Trying to Learn While the World is a Mess

<aside> 🧺 I recognize that we are all living through stressful times that can be far reaching and also very personal. This class is designed to be collaborative, where learning happens because of the perspectives, experiences, and knowledge that we all bring.

Compassion and flexibility will help us all get through this course together. I’ll check-in with you all periodically, and am open to hearing how you are doing and what might help you get through the course in a way that feels satisfactory to you and supports your well-being. If you tell me you’re having trouble, I won’t judge you or think any less of you. I hope you extend me and your fellow classmates the same consideration.

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Course policies

Course design acknowledgements

Over the years, I have learned so much from colleagues who have been generous in sharing their pedagogy and specific assignments with me. I also do my best to acknowledge and thank folks for their inspiration and help with individual assignments throughout this course website. This course benefits from the wisdom and compassion of colleagues in the following ways:

• Course guidelines and policies aligned with Normandale’s campus culture and populations were heavily influenced by Jack Norton’s world history syllabuses.
• Katie Walden's materials on specs grading and assessment have been helpful guides in shaping how I think about how to consider the details of an assignment alongside the overall learning goals.
• Vivienne Jones and Stu White have helped me think through overall course and assignment structure, as well as options for formative and summative feedback that help with pacing and workload for both students and me.
• I drew ideas and language for the interpretive project assignment from a course I co-taught with Nate Sleeter and Kelly Schrum at George Mason University. I’m grateful for feedback from Jeri Wieringa and Erin Bush on the interpretive project scaffolding. The rubric is based in large part on a previous rubric co-developed with Iris Jastram.
• The ungrading reflections and rubrics draw heavily on Jeri Wieringa’s materials as well as Miriam Posner’s reflections assignments.
• The “Please Ask for Help” section draws heavily on a similar statement in Fred Gibb’s syllabuses.

This course website is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. Linked materials are licensed individually and should be consulted before reuse. Cover image by Daniela Ciudad, https://unsplash.com/photos/srokUY4lP10.

Cover image credit: Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash