Tuesday, May 28, 2024
Dear Students,
Welcome to U.S. History I! This letter is intended to introduce you to the course, and to hopefully answer any and all of your questions. All course information can be found at my faculty webpage, so bookmark it now: Linda Janke's Home Page.
The first question some of you may have is: what, exactly, is an on-line course? My brief answer to that question is that an on-line course is an opportunity for you to learn about U.S. History outside of the traditional classroom. In a sense, you will teach yourself (working together with me and your classmates) U.S. History through reading assignments, participating in class discussions, and viewing or listening to various multi-media selections.
Next, how does this on-line history class work? In a typical history class,
professors will use a mixture of lecture and discussion. I will not be using
videotaped lectures in this class so you will be reading a textbook called A
People and A Nation to learn about the basics of the topic. In other
words, the textbook will give you the framework to understand what was happening
at that time, what was changing, and why. You will be taking multiple-choice
quizzes based on the textbook chapters.
History classes also include learning about what historians call "primary
documents." That means documents created during the time period in question. A
"primary document" could be anything! Examples include speeches, newspapers,
photographs, paintings, letters, laws, novels, etc. The list is endless.
Discussing and debating primary sources is the "fun part" of doing history
because different people can reach different conclusions about the document.
The primary documents assigned for this class are listed in the Green Column on
the class schedule page and they include chapters in Discovering the
American Past and other documents located on the internet. You will read
the green column for "Discussion Quizzes" and for weekly Discussion posts.
But I will explain more about that later. Let's move on to introducing the
course!
I want to let you know ahead of time that you'll be doing a
lot of reading this summer. Personally I love reading! and I hope you will
enjoy the assignments I've chosen. But I wanted to take a minute to
highlight the issue of assigned reading and why this course focuses on reading:
1. History courses typically involve numerous reading assignments. A
historian's job is to read the sources, read background information, and then
analyze the material. You will be doing the work of a historian this
summer.
2. Since we will not meet in a
traditional setting for lectures, you will compensate for that by doing
background reading in our course textbook and from other selected readings.
If this were a traditional "seated" course, we would spend between FIVE and SIX
hours per week in the classroom, and most college study skills centers advise
students to plan on spending two to three hours per credit per week doing
"homework," which for our class translates to 8 to 12 hours per week.
Adding that up means you should budget approximately
13 to 18 hours per week for this course. This total may be higher
during weeks with more assigned reading.
3. This course is approximately 9.5 weeks long -- approximately 60% of the
length of a typical semester, yet you will still earn a semester's worth of
credit! Which means that this course "crams" a semester's worth of
reading into less than 10 weeks. In order to succeed in this course
you must budget sufficient time to complete the reading assignments. See
#2 above for an approximate time estimate.
Also, I recognize that most, if not all, of my on-line students are juggling
classes, jobs, and family responsibilities. I understand that we all have
busy lives. However, while on-line courses are more flexible than
traditional "seated" classes, they are not infinitely flexible. I
encourage you to set aside enough time to complete the reading and tasks on D2L.
Here's a link to some wonderful strategies for how to be a successful on-line student. I think following these simple tips would greatly enhance your chance for success in this course. I will also ask you and your classmates if you have tips to share.
Let's move on to an introduction to this U.S. History course, in nine steps:
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Are you
familiar with D2L? |
If yes, great!
If not, visit
Minnesota State's D2L Brightspace Help Desk and
ARCC's IT Page.
Experienced
users will note this class does not use several features of D2L.
Remember that each on-line course is different.
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Read the
course syllabus |
Make a plan to acquire all the needed materials for the course. The two main books for this class are electronic books (VitalShelf ebooks) and have already been purchased and loaded into D2L. You may opt out of this purchase; see the D2L announcement for details. Also note my policy regarding class "attendance and inactivity." You can also see my FAQ page for more information. Be sure to note that there are two "free tickets" to use for asking for an extension on a quiz deadline.
Also note my policy regarding academic dishonesty and the use of Chat
GPT or AI. |
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Review the course schedule. |
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Complete the introductory activities for Week 1 |
There are a variety of introductory activities (syllabus quiz, short survey, Introduce yourself activity) that will need to be completed during week 1. See the announcement and checklist on D2L for more information. |
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Make sure you understand the difference between the two types of quizzes you'll be taking in this class. |
Click here for a webpage that describes the
two quizzes and why the course is structured that way.
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Start
discussing! |
Feel free to join the Week 1 discussion as soon as you’ve gotten some reading completed. You don't have to 100% finish everything before you join the conversation.
Also, take a look at the "Class Cafe" discussion and join us! ("Class
Cafe" is for extra credit.) |
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Begin the work
for this week |
Consult the course schedule for the assigned readings.
Feel free to join the discussion as soon as you’ve gotten some
reading completed.
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Take note of
all course deadlines. |
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Keep in touch! |
You can reach me through "Contact Linda" on D2L, which is the best way to reach me. I am happy to arrange a phone conversation or a zoom meeting. I do not expect you to "go it alone" this summer! I am here to help you succeed. |
As we go along this summer, please keep me informed about any technical or computer problems that are likely to impact the entire class. (i.e. if a link is broken, if D2L is down for a long period of time, etc.) I have checked all of the links at the beginning of the summer but things could change throughout the course, and since I have already printed the readings I might not be aware of any broken links. Thank you!
Again, welcome to the class, and I look forward to meeting you in our discussion area,
Linda Janke