Daniella Kostroun, School of Liberal Arts
Principal Investigator: Daniella Kostroun, associate professor, Department of History, School of Liberal Arts
Co-Principal Investigators: Jennifer Guiliano, assistant professor, and Rebecca Shrum, assistant professor, Department of History, School of Liberal Arts
Project Title: Transforming History for Online Student Success
Funding Level: $15,000
Abstract:
Transforming History for Online Student Success will focus on developing three new online courses for inclusion in the Bachelor of Arts in History Online degree as offered by IU Online. Emphasizing the practice of critical thinking through technology (H195), historical methods (J216) and historical research (J496), these courses offer a needed intervention by the IUPUI Department of History into innovative online education. Conversations within the historical profession about online education have most frequently suggested little more than replicating the same outcomes and assessment techniques as face-to-face instruction. In Transforming History for Online Student Success, we seek to move beyond these conversations to understand what is the optimal configuration of the Canvas platform and its third-party plugins to enable learning that blends textual, auditory, and visual learning styles with historical materials. Moreover, we seek to highlight digital assignments and assessments that can support efforts to understand how traditional pedagogical goals of primary source understanding, critical thinking, and argumentation can be achieved in a fully digital environment.
