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tags: course support
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# BokSemFoundations Bok Seminar: Foundations of Teaching in the Humanities and Social Sciences Workshop

Where: LL Studio
When: 3/31/2022 1:30 - 3:30 (with a break halfway through)
Enrollment: 6
[Project log]()
[Syllabus]()

## notes from the instructor
### 3/17/22 Check in with Rebecca:

Background on the seminar:
- goals
- cultures of reading
- discussion moves game
- jonah will lead a session on responding to student writing
- two more sessions: 1 here in LL, and then the final (where they will be asked to come up with an assignment or activity based on what they've learned, and then present to the group to do workshopping)

Of the seminar participants, there is a diverse range of experiences in terms of teaching experiences and audiences (though all are in the humanities or social sciences). Rebecca has asked students to bring in things they would assign (ie. Rosseau, the bible, health policy). Rebecca will ask the participnts to send her things, and then we can then print them out so they can use it in the space.

Seminar participants have already done a lot of brainstorming on the board, which rebecca has added to [Canvas](https://canvas.harvard.edu/courses/102495)

Marlon previously slacked the following ideas:
* multimodal academic communication and assignments
* creative and alternative assignments
* designing "assignment sequences" and "production plans" for complex multimodal capstone projects, including things like
* introductory "launch" activities
* project proposals
* skill-building-scaffolding-activities
* hackathons
* capstone events and galleries
* archives and databases
* activities that harness students' pre-existing literacies and competencies (music, pop culture, humor, social media) as ways of "bridging" the gap between what they're already good at and the skills you want them to learn

Marlon would like to know from participants:
- their courses
- their readings
- something low-pressure they could prepare.

Katie's notes:
Background on the seminar: Goals, cultures of reading (how people read in their disciplines) discussing, writing (Jonah is leading a session)
How we're helping: final session - come up with an assignment, prompt. etc that they will present in the LL
at most they will have 6 people
leveraging students' preexisting competencies with an accent on alternative media
doing some scaffolding activity, break down the difference between media capstone assignments and smaller media-based reflections
They're a diverse group, but all are in humanities or social science, most have teaching experience but it's varied.
It could be cool for us to know either their courses or the readings they submitted previously. Rousso, health policy, the bible.

2 philosophies:
* Look at 3 exampes of multimodal academic communication that "adults" are doing, how do we prepare students to do these things too
* Think about what students are already doing, how do we harness their knowledge to convey academic ideas?*** this one aligns more with their philosophy

Media to grab:
overheads from AJ Gold's expos visit

Rebecca:
Send in texts, an example of good writing in their fields - whoever your hero is, whoever you want to emulate. what is your vision for academic writing?

LL will do some thinking and can run things by Rebecca.

article submissions on Canvas: https://canvas.harvard.edu/courses/102495/gradebook/speed_grader?assignment_id=572023&student_id=205160

## space and gear prep
## media prep
* get overhead shots from AJ Gold's expos visit
* Rebecca will send us seminar participants' prepped materials to print
* put on whiteboards
*

## ll plan

* moves that matter in your field
* alignment
* learning objectives and means of assessment
* form and content, but also form and skills
*
* learning to write / writing to learn
* what are these academics doing well?
* pre-existing competencies

* emergent technologies, political realities, etc
* podcast activity with serial
* decorative vs functional
* aesthetic vs rhetorical?
* jobs
* g-design and idea-structure
* back to your article
* core conceptual opposition, structure, etc--and 3 key lines
* lay it out on table
* practice presenting over music bed
*
* jobs presentation?
* brainstorm media, tools, and forms
*

things to consider
1. what are the moves that matter in the discipline? what does it mean to know? to be an expert? to be fluent or even absurdly skilled in the discipline's practices?
2. what are these writers doing well?
3. where do we yearn to go beyond text alone?
4. what are all of the media, tools and forms that the discipline uses now? that it might use in the future? that we see in the broad world beyond the discipline that relate at least tangentially to the discipline's practices?
5. brainstorm students pre-existing competencies
6. predict the future
7. what do YOU want to do

* Thinking about what students already know how to do, and then moving to expand their abilities. A bit of show and tell and what other folks to do around campus.
* what do our students already know?

* what does the discipline want?
* what do the students want?
* what does the world want?
* the technologies, cultures and economic structures that constitute the world at a given point in time

Activities

* with your article
* find a moment that yearns to go beyond text alone
* find a moment of excellence in the piece (one that we wouldn't want to lose if we went beyond text alone)
* cut each out and label with a circle and a magnet
* what are all the media, tools and forms
* that our students have pre-existing competencies in?
* that our discipline uses? should use?
* that exist in the wide world as potential inspirations? that are under-deployed in the classroom? that are newly emergent and promising?
* that the audiences we care about desire?
* what does medium or form X accomplish?
* serial
* jobs
* let's unpack the elements of a complex medium (a video essay, say) and figure out how we might turn them into short scaffolding activities that
* lead up to the final project
* ALSO get at core skills that matter in the discipline