05 - Telling a Free Story: Fugitive Slaves and the Underground Railroad in Myth and Reality
Professor Blight discusses the rise of abolitionism. Blight begins with an introduction to the genre of slave narratives, with particular attention to Frederick Douglass' 1845 narrative. The lecture then moves on to discuss the culture in which antebellum reform grew--the factors that encouraged its growth, as well as those that retarded it. Professor Blight then describes the movement towards radical abolitionism, stopping briefly on colonization and gradualism before introducing the character
01 - Introductions: Why Does the Civil War era have a hold on American Historical Imagination?
Professor Blight offers an introduction to the course. He summarizes some of the course readings, and discusses the organization of the course. Professor Blight offers some thoughts on the nature of history and the study of history, before moving into a discussion of the reasons for Americans' enduring fascination with the Civil War. The reasons include: the human passion for epics, Americans' fondness for redemption narratives, the Civil War as a moment of "racial reckoning," the fascination wi
Creating space for diverse perspectives and student learning
This website is an 'illustrated case' of the teaching of a high school English class on the literature of social vision and social change. The case examines the use of multicultural materials in a standard English class and the instructors' efforts to refine the course as the year progressed. The website offers video clips of classroom activities, teacher reflections, and examples of student work.
Culturally Engaged Instruction (CEI): Putting theory into practice
As an English teacher at a rural all-Black high school in the Mississippi Delta, Renee Moore enjoyed a genuine fellowship with her students, many of whom she worked with outside of school in church and community activities. Lessons in literature and writing went reasonably well (for a beginning teacher), but when she started to teach grammar, her students seemed to 'hit a brick wall.' She had two simultaneous responses to the wall. She immediately started searching for and experimenting with mor
Learning to Think Mathematically
Concerned that most students leave college thinking of mathematics as a fixed body of knowledge to be memorized, Cooperstein designed a new course to help students learn to think mathematically for themselves. This website serves as a course portfolio that documents the new class, Introduction to Mathematical Problem Solving. The principal activity in the class involved students working on and discussing novel problems which required them to formulate experiments, work out cases, look for patter
Peer Review of Teaching - Course Portfolio
In this course portfolio, Dan Bernstein reports on changes he has made over three semesters in a psychology course on learning. He has succeeded in getting more students to achieve higher levels of understanding by changing the assessment from short abstract essay questions to problems that asked students to apply concepts in new contexts, and providing web-based opportunities for students to identify what makes some answers better than others. The portfolio includes examples of the assessments
Mark Twain Project Online
Mark Twain Project Online applies innovative technology to more than four decades' worth of archival research by expert editors at the Mark Twain Project. It offers unfettered, intuitive access to reliable texts, accurate and exhaustive notes, and the most recently discovered letters and documents.
Biometrics
This text manual introduces statistical analysis and its underlying philosophy, enabling students to understand how to describe the confidence they have in their analysis.
Statistical analysis is one of the most widely used, and abused, techniques in the biological sciences. Statistics are ostensibly used to allow an investigator to be objective. That is, the researcher uses statistical tests to determine whether or not his/her hypothesis is supported by the data collected.
Unfortunately, the
Data Collection and Organization
The Data Collection and Organization (DC&O) text module provides background on useful, general-purpose software tools. The aim is to discuss types of generic software that virtually every well-equipped scientist uses. This includes: spreadsheets, database programs, statistics packages, graphics programs, and word processors.
DC&O includes several examples of the use of these tools in biology. These include 'An Embryological Example with Tips and Tricks' and the complete text and dataset of a cl
Essential Physics I
Essential Physics 1, is an intensive introduction to classical and special relativity, Newtonian dynamics and gravitation, Einsteinian dynamics and gravitation, and wave motion. Mathematical methods are discussed, as needed; they include: elements of differential geometry, linear operators and matrices, ordinary differential equations, calculus of variations, orthogonal functions and Fourier series, and non-linear equations for chaotic systems. The contents of this book can be taught in one seme
Introduction to Groups, Invariants and Particles
Introduction to Groups, Invariants & Particles is a book for Seniors and advanced Juniors who are majoring in the Physical Sciences or Mathematics. The book places the subject matter in its historical context with discussions of Galois groups, algebraic invariants, Lie groups and differential equations, presented at a level that is not the standard fare for students majoring in the Physical Sciences. A sound mathematical basis is thereby provided for the study of special unitary groups and their
Amazing Bean Races
Developed for fifth grade and above. Primary biological content area covered:; Plant growth; Seedling morphology; Hypothesis testing; Experimental design; Line graphing; Introductory statistics.
Biology In Elementary Schools is a Saint Michael's College student project. The teaching ideas on this page have been found, refined, and developed by students in a college-level course on the teaching of biology at the elementary level. Unless otherwise noted, the lesson plans have been tried at least
Whitman Calculus
This calculus book covers a fairly standard course sequence: single variable calculus, infinite series, and multivariable calculus. There is no chapter on differential equations.
Social Psychology - Spring 2008
Social Psychology - Spring 2007. The course will begin with a historical introduction to social psychology, focusing on the intellectual contribution of Kurt Lewin and the integration of
evolutionary and cultural approaches to human nature. The course will then focus on the major topics of social psychology (group dynamics, social influence, attitudes and attitude
change, social perception) as well as more specific areas of research (altruism, emotion, justice) and recent developments in the fie
Research and Data Analysis in Psychology Fall 2008
The course covers methods in psychological research emphasizing research design and statistics. Areas covered in research design are measurement and sampling, correlational research and experimental design. Statistical methods include t-tests, analysis of variance, correlation and regression, chi-square and monte-carlo simulations. The lecture will illustrate the importance of research design and statistical reasoning in psychology and provide the theoretical background for each of the statistic
The Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs
This is an introduction to programming and computer science. This course exposes students to techniques of abstraction at several levels: (a) within a programming language, using higher-order functions, manifest types, data-directed programming, and message-passing; (b) between programming languages, using functional and rule-based languages as examples. It also relates these techniques to the practical problems of implementation of languages and algorithms on a von Neumann machine. There are se
European Civilization from the Renaissance to the Present Fall 2008
This course is an introduction to European history from around 1500 to the present. The central questions that it addresses are how and why Europe--a small, relatively poor, and politically fragmented place--became the motor of globalization and a world civilization in its own right. Put differently how did "western" become an adjective that, for better and often for worse, stands in place of "modern." Our approach will be broadly cultural, and we will consider politics, economics, society, reli
Introduction to Statistics Fall 2008
This course covers population and variables; Standard measures of location, spread and association; Normal approximation; Regression. Probability and sampling: Binomial distribution. Interval estimation; Some standard significance tests.
General Chemistry Fall 2008
General Chemistry – Fall 2008. This course covers topics such as stoichiometry of chemical reactions, quantum mechanical description of atoms, the elements and periodic table, chemical bonding, real and ideal gases, thermochemistry, introduction to thermodynamics and equilibrium, acid-base and solubility equilibria, introduction to oxidation-reduction reactions.
Card Experiment
This resource consists of a Java applet and expository text. The applet is a simulation of drawing n cards from a standard deck. The parameter n can be varied.
