I enclose a report of a discussion on the above topic from
the 1995 Economic History Association meetings, orginally
circulated on ECONHIST.TEACH. The conclusion is cautious:
'while new technologies offered a lot of promise, they
could not answer the critical issues of what we want to
teach students or what they should learn.'
Any comments/replies?
[Donald Spaeth]
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Date sent: Sun, 17 Sep 1995 14:09:26 -0400
Send reply to: eh.teach@cs.muohio.edu
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Subject: EH.T: Notes on 1995 EHA Teaching Breakfast
================= ECONHIST.TEACH POSTING =================
Twelve hearty souls managed to arise by 7:30 A.M. or
shortly thereafter to participate in the Teaching Breakfast
on Sept. 10 at the 1995 EHA meeting in Chicago. The following
summary of the discussion is based on a few notes I jotted
down at the airport after spending the afternoon at the
Monet Exhibit at the Chicago Art Institute. The summary
is thus suitably impressionistic -- anyone present
at the Breakfast is invited to point out corrections,
emendations, and omissions. And even those who were not
present at the Breakfast are welcome to weigh in on
eh.teach regarding any of the issues raised.
The general topic for discussion was the use of new technologies
in the teaching of economic history. Brad DeLong began by asking
about the possible use of new technologies to substitute for
teaching fellows and assistants in large lecture courses.
Naomi Lamoreaux mentioned concerns that have been raised by
Mark Kornbluh of Michigan State (Kornbluh has appeared on
some lists of "superstar" teachers of history) regarding the
remoteness and lack of personal interaction that students
will experience in learning settings that are dependent on the
use of the computer. Sam Williamson proposed setting up
on-line discussions between journal/book authors and students in
courses studying the works of those authors. He suggested
co-ordination between teachers at different campuses so
that students on each of the campuses would be reading a given
text around the same time so that all could benefit from having
a given author available on-line for a specified interval of time
to participate in discussion. Art Woolf expressed interest in
having some simple simulation models and historical data sets
available on-line so students could work with them on their
own and get a quantitative feel for long-term trends and interactions.
There was some discussion over the current availability or lack thereof
of quantitative data sources such as U.S. Historical Statistics on-line.
Naomi Lamoreaux and Sally Clarke mentioned Roy Rosenzweig's *Who Built
America* as one compilation of historical source material available
on C-D Rom and possibly on hte internet that might be useful for
teaching purposes, although mention was also made of some
political and ideological controversy that has surrounded Rosensweig's
compilation. Mention was made of co-ordinating the discussion of
syllabi for a given type of course in economic history on eh.teach.
There seemed to be interest in doing this. But some participants thought
it made sense to concentrate this discussion during the period when most
people would actually be preparing and revising their course syllabi.
This lead to discussion of when in fact most people actually do prepare
and revise their course syllabi. (perhaps we should do a survey on
eh.teach on this?). A concluding thought either from the group or
from Ray Cohn, in particular, as we were leaving is that while
new technologies offered a lot of promise, they could not answer
the critical issues of what we want to teach students or what they
should learn.
David Mitch
In attendance at the 1995 EHA Teaching Breakfast:
Paul Rhode, U. of North Carolina
Ray Cohn, Illinois State U.
Brad DeLong, U. of California, Berkeley
Art Woolf, U. of Vermont
John Komlos, U. of Munich
Trevor Dick, U. of Lethbridge
Sally Clarke, U. of Texas, Austin
Naomi Lamoreaux, Brown U.
Sam Williamson, Miami U.
Hugh Rockoff, Rutgers U.
David Mitch, U. of Maryland Baltimore County
Tom Nonnenmacher, U. of Illinois