IAH 207 introduces students to literary, philosophical, and cultural analysis that can be taught by TAs of various disciplinary backgrounds and makes a genuine contribution to General Education at MSU. It uses online technology in an exciting way that makes a direct contribution to developing students’ writing, critical thinking, and cultural awareness. Technology does not merely reproduce what we do well in class but creates online assignments that reinforce ideas that did not seem to come through in lecture and needed to be incorporated into successful writing assignments.
As a blended course, sections have both in-class meetings and online sessions provided through ANGEL. The course also includes online modules, equivalent to a one class session per week, in which students are asked to analyze and reflect on the relationship between texts and course concepts, as well as the formation of their own identities in relation to the themes of the course.
The online modules are available each week for a specified period of days. Tasks and directions for each session vary week to week; variations are explained in class. Grades for each of the weekly online sessions are averaged to produce the online module grade which constitute 25% of the student’s grade. TAs use the materials from the modules in aggregate and individual ways, assisting students with their papers, and facilitating class discussion
Originally, IAH 207 was taught in a traditional format with Prof. Rachman lecturing twice weekly in a 200-seat format and being assisted by 3 TAs who led discussion in weekly recitation sections. In making the transition to TA-led hybrid course of 500+ students in sections capped at 50, the goal was to design modular assignments/activities for students to perform that would:
a) contribute to their understanding of the concepts of culture and cultural interaction;
b) develop their articulation of key analytical concepts, discrete elements of textual analysis that could be used in or applied to formal writing assignments;
c) provide specific and aggregate responses that can facilitate classroom discussion.
Technologically, each module is embedded within an ANGEL survey, incorporating graphics, scrollable text, digital video, and drop boxes integrated with fixed choice and open-ended essay questions. Students receive feedback after submitting the module, and instructors can use ANGEL Report functions to explore how their section responded. While adhering to the guidelines for IAH 207 TAs, TAs have the freedom and ability to customize the content of their section.
Example Module: Concepts of Culture
In the traditional version of the course, Rachman and his TAs discovered that while there was abundant lecturing on and discussion of the concept of culture as it has been defined by anthropologists, sociologists, and cultural historians when students came to use this concept in their written assignments they would use the crudest and least helpful definitions from online sources. Therefore, to remedy this the course begins with a set of modules that allow students to begin to think through the concept of culture along several axes: the natural, the social, and the political. Students are asked in one week to evaluate a set of images in terms of these fundamental categories. In the next week, students can return to a similar set of images while beginning to match them up with more complex definitions of culture. In this way the work through the concepts of culture relevant to the course and acquire a subtler sense of it. Instructors can also use the aggregate data from student choices to facilitate discussion and to obtain a snapshot of where there is agreement and disagreement.
Example Module: Pygmalion and Social Theory
One of the learning goals we want students to develop is the ability to apply a theory/argument from one discipline to a work of literature in an articulate and specific way. In one week, students are reading George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion and studying questions of language and social mobility (Eliza’s migration from Cockney flower girl to an impersonator of a member of the peerage). Students are asked to consider this in light of the social behavioral philosophy of George Herbert Mead. The module is designed to get students to match up relevant passages of social theory with the text of the play and then the experience is enhanced by analyzing the scripted scene as presented in a fair-use video clip from the classic 1938 adaptation of the play.
Evidence of Effectiveness
Class observations by faculty of record during fall 2007 indicate that the online component of the course enhanced student learning in this course. The learning that occurred within the online environment allowed students to explore concepts that were then used within the classroom environment to deepen student discussion of course readings. Similarly, in-class discussions offered the opportunity for TA instructor to introduce ideas relevant to the online components and to explore further the concepts addressed in the online environment. The online and in-class components of the course were thus well-integrated, enhancing student learning through the synergy provided by blending the two learning environment.
Stephen Rachman, Assoc. Prof. English, Lead developer/Instructor
Tamra Frei, Asst. Prof. Philosophy, Assistant Developer
Joy Durding, Instructor WRAC, Instructional Technology Designer
John Wallace, Grad Assistant, Assistant Developer
Kirk Kidwell, Asst. Dir. IAH, Course Co-ordinator
