Week 6 (Oct. 4–10)

Table of contents

To do and Schedule of the Week

Reminder

  • Please make sure to have your Sunday blog post done with an update on your project so far. It’s really useful for both of us, because without it, I don’t know how to help you to move things forward, in case you’re stuck and need to get unstuck, or if you’re moving along full steam ahead but I can help to make this the most awesome thing you’ve ever done in your college career.

Good to know

  • Jump in and comment on each other’s posts in our Hypothes.is group HST269! Remember we are a learning community and this is an important way of helping each other to be better historians! Ask questions for clarification, make suggestions, leave tips for reading etc.
  • I will leave comments on your project updates in Hypothes.is as fast as my fingers can type, in the blog posts. If you haven’t figured this out yet (but really, ask!): Check out how to view annotations, and in particular “page notes” which are not tied to a specific place on the page: https://web.hypothes.is/help/annotation-basics/
  • Remember you can (should!) always contribute to the Zotero group library! Add the books, articles and other materials you find for your projects to the group library with a brief note and a few tags. Collectively we know more than as an individual. If you do an annotated bibliography for your project, add those resources to the Zotero library and we will all be eternally grateful!

By Tuesday, 3.30PM

  • Seating plan: small groups, as much as possible by topic (<– this is why you need to look through the projects, consult the Participant’s Posts Blog Stream)
  • Check out this page with suggestions for project and time management, which I think may be the most difficult parts of this course. As you embark on a larger independent research project in this course, this may be the first time you do this, the first time you do it for a history course, or the first time you do it with a professor who’s decided you don’t have to write a research paper and can make a lot of decisions for yourself.
    • I am happy to talk with you about project and time management, but I don’t want to spend precious class time on “lecturing” about it. Of course you can ask me questions, and I hope you will share tips!

Bring to class: what you have for your project so far so you can continue working on it.

  • ideas
  • reading lists (bibliography)
  • reading notes
  • folders, files, books and documents connected to your project or idea
  • drafts, outlines, wishes, hopes, and sunken test-balloons (we may be able to patch them up in different shape)
  • a “can-do” attitude

There is an amazing amount of energy that comes from working together in the same space – TIP: even virtually over Zoom this can work, with a quiet side-chat! You can confer with each other, with me, and at the end of the session you’ll have a clearer idea of what your final product will look like and what you will leave for the next iteration.

By Thursday, 3.30PM

If anybody wants to show to the class what they have done so far, to get the maximum amount of feedback, this is a good day to book a spot. (It doesn’t have to be finished, this can be part of “project development” or a “trial run”)

We also continue working on projects in groups, providing feedback and support etc.

By Friday

Peer feedback

We may be reading the same texts, or texts from roughly the same time period (give or take a few centuries 😄 ), but we still can interpret them very differently, or find different parts interesting, remarkable, strange. Later in the semester, when you show each other your different projects it is even more important that you read each other posts and work, because you can cover more ground. That may even inspire you to do something new for a future project!

Below you find links to four blog posts from your fellow students. If one of the websites is your own, or it is twice the same person’s, refresh the page, and you should get new sites.

  • Post 1:
  • Post 2:
  • Post 3:
  • Post 4:

Leave feedback, questions, thoughts, insights about the contents of the posts of your fellow students using Hypothes.is group HST269. You can ask for clarifications, point out similarities and differences with the material you covered, or with your interpretation. This should encourage you to return with different eyes to the original materials.

Use tags in Hypothes.is: question: If you have a question (obvious); answered: if you gave an answer to a question; info: if you provide more information, looking up additional facts, drawing on knowledge from other classes; and other tags you can think of. This will help us to navigate more quickly to the questions that still need answering.

Use the “Architect’s Model” of giving feedback, and engage with concrete issues. Go beyond “Yeah, I agree,” “I like” or “I think the same”, and instead explain why you have that reaction, or if you disagree, you can try to persuade the original poster of your idea or interpretation.

Remember that Hypothes.is allows for hyperlinks, e.g. to materials that support your argument, or you can include pictures (memes!), videos etc. that help the original poster to learn more.

Checklist

I commented on four fellow students’ posts about early Chinese history, using the group HST269 in Hypothes.is.
I made sure to leave substantial comments that move the discussion forward and help to create better insights, and go beyond a “nice” or “great”.
I left comments that I would like to receive myself: thoughtful, helpful, kind, but also pointing out errors so they can be fixed.

By Sunday, 11:59PM

Fill out and send in/share your “5-15 progress report“

All the details are in the form. This will be a weekly returning assignment that helps us both to ensure you keep working on the course projects. I often can identify a potential problem area before you’ve even hit it, and steer you on a more successful course, using these weekly reports.

Until further notice (or a full scale rebellion), consider these a weekly returning task.

Slides

Thu, Oct. 7: bird picture + where to with this course?

Where to get help