VIII. Reflections on HIS 102 Course Portfolio One month after the conclusion of the course, I have had time to assess student work, read student surveys and, finally, reflect on the course design and the effectivness of the teaching and learning in the course. As the student surveys reflect, the course was extremely popular with students and they believed that the use of laptops enhanced the learning experience. As as instructor, I began and remain most interested in the overall process of "backwards design" and assessing whether or not my instructional goals and objectives were reached. Therefore, my reflections focus on these two aspects: 1. Backwards design: This was clearly the most significant pedagogical change I had to make and one with the most dramatic results. By starting with the instructional goals and objectives and then adding content, activities and assessments to meet those goals and objectives, the course content and the pedagogical methodologies changed dramatically. The instructional objectives necessitated more collaborative group work and projects and more class time for research, discussion and presentation. This changed the entire pedagogical format for the class. In previous semesters, over 80% of the class time was lecture based. Now, it was totally inversed with 80% of class time devoted to collaborative activities and discussion and less than 20% being used for lecture or instructor-centered direct teaching. One of the most pleasantly surprising aspects of the course was how much more I enjoyed teaching with this new format. Instead of consistently rushing to lecture historical content and themes to the students, I could slow down and spend valuable teaching time discussing content and themes that they had viewed online and working intensively with students developing content, skills and capabilities in research, collaboration, presentation, writing and information technology. My interaction with students increased dramatically and I felt more connected to their learning. The format also created more flexibility during the scheduled class meetings. If I was teaching a complicated historical topic or complex theme (.e.g. emergence of public culture during the American and French Revolutions or the Vietnam War), I could increase the amount of class discussion or in-class reading and research until students understook the topic or theme. This happened frequently during the course and I felt, and assessments reflected, that students did comprehend these topics and themes better than in previous semesters. 2. Technology integration: By far the most time-consuming, intensive and dramatic changes involved technology integration throughout the course design. Based the principles of "backwards design," the technology integration was based first and foremost on instructional goals and objectives. In order to meet these goals and objectives, I had to move much of the content normally given as lectures in class to an Web-based and outside of class format. I did this using Adobe Captivate® (see Technology Integration and e-Activities) which created audio/Powerpoint presentations of my lectures. While very time consuming to produce, the technology paid dividends by creating more opportunities for students to learn lecture material outside of class and creating more opportunity to teach to the instructional goals and objectives during the class time. From the student survey, it seemed students preferred the online lectures to traditional face to face lectures and viewed at least parts of all twenty one lectures. As the semester wore on and time demands from other classes increased, students watched less of the online presentations. After midterm, they seemed to watch the online lectures in preparation for exams and assignments and I noted a decrease in student participation in class discussions about themes and content covered in the online lectures. The e-activities, particularly the integration of the WWII gaming simulation, Making History, was very successful. See section on "Video Game Simulation in History." According to the survey, students really enjoyed using the laptop and wireless technologies in the classroom and working in groups around the technology. As an instructor, the activities were time-consuming to plan and facilitate, but very rewarding. It was very interesting to see how students use the Internet and World Wide Web to do research and how they used technology such as the WebCT email and discussion boards to post pieces of their research within the group. Some of the groups actively used email to work outside of class and prepare for presentations. This group of students was generally more comfortable using technology so my goals of increasing their "IT fluency" was rather redundant. Most surveyed did not learn more about basic MS Office package. They did indicated that they learned a good deal about our WebCT course management system. By far, the most interesting and rewarding experience for both students and the instructor was the video gaming simulation. As an instructor, I formally assessed their knowledge of the Allied policy of appeasement after they played the game using an essay question on their exam and in class discussion. In both settings, they demonstrated a deep understanding of why the Allies appeased instead of confronted Nazism from 1935-1939. They used the data from the gaming simulation to support their arguments against confrontation. This was a significant increase in their conceptual and practical knowledge of this important period in world history.
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