On Oct 21st, 2003, scientists first discovered the dwarf planet Eris. When first found, there was some discussion that it was larger than Pluto which then led to questions about Pluto's categorization as a planet. The debate within the scientific community ultimately led the International Astronomical Union to "downgrade" Pluto to a dwarf planet in 2006. The dwarf planet Eris seems to be aptly named as it was inspired by the Greek goddess of discord.                 ... View more

Listen to an interview with co-authors Nancy Hewitt & Steven Lawson of Exploring American Histories, 4th Edition. Nancy Hewitt & Steven Lawson discuss their own histories with teaching.  Nancy Hewitt & Steven Lawson discuss challenges they have had in the past when teaching history that influenced their authorial vision. Nancy Hewitt & Steven Lawson discuss why they believe history is so important for students who are not history majors to take - especially in today’s polarized climate. Nancy Hewitt discusses some ways that they have kept their text relevant to current events. Nancy Hewitt on applications of different learning styles. Nancy Hewitt's tips for instructors to engage their students with the text. Steven Lawson on advice for new history instructors. Nancy Hewitt & Steven Lawson on the goals for Exploring American Histories, 4th Edition ... View more

Listen to an interview with co-authors Nancy Hewitt & Steven Lawson of Exploring American Histories, 4th Edition as they discuss the goals for their book.  Macmillan Learning · A talk with Co-Authors Nancy Hewitt and Steven Lawson: Episode 8 ... View more

Listen to an interview with co-authors Nancy Hewitt & Steven Lawson of Exploring American Histories, 4th Edition as they give advice for new history instructors who have just started teaching. Macmillan Learning · A talk with Co-Authors Nancy Hewitt and Steven Lawson: Episode 7 ... View more

When I was 22 I made it through only half of the movie “Pulp Fiction” in a theater before leaving. I couldn’t see past the violence on the screen to the creative story being crafted underneath. I was simply too uncomfortable to see anything artistic through the blood and gore. Nearly three decades later my son, an aspiring filmmaker, convinced me to give the movie another try -- reminding me of a lesson that I have forced on him many, many times: discomfort can be a tool for learning.   I’ve been thinking a lot about my (admittedly simplistic!) example of a personal life lesson lately as public debate abounds about the teaching of critical race theory and the level of discomfort by which many white people approach discussions of race. I’m heartened by the fact that since the death of George Floyd more white students at my college are taking Black History and courses that examine race and ethnicity through the lenses of sociology and literature. The students’ willingness to confront discomfort makes me hopeful in spite of news stories that highlight the hatred and ignorance that still festers in so many predominantly white communities and institutions in the United States.    This week’s coverage of the resignation of NFL coach John Gruden’s over racist, homophobic, and misogynistic emails is a reminder of how far our society still needs to go to move the needle on hate and discrimination. Gruden’s flimsy explanation that he “never meant for [the emails] to sound that bad” reminds us that many white Americans in positions of power -- Gruden had a contract that paid him $100 million over ten years -- are incredibly ignorant of history and the context through which racism, sexism, and homophobia have negatively impacted countless people. As history teachers, we need to continue to work to ensure that the next generation of leaders in business and industries, like the NFL and so many others, do not enable the acceptance of hate speech.   In spite of all the negativity present in our current world, as an educator I have to remain hopeful for the future. I welcome fellow history teachers to share such hope with their students and academic communities. This month I’m encouraging my students to identify stories of hope and inspiration from black history by entering this year’s “Black History, Black Stories” video/writing competition sponsored by Macmillan Learning. Visit the Macmillan Learning web site for details and consider assigning the video/essay prompt as an extra credit assignment. Learning more about who/what inspires our students can be a great help for curriculum design and can give us deeper insight into the lives of the young people in our classrooms, which can only lead to greater compassion and understanding.  ... View more

Listen to an interview with co-authors Nancy Hewitt & Steven Lawson of Exploring American Histories, 4th Edition as they discuss tips for instructors on how to engage their students with the text or complete assignments. Macmillan Learning · A talk with Co-Authors Nancy Hewitt and Steven Lawson: Episode 6 ... View more

Listen to an interview with co-authors Nancy Hewitt & Steven Lawson of Exploring American Histories, 4th Edition as they discuss students’ different learning styles. Macmillan Learning · A Talk with Co-Authors Nancy Hewitt & Steven Lawson: Episode 5 ... View more

I’m excited this fall to be co-designing a team-taught, cross-discipline experimental course. Wow! That is a mouthful! Since transfer agreements are such an integral part of our curriculum at a community college, the opportunity to create a new course comes infrequently and with numerous challenges. This week I’ll share my experience with the early stages of this process from the history side of the course in hopes that Macmillan Community members will chime in with ideas and suggestions.   The idea for our new, as yet unnamed, course came about before the recent pandemic began. Several years ago, a colleague in the Biology Department expressed interest in my US history students’ study of the 1918 Influenza outbreak. Wouldn’t it be great, we concluded, to have a course that linked biological crises with their historical origins and context? Both of us were busy with our 5-5 teaching load, so we filed the idea away until spring 2020 when the COVID-19 Pandemic hit the United States. Amidst the chaos of moving all of our courses online, we knew we needed to revisit our idea. Students were asking questions that required complex and thoughtful answers: had this kind of crisis happened before? When? Why? How did previous generations respond?    As excited as we both were about the idea of creating such a course, reality took the reins. Where would this course be housed at our community college and how would it transfer? As much as we wanted to dive right in and think about the curriculum, we had to stop and first consider logistics. I started the conversation with my department chair who suggested at least a dozen more questions we had not considered, including the hurdles that would be necessary to clear our course on an experimental basis (two semesters) with the college’s Curriculum Review Committee. Undeterred, we continued to ask colleagues for advice and to gather materials we believe will be useful material in the course.   Our vice president for Academic Affairs suggested that we start the process by working with the department whose students would benefit most directly from the development of such a course. At our college, nursing students are required to take just one course in the Humanities or Social Sciences. Generally the students take whatever course best fits their schedule because none of the classes are designed to specifically enhance the nursing curriculum. Here, it seems, we have found our stride. As we move forward with the course design process it is with the intent of providing nursing and other health sciences students with a course that better connects their fields to history while maintaining a significant degree of scientific learning as well. We are hopeful that by studying history and biology together, health care students will recognize the interconnectedness of those seemingly distinct fields. We hope, too, that we can help our college to increase offerings in courses on public health, which seem particularly valuable in current times.   Now that we are in the planning process, I would love to hear from anyone who has co-designed/taught a course that covered two distinct disciplines. What unexpected challenges did you face? Please share!  ... View more

Author Eric Nelson speaks on blurring the lines of the in-person and digital student experience. Listen as he shares his thoughts about using low-stakes adaptive quizzing & discussion sections both now and during COVID along with other less successful methods to get here. ... View more

Listen to an interview with co-authors Nancy Hewitt & Steven Lawson of Exploring American Histories, 4th Edition as they discuss some ways that they have kept their text relevant to current events. Macmillan Learning · A talk with Co-Authors Nancy Hewitt and Steven Lawson: Episode 4 ... View more

Listen to an interview with co-authors Nancy Hewitt & Steven Lawson of Exploring American Histories, 4th Edition as they discuss why they believe history is so important for students who are not history majors to take - especially in today’s polarized climate. Macmillan Learning · A talk with Co-Authors Nancy Hewitt and Steven Lawson: Episode 3 ... View more

This past weekend marked the twentieth anniversary of the September 11th terrorist attack. As I reflect on my personal memories of that tragic day, I find myself, again, thinking about the US history survey and how recent history fits (or doesn't fit) into my semester-long sections of "US II." In a previous blog, Up-to-date? Where to End the US Survey (2017), I discussed the challenge of getting through as much content as possible and my avoidance of teaching topics that I had lived through. One astute reader reminded me back then that just because I witnessed a historical event doesn’t mean that students are familiar with it. So, here I am four years later, and the question still perplexes me. Do I need to get to 9/11 in a course that starts in 1877 and is already bursting at the seams with content? Is it time for me to officially abandon my quest for "coverage"?   As a mom to college-age children it is impossible to escape notice of how dramatically things have changed since 2001. My children have grown up under the cloud of the War on Terror in the same way my youth was influenced by the Cold War. And yet, so much of what I know about the Cold War was learned in adulthood, not as a college student living through the collapse of the Soviet Union. My college history professors ended US II with Watergate and the fall of Saigon, and I’m still ok with their choices. Had they tried in the early 1990s to teach the historical meanings of the Iran Hostage Crisis or Reaganomics, students would have been left with an incomplete understanding of complex topics that had not yet been fully examined by historians.    The longer I teach the more I find myself wedded to the notion that the passage of time enables a deeper, more thoughtful understanding of events. Not without bias, but certainly with additional data and facts to temper extreme partisan perspectives. That being said, while I don’t see myself incorporating study of 9/11 into my US History II sections any time soon, I do believe that providing students with the tools to begin their own study of a recent event or contemporary topic can be helpful. Over the course of a semester they come to rely on their professors as experts. Offering them a starting point for exploration of topics we cannot “fit” into the time frame of our 15-week courses, therefore, makes sense.    The knowledge my students gain about how to study history, I’ve concluded, is more valuable than coverage. Finding new ways to train our students to think as historians -- evaluate sources, look for bias, search for contradictions in the written record -- will prepare the college students of today to both analyze events as they occur around them now while also enabling them to think critically in the future about what they have experienced. As someone who teaches mostly STEM and health care majors, the process of learning history feels more important than ever.   In 2021, with US History II needing to cover more and more material, how are you training our next generation of historically-aware citizens?    ... View more