Yesterday marked the first instance of a “blended” class for my sophomores in Modern World History. The night before, they had read and taken notes on a section[1] of the textbook, and then taken a 5-question open-note reading quiz on the material. The quiz was due before class began, and allowed me to check that students had read the appropriate section and had understood the major points. Half of the students also had to read a 3-page PDF taken from Opposing Viewpoints by Cengage Learning, summarizing either arguments for or against women’s suffrage.

In-class

During class, the lawyers “for” women’s suffrage moved to one side of the room, lawyers “against” moved to the opposite, and the remaining half of the class moved to the back of the room. While the lawyers decided who would give the opening remarks, ask & answer cross-examination questions, and give the closing remarks, the members of the jury in the back of the room put themselves into the mindset of middle- and working-class Britons of the 1860s and 1870s.[2]

The debate proceded. Embedded below is a video of class up to this point.

5* Debate from Eric Castro on Vimeo.

When the debate was ended, I summarized the history of women’s suffrage in England and alluded to the fate of the same movement in the US, adding that they would learn more about that Junior year.

When that conversation was ended, I talked to the students about the difference between learning activities for which we all needed to be in the same room at the same time, and those which they had to accomplish on their own. Learning history involves a ot of reading, thinking, and writing — and those are things they need to do on their own. When they acknowledged the difference, I told them that they had the rest of the period to do that work — and that they could do it in the classroom or they could do it in the Student Center or Library. They had five or six pieces of work to complete (depending on whether they had been a lawyer or a juror), all due within the next 72-hours.

In one class, half stayed in the classroom to work, and in the other period only one student stayed.

Outside of Class

The real test is whether they did/ do the assigned work. I’ve posted a screenshot of the gradebook, showing work that’s been submitted and graded. Blanks indicate work that has not been turned in — and there are blanks. Not a lot; most students did the work and did it quite well.

Next Time

There was always the very real possibility that this experiment would be a catastrophic failure, and that I might abandon the idea of a blended history class. It was not even close to a disaster, and so there will be a next time. One lesson learned is that the various assignments – which necessarily must be separate in Canvas in order to each accept their own submissions – should be collected into a Content Page for clearer navigation by students. While describing what students were accountable for, I had to write the list on the chalkboard; had I done a better job organizing things in Canvas, that would have been unnecessary.

The next time I do a blended lesson will be the third week of September, with World War I…