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

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 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

Listen to an interview with co-authors Nancy Hewitt & Steven Lawson of Exploring American Histories, 4th Edition as they discuss challenges they have had in the past when teaching history that influenced their authorial vision. Macmillan Learning · A Talk with Co-Authors Nancy Hewitt & Steven Lawson: Episode 2 ... View more

This week’s blog is my 101st for the Macmillan Community! While I wish I had a provocative way to remark upon the experience of blogging about teaching history, instead, as I prepare to start a new academic year, I face my annual anxiety about what is to come in the year ahead. So, this week I offer more jumbled thoughts.   First, I’m thinking about how much I miss being on campus and lamenting that I will continue to long for a return to academic normalcy for at least one more semester. Enrollment at my community college is such that demand for online courses is outpacing on-campus offerings. The unknowns of the Delta variant, amongst other factors, means that all of my courses are running this fall as remote, asynchronous once again. I had such high hopes for being back in the traditional classroom that, admittedly, it’s going to take a little extra effort on my part to generate excitement for remaining full online. Are you on campus or online? What challenges are you facing as you prepare for either format or a combination of both?    Second, I’m thinking about the college search process and how overwhelming it can be for students. I’ve spent a good part of this summer prodding my youngest son to look at colleges. Our conversations in the car after campus tours have reminded me that students on the cusp of transitioning from secondary to higher education need our compassion just as much if not more than our content expertise. It has occurred to me several times during these visits that at 17 years old I had absolutely zero plans to be a historian. To paraphrase my son after one presentation: “looking at colleges is really scary.” No doubt! As a parent and professor I’m often just as confused about which college would be best when I leave the information sessions/tours as I was when we arrived on campus. It's no surprise to me that many of my students come to community college after spending time a four-year school that was not the right "fit." There has to be a better way. Ideas? Advice?   Finally, as a historian, I continue to reflect on how best to help my students place themselves within the context of this unprecedented time in American history. Just as we thought society was moving towards a new “normal” we find ourselves again facing mask mandates and engaging in debates about the value of vaccination. No doubt this is a confusing time for students and teachers alike. As always, I encourage fellow teachers to reference times in our history when we’ve faced similar challenges. I recently started listening to the inaugural season of the Intervals podcast released this year by the Organization of American Historians and available free of charge through Spotify. Subjects include yellow fever, smallpox, the influenza outbreak of 1918, and the use of disinfectants during the Gilded Age. It’s easy to get drawn in by the fascinating subjects of this fabulous series. Any one of the episodes could offer an early-semester writing prompt in a history or English class.   As we approach this new academic year, what are you thinking about? What challenges do you anticipate as we move into this new phase of pandemic-era higher education? Please share.     ... View more

As I’m thinking about the start of the new school year I’m brainstorming the return to campus. At my community college, a return to campus in September will mean students in the physical classrooms after nearly eighteen months of remote learning. I’m wondering how to help students reconnect in that physical space after working independently for so long. Usually the first day of classes is spent discussing the syllabus and course expectations. While these tasks will still be part of my plan, I’ve decided to also have students group-share on that first day to discuss how their working lives have changed as a result of the pandemic.    Here are some of the questions I will have students address in small groups:    Did you work before the pandemic began? If so, what did you do?  How did the earliest months of the pandemic impact your personal work life or the experiences of those with whom you live? Did you change jobs during the pandemic? If so, why/why not? What was your experience seeking work during the pandemic? How could a historian document your pandemic work experience? What artifacts may exist that could help tell the story of your experience in the future? What do you want students one hundred years from now to know about your pandemic-era work experiences?   I’m inspired to start the semester with this discussion because I believe that the majority of my students or their families will have experienced some significant work-related changes during the pandemic era. We spend a great deal of time in my US history classes studying the changes that came about during the First and Second World Wars in regards to work. The most recognizable icon to students on the first day of US History II is always “Rosie the Riveter” -- even if they cannot explain her significance they are able to link her to World War II. I’m hoping to help students to see that their experiences during the pandemic will one day be the subject of study in history classes.   In addition, I’m hoping that by focusing on work rather than health issues during the pandemic I can help the students connect to each other without delving too deeply into painful personal experiences/losses that may have occurred as a result of COVID-19. I want the students, from the very first day back together in the classroom, to be reminded of their shared experiences as a society over the past eighteen months.    Do you have any plans for re-integrating students into the physical classroom this fall? Please share. ... View more