outrage convinced them to water it down with nationalism. From NPR: For example, in the 2014 version Europeans “helped increase the intensity and destructiveness of American Indian warfare.” Now it says simply…
-
Understanding Students’ Mindset
Beloit College’s Mindset List spurred some pretty strong opinions on twitter today (all of which were negative from what I saw). I was curious so I checked my year’s (2009) list and found it to be filled with bad jokes and observations that on their own give a very superficial (at best) impression of my…
-
HIMYM: A sitcom for historians
Nobody takes an intro class to get on any other path but the path to not being hungover anymore -Marshall Eriksen While How I Met Your Mother‘s stance on 100-level classes might not please academics, it is the ultimate sitcom for historians. The entire show is an oral history of a father’s life up until…
-
Stuff Good Teachers Like
I have been fortunate enough to participate in UNL’s Preparing Future Faculty program this summer and fall. Throughout the process I have reflected numerous times on teaching, specifically my own thoughts on teaching and my experiences in the classroom (as an undergraduate and graduate student in addition to as a teaching assistant). I am lucky…
-
The Stupid Student Problem Part I
Undergraduates taking survey courses are stupid. Well, when compared to their instructors (professors, grad students, people who already have BAs, Mas, and PhDs). As teachers, we devote our professional lives to our subject area, but this one class students take freshman or sophomore year might be the only exposure they get to it. We know…
-
The Stupid Student Problem Part II
Let’s deconstruct some of the thinking of our “stupid students.” I may have been guilty of some of this thinking as I mentioned in Part I, which briefly speaks more generally about why we as teachers need to better articulate the logic behind our courses. I don’t need to go to class because -the notes…
-
Dark Side of the City
Course Description This class explores the urban underworld of North America during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Through the examination of primary and secondary sources, including articles, books, films, and websites, students will seek to understand how underworld activities like organized crime, gambling, prostitution, and murder shaped conceptions of race, class, and gender. The course…
-
US Before 1877
Course Description This course is a survey of some of the main themes and events of American history occurring before 1877. We will cover many topics, focusing particularly on the themes of race, expansion, and war. We will explore the changes in society, conflicts, and implications of historical events from the first Europeans setting foot…
-
Single Life and Marriage in the 20th Century
Course Description This class explores how social expectations of both married and single men and women changed throughout the twentieth century. Gender roles, economic independence, and conceptions of marriage, sexuality and proper behavior were only some of the social norms affected by the century’s sexual revolutions and movements. Students will engage with a wide variety…
Brian Sarnacki 