Syllabus for History 450, Fall 2020

If you are interested in how I set up History 450, The Growth of Metropolitan Milwaukee, please feel free to follow this link to the syllabus. All of the major assignments in the course are public facing, and the course as a whole is ungraded.

Thinking about the Fall Semester

Dear History 450 Students

The truth is, I am full of doubts.

In the early summer, I requested that the university give us a classroom to meet in during the fall semester. I was (and am) excited to debut History 450 in its new form, in partnership with the Milwaukee Public Museum. I felt some optimism that Wisconsin’s infections would fall. I had never taught online, and I had some anxiety about whether what I could offer online would rise to the level of quality I expect from my face-to-face classes. Asking the university for a classroom was the only way to keep open the options for the planned in-person experiences, including behind-the-scenes professional development opportunities with MPM staff.

Now, with just over two weeks before we are scheduled to start meeting, my feelings are in constant flux and pulled in different directions. I have spent most of the summer studying how to teach online and building our course, and I am now confident that I can offer you a strong course experience through Canvas. The university has given us a classroom with an adjusted, socially-distant capacity of 30 people, half again as much space as the minimum we require with twenty students registered for the class. Since the introduction of mask mandates in July, Milwaukee County’s numbers have fallen sharply. Wisconsin’s numbers are in a slow decline, or perhaps steady. Several Ivy League universities abandoned their plans for undergraduate in-person education before the semester started. Yesterday, a week after starting the semester in person, the University of North Carolina abruptly shifted all of its undergraduate classes online after four separate clusters of cases emerged. I am full of doubts and questions, but I also have a strand of hope pulling me forward: working with you.

My plan for History 450 has some important flexibilities built in.

First, I have made the entire course available through Canvas so that you never have to come to our classroom if you do not want to. If your best rational judgment or your gut-level instincts tell you to stay away; if you are ill or quarantined or caring for someone who is sick or immune-compromised; if you have to supervise children whose schools are operating virtually; if you have recently been in a situation where you might have been exposed, such as a party or a work environment; or if something happens and there isn’t time to check with me—just do the work for the week as indicated on Canvas. You don’t have to ask to be excused; just show up in the online spaces instead of in person.

Relatedly, at any time we can also decide as a class that we would prefer to operate virtually instead of in-person. We can decide this on a week-to-week basis. We can decide to spend part of the semester operating remotely and then come back to our classroom later when things look better. We can decide to do most of our work online and then come together only for the live Twitter reenactment on November 5. You can decide individually, and we can also decide together.

Additionally, the course is ungraded instead of graded. That means that you are in charge of deciding what each assignment is worth to you in terms of time and effort. I will give you feedback, but you will assess your own work. At the end of the semester you will tell me what grade you think you earned and will show up on your transcript. My hope is that the ungrading approach will reduce the pressure on you to perform and increase your learning and the fun we can have as a class, even in these anxious times.

Two weeks from now, my feelings might not be the same as they are today. And there are twenty of you—you surely all have different hopes, fears, and expectations for the fall semester. And, like mine, they are probably constantly changing.

Please feel free to reach out to me and let me know how you are feeling about how our class should operate. This class foregrounds two skills: collaboration and communication. Both start with honesty and are embedded in relationships. I want to know what you think we should do.

This pandemic is unprecedented for all of us. This is our class. We are in this together.

Sincerely (truly),

 

Amanda