#course planning

good morning! I got up around 7 and have been course planning in bed since then.

I was telling @bottleupandexplode earlier that the one silver lining of virtual hell year is that it forced me to create incredibly detailed, well-organized lesson plans and activity materials. I had set aside multiple long days for course planning this month because I’m so used to having to sift through scattered, fragmentary notes-to-self to try to reconstruct what I did the previous semester. but I read through my past stuff just now and was surprised by how organized and complete things feel already.

this morning I created a rough fall syllabus with readings, model projects, and proposed speakers for each date. I also made an initial list of the “mini-lessons” I want to weave into different activities, which I can refer to once I actually get into lesson planning.

for syllabus stuff I still need to:

finalize and format the syllabus

upload all readings, materials, and resources to Google Drive

review and update the learning outcomes

contact the former fellows who are going to be guest speakers [my tentative plan is to have us study the speakers’ projects in advance, then to have them do a short moderated conversation and Q&A about their research practice and experience, then maybe to put them in groups and have them do the activities alongside the current fellows, so the current fellows get to know them a little better (and might feel more comfortable reaching out for advice). they’re getting paid for all of this so I don’t feel guilty about asking them to do some extra stuff!]

after completing the rough schedule I spent a lot of time brainstorming some system and process level stuff (especially around feedback) that I want to tweak or add in order to address some issues that came up last year. I still need to figure out the logistics of how I’m implement those changes but I think it’ll just take an afternoon of experimenting to figure it out.

hmm and I will have to devote a few hours this month to updating and moving all of last year’s resources from the program handbook to the Google drive folder. I also need to create some new resources now that I have examples to draw in from last year’s student work (note to self: email to ask about using grad app SOPs and cover letters).

Your first stop in putting together a course on fanfiction or fan culture!

why is writing course learning outcomes so difficult?? (answer: because it requires you to get clear in your own mind about the overarching goals of the course, which can be difficult if you haven’t taught the course before and are still feeling your way through it.) but okay, here is an initial stab at our learning outcomes for this semester.

By the end of our fall seminar series...

You should be able to identify, discuss, and evaluate a range of different research methodologies & approaches to research in the humanities.

You should be able to explain (or thoughtfully speculate about) the ethical and practical reasoning behind a researcher’s choice of methodology or approach.  

You should be able to describe a wide range of research outcomes or research “products.” In evaluating different research products, you should additionally be able to assess who the project’s intended audience is and how effectively each project engages its target audience.

You should be able to thoughtfully articulate your values, commitments, and responsibilities as a community researcher (your personal research philosophy or “research ethos”).

You will have begun to develop and implement an approach to research that aligns with your personal values and is answerable to the specific communities you work with.

You should also expect to make concrete progress on your Capstone project this fall, primarily through your independent work and your regular meetings with your graduate mentor. Over the course of the fall semester, you can expect to: 

Generate an initial set of research questions you hope to answer and/or identify a specific challenge you want to address through your Capstone project.

Identify the specific community you hope to work with and complete a full “Community Engagement” plan with your grad mentor.

Compile an annotated bibliography of at least 8 sources and 3 projects that provide important context for your research and/or could serve as models for your own project.

my plan is to look at the detailed bibliography i’ve put together and sort the texts into ‘definite’ and ‘likely’ readings, then write each one down on half a notecard, then begin physically laying out different pairings or clusters of texts so i can start to make decisions about the course sequence. i think this will also help me more clearly visualize where there are knowledge or skill gaps that i need to find readings or design activities for. then i can also fill in around those readings some of the background reading that i still need to do in order to effectively teach and contextualize each seminar’s material.

i also have this not-yet-fully-developed idea about visually representing for students the cluster or constellation or cloud of readings, ideas, theorists, etc. around each assigned text. like, i want them to see that when i select a text for us to read and discuss, that doesn’t necessarily mean that it is the only or definitive perspective on that topic. i want this constellation of voices visualization (whatever form it takes) to gesture towards the different traditions that have sought to answer similar questions—and i also want it to serve as a sort of resource for further exploration, so that if the reading really resonates with them, they can keep moving down that rabbithole. my thinking too is that it might be a way to sort of implicitly teach that way of thinking about research as listening attentively to different ‘critical conversations,’ which i wrote about last week.

i feel like there is probably some kind of digital tool i could use to create this -- something like a mindmapping tool that links out to different sources? or maybe i could just create them by hand and scan them for each week, although i like a hyperlinked version better (and also a digital version might allow me to excerpt key passages). i feel like scalar might be useful for this? but it would also be really cool if we could build those clusters together -- like if i provide maybe four or five sources that cluster around the assigned reading, but then they could also annotate it or add to it other theorists, concepts, etc. from their fields, so that we are building a denser, richer network of affiliations and connections. i would also love to be able to link them not just to additional readings but also to various humanities or community-engaged research projects that emerge out of, or are in conversation with, the more theoretical readings we’re doing. 

Next semester schedules came out and this is pretty bad!

I still have to add one more random course (I'm doing a B.A. in chem with a psych minor so I only need to take 4 classes/semester to graduate). But even though I don't have any labs (besides 6-10 hrs a week of research) this is like my exact nightmare schedule!