Stage 2: Refining Learning Tasks and Integrating Web and Collaborative Learning

By the fall of 2000, having taught the course several times, both as a large (c120 student) lecture course and as a freshman seminar, I was ready to move the process a step further. Having experimented with on-line web assignments modeled after Gregor Novak's Just in Time Teaching in an upper level course on "Paris and Berlin in the 1920s: A Cultural History, I applied for an Ameritech Fellowship to completely recast the course around a newly expanded course web site. With the assistance of that grant I was able to greatly expand the web site to create a network of texts and images that support the learning process and increase student involvement in the course. I also integrated weekly web-based assignments with in-class collaborative to produce learning experiences that gave students to master the basic learning skills needed to succeed in the course.