Tuesday, May 28, 2024
Welcome to Minnesota History! 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 "home page" at ARCC -- so bookmark this page now: Linda Janke's Home Page. Be sure to note that I am teaching another fully on-line course this summer (HIST 2211: U.S. History I) so do not accidentally view their assignments and webpage. Materials for this course are on the right side of my website.
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 Minnesota History outside of the traditional classroom.
In a sense, you will teach yourself
Minnesota History through reading the textbook and other assignments,
participating in class discussions, and writing papers about virtual or
in-real-life field trips.
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
semester.
2.
Since we will not meet in person in a classroom,
you will compensate for that by reading our course textbook and other selected
materials.
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.
After you have familiarized yourself
with the course assignments and requirements, you should consider whether 1) an
on-line course is for you and 2) whether you can succeed in
this history course
given the workload, assignments, and deadlines. Just because you might
have taken other on-line courses before does not mean that this course will be
similar. Each on-line course is as different as each regular "seated"
class is from another class
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 -- I am sure this will help you be successful in this clas
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 Minnesota 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.
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Read the
course syllabus |
Make a plan to acquire all the needed materials for the course, including the books, which are available in the bookstore or can be purchased from on-line retailers for a very low cost. Or even found on the shelf of your local library for free! I do not recommend purchasing electronic versions of the book as I think having a real "paper copy" helps with note-taking and comprehension, but I recognize that some of the books are substantially cheaper in electronic versions, so feel free to do that. However, please do NOT purchase North Country in an electronic format. Some of the images are not included and they are required reading/viewing.
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Review the
course schedule. |
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Complete the introductory activities |
There are a variety of introductory activities (short syllabus quiz, short survey, intro activity on D2L) that will need to be completed during week 1. See the announcement and checklist on D2L for more information. |
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Learn about the two papers -- will you try to go on a field trip in person? Do you need to schedule that ASAP?
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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. |
Click
here. A tip: enter them into a calendar or planner.
Remember to write NOON.
Missing or misunderstanding deadlines is not an excuse to miss
work.
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Keep in touch! |
You can reach me through your individual discussion forum "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 semester 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
