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2004-2005 Huckabay Teaching Fellowship Application

Graduate Student:       Kristine Bovy, Department of Anthropology

Mentors:                     Peter Lape, Department of Anthropology
                                 Stanley Chernicoff, Department of Earth and Space Sciences

 Motivation for Project

Archaeologists study the human past through material remains, such as stone tool debris, animal bones and pot sherds. Introductory archaeology classes are therefore ideally suited to provide hands-on active learning activities for students. Archy 205 (Principles of Archaeology), the introductory class for archaeology at UW, has for many years incorporated hands-on artifact and excavation labs, which are popular with students. However, TAs and instructors have often complained that they were not well integrated with the overall course. Past labs have typically involved showing interesting artifacts to the students and discussing how they were made and used. Artifacts and demonstration materials were labor intensive to set-up, so an easy to grade lab worksheet was often used to reduce the TA workload afterwards. These worksheets ensured that students visited every artifact station, but primarily consisted of simple content-related questions. Little feedback was provided to or from the students afterwards, and little assessment has been done to determine what the students learned from these activities.

 In addition to pedagogical concerns, consistency between academic quarters is a problem with the course. Archy 205 is taught by graduate student instructors 3 out of 4 quarters. Student instructors struggle to reinvent the course to fit their own teaching style and learning objectives. Unfortunately no explicit curriculum has been developed for the course, and many activities are simply passed down by word of mouth (e.g. “Betsy did this great exercise when she taught the course last time—you should try it!”). The few artifact labs, handouts and worksheets that reside on the Anthropology department server are outdated and in need of improvement. While learning objectives are embedded in many of these activities, they are not always apparent to the TAs or undergraduates.

 We believe Archy 205 should be re-designed to emphasize critical thinking, problem-solving, writing, and communication skills. More conceptual questions should be discussed in labs, providing an opportunity for students to “think like an archaeologist.” In addition, these should be expanded beyond object-based activities to include discussions and exercises highlighting contemporary ethical and legal issues in archaeology. Although there is wide spread support among archaeology graduate students and faculty to make these kinds of changes, resources and time have always been impediments.

 Project Description and Implementation

Kristine, in consultation with Peter Lape and Stanley Chernicoff, would work on this project in the 2004 Autumn Quarter. Kristine would begin by soliciting input from former and future instructors and TAs of Archy 205 through both questionnaires and interviews. Potential questions to be asked include: What labs/activities have you used in teaching this course or related courses? What were the learning objectives? How did you know these objectives were met? In addition, feedback would be obtained about what the primary learning objectives of the course should be.

 Next, these activities, learning objectives and ideas would be compiled and listed on a new Archy 205 teaching website, linked to the department website. Catalyst Web Tools would be used to create and maintain this website. In consultation with her mentors and 2004/2005 Archy 205 instructors, Kristine would choose a subset of these activities to develop more fully. These activities would be annotated to include items such as learning objectives and goals, logistics for set-up and grading, suggestions on how to integrate activities with lecture topics, options for assessment techniques, and follow-up discussion ideas or exercises. The goal would be to create a teaching tool kit, including both formal archaeological labs and also ideas for short in-class activities to engage students. Future instructors could easily choose activities that met their individual course goals and objectives. In addition, a process would be set-up whereby future Archy 205 TAs and instructors could upload and annotate new and existing activities. Annotations could address questions such as: What were the learning objectives? How did it work? What would you change for next time?

 Finally, Kristine will be teaching Archy 205 Winter Quarter 2005. She would therefore have the opportunity to use some of these activities in her course, assess student learning, and revise and annotate the activity descriptions on the website.

 Project Assessment

Assessment in the proposed project would need to occur on two different levels. First, we would need to assess what the undergraduates are learning from these activities and labs. This could be achieved through both student performances on graded labs and/or follow-up exercises, and through non-graded Classroom Assessment Techniques (Angelo and Cross 1993). A number of options for assessment techniques could be provided with every activity¹. The activities could be used in the Archy 205 course both Autumn and Winter Quarters, with student feedback collected in class or through Catalyst Web Tools (e.g., WebQ, Quick Poll). Secondly, we would need to assess the success of the teaching website as a tool for faculty and graduate student instructors and TAs. This could be accomplished through follow-up questionnaires and interviews asking how the website could be made more useful and easy to use.

 Potential Impacts

The project outlined above has the potential to affect both undergraduate students and instructors in a number of ways. First, the project would directly benefit undergraduates in Archy 205 by providing a series of hands-on labs and activities that are clearly designed with student learning objectives in mind, and integrated with the course as a whole. Archy 205 is required for anthropology majors, is a prerequisite for upper level archaeology classes, and has an annual enrollment of nearly 500 students. In addition, this website of teaching materials could very easily be adapted to other classes in the Anthropology Department, such as Introduction to Anthropology (Anth 100) (1100-1200 students/year) or Northwest Coast Prehistory (Archy 320) (100 students). These activities could also be adapted for use in Burke Museum education kits and programs, which would reach an even larger numbers of K-12 students in the Seattle area.

 Secondly, the project would provide a set of activities from which the graduate students and faculty members could draw when teaching the course. This would increase consistency from one quarter to the next, reduce work-load and frustration on part of the instructors and TAs, and foster teaching development. The annotated lesson plans would make it easy for graduate students to adopt effective teaching methods, such as identifying clear learning objectives and using assessment techniques, which they could use as they teach other courses at UW and beyond. Also, developing a system where future instructors continue to update the website with annotated activities could help foster a community of teachers in the department who discuss, and are reflective about, their own teaching. Finally, this project would provide Kristine with an extremely valuable experience, developing and refining her own teaching skills alongside two experienced mentors.

Angelo, T. A., & Cross, K. P. (1993). Classroom Assessment Techniques: A Handbook for College Teachers. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

¹See the UW Computer Science website for examples: http://www.cs.washington.edu/education/online/cse142/assessments/

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