When learning in person, professors and students meet in class for lectures and to discuss readings, debate etc. Thus, some learning happens together at the same time, and some other learning happens on the student's own time (e.g. writing papers, doing readings etc.). When a course is online, this is also the case. We will have some time together (via Ms Teams), and some time learning happens "asynchronously" (i.e. on our own time).
Usually when I teach this course, I divide work into oral and written work. Oral work usually consists of "participation" i.e. being in class, asking questions, showing you've learned from doing the readings, etc (an abbreviation of et cetera, Latin for "and other things"). But participation, since we're taking this online, will be based on "conversations"/ discussions in the Teams platform. Over the course of the first term, you will complete the following work – designed so that you build on skills you will have acquired earlier in the year.
So, let's get this out in the open. Participation is always difficult to assess. Even in face-to-face classes, I can measure what I see, but I don't know the work that has been done behind the scenes (especially if you are a quiet or shy student). So typically, I have had students assign themselves a mark for participation each class – based on a rubric assigning points for attendence and for degree of participation.
For online lectures, I will take attendence through the polling mechanism and, at the end of the class, will request that you assign yourself a mark of 5 for the quality of your participation. At the end of the term, you will write up a process letter explaining the quality of your participation, part of which will be to assess your contributions to class discussion.
At the beginning of term you need to put together an online profile to introduce yourself to your fellow students (so you need to reflect a bit about who you are). You will also write a number of short "reflection" pieces (explained here) that will ask you to think (and write) about your understanding of the Middle Ages, the course and your participation.
At the beginning and the end of the first term, students will be asked to consider and reconsider their attitudes to the Middle Ages. Guiding questions will be given for the first and last reflection papers. In the middle of the term, students will be asked to discuss the experience of receiving and providing peer evaluation. For example, the first critical reflection addresses the following topic:
Reflection no. 1. What are the Middle Ages, to you?
Answer all, some or part of one or more of the following questions:
What does “Medieval” or “Middle Ages” mean to you?
What do you know about the Middle Ages?
What experience have you had with the Middle Ages?
What do you hope to learn by the conclusion of this class?
Where do you get your Middle Ages from?
A key skill in History is looking at evidence and figuring out the real from the bullshit. This is something really really hard to do well, so we'll do it a few times to make sure you get it right.
Students will produce two different, but linked papers, showing their ability to engage in critical historical thinking and research.
Draft Document Analysis
Rewritten Document Analysis
As the names suggest, each student will first write up their critical readings of a primary source document (assignment explained here) which they have chosen to explore as a final draft. They will then receive feedback from the professor/ teaching assistant as well as their peers. And finally, they will rewrite the paper after they have incorporated comments and done additional research.
You will be asked to provide constructive criticism to written work completed by your peers (expectations set out here). We'll use the notation tool hypothes.is to make comments on each other's work.
A "proces letter" is something we use to describe an end-of-term self-evaluation of your own work. You will write this up as a way to justify the grade you will assign to yourself for first term, based on guided questions I will provide.
Quick Guide to length of first term assignments:
cuPortfolio profile: 500 words + multimedia
Reflections 500 words + multimedia x 3
Critical Analysis no. 1 1500 words
Peer feedback 300 words x 3 people
Critical Analysis no,. 2 2000 words
Process Letter 500 words
These are minimums. I am usually happy for you to exceed these rough estimates of length (as long as you don't unnecessarily bloat your writing with nonsense and random filler).
