Reinventions – Falling in Love with the Humanities? Si, se Puede! When Basic Education Goes Digital

–Dear Fellow Earthlings–

While teaching a two-semester basic course in the Humanities in the past 10 + years, I’ve evolved a narrative about history that focuses on the Earth and all its people, and a series of readings that deploy the diverse and imaginative ways that humans have practiced the arts of love across time and space.

I feel the multiple crises we face today require that this course go digital.  That way everyone can take it from all over the planet.  I believe that would be a great gift.  It would empower people to make love the ecology of their lives in ways they feel inspired to.

Crises result in successful reinventions when there is openness, trust, collaboration.

–These are difficult to generate in times of crisis, and yet that’s when they are really necessary!

–A very wide support is necessary to evolve.

In this context, I am happy to accept the invitation from UPR Carolina, a small campus in the UPR system, to present my project on March 14.  We start at 11 am in the Teatro:

“Falling in Love with the Humanities?  Si, Se Puede!  Course Design Experiences from the Flipped/Hybrid Classroom.”

Don’t you love the beautiful poster they’ve prepared for me?  It’s really neat and I’m excited about the whole thing.

I believe that the humanities are the sciences that help us understand the belief systems we have.  The arts are the sciences that help us invent the belief systems we need.

And I believe that teaching the Humanities from the Point of View of Love and in a way that students love can get students to fall in love with the humanities, appreciate their significance, and become lifetime learners that will require these courses in their curricula.

In a crisis, reinventions are a path to the future.

Reinventions may be a challenge for large institutions because much agility is needed.

In a smaller context, activating the imagination together may be easier.

When we interpret the Arts and Humanities as sciences that help us understand the present and invent the future we need, we would not remotely consider doing away with them.

And yet, when a university is threatened with losing about one third of its total budget from one year to the next, one has to activate the imagination very quickly for a prayer to save these significant learning tools.

That’s what my proposal does.  The millennial generation loves to learn online.  It’s starved for knowledge they can use to invent the future they need.  What we can give them is a structure that will empower them to learn digitally about these things.  That’s what my course does.

The ways that love has been practiced across time and space are so diverse.  They’re so imaginative.  Learning about them is a way to learn about the beauty and diversity of our species.  And thus acquire the tools to co-design the amorous lives one wishes.

This is the reinvention I propose for a basic, two-semester course that’s part of most university curricula in the US and territories.

It has worked well at UPRM.

I’ve produced the Lectures for the period 1500-2000.

I’ve embedded all tests and learning modules in the Canvas LMS system.

I’ve taught the hybrid/flipped form for one semester, Fall 2016.

I’ve measured the results in a Survey and an Encuesta.

Students have given evidence of their love for the course with direct action as course protectors.  When we had a chance to run the course as hybrid/flipped, we created together this inspiring video.

The project is seeking an open heart space, a campus, ecoversity, or other kind of hospitable institution, eager to see it evolve into the next stage.  This could include producing the Lectures for the period Neolithic to 1500, upgrading the first semester to hybrid/flipped, and upgrading both semesters to MOOC, or massive online open-enrollment course.

Access the pdf print of the presentation “Falling in Love with the Humanities?  Si, Se Puede! ” at this link.  Enjoy!  Imagine the project done.

An investment in this project can accomplish many things at once:

  1. Take a basic course for a walk out of the presential classroom.
  2.  Optimize this course so it can be featured in the world-wide digital sphere.
  3.  Get millennial students to fall in love with the humanities and become lifetime learners.
  4.  Get the university that sponsors this project on the map of those institutions that care about the public and offer basic courses for free.
  5.  Offer potential students from all over the world a taste of this institution and attract them to study at the school and become part of the region.

These all seem very desirable things to me.  They can save money too, while keeping quality and even improving it.  I am investing my energies in these possibilities.

Send good energies and wish the project good luck!

Thank you!

drserenagaia

aka Serena Anderlini-D’Onofrio, PhD

header-per-serena
Professor of Humanities and Cinema
Convenor of Practices of Ecosexuality: A Symposium
Fellow at the Humanities Institute, University of Connecticut, Storrs (2012-13)
Project: “Amorous Visions: Ecosexual Perspectives on Italian Cinema”

 

Your Experience in Humanities 3112-Hybrid: Humanities and Love

Evaluation Survey Humanities 3112 – Hybrid Fall 2016

The Survey: “Your Experience in Humanities 3112-Hybrid”

šThis anonymous Survey was called “Your Experience in Humanities 3112-Hybrid.”

šThe study measures the quality of the educational experience in the Hybrid Sections of the course Humanities 3112, with thematic organization: Humanities and Love.

šThe Survey assesses the quality of interdependent and integrated elements in the distance and presential  modules of the course which constitute the Hybrid modality.

šThe Survey integrates elements of the experiential segment of the COE (Cuestionario de Opinion Estudiantil), of the “best-practices” empirically formulated by CREAD, and of the Objectives of the Course, as described in the syllabus.

šThe Survey: Characteristics

The course is an integrated study of the Humanities from 1500 to the present.

šRespondents are from the first three sections of the course taught in a Hybrid modality in the Fall of 2016.

šThe Survey was taken anonymously by participating students.

šIt was open on the Canvas LMS portal from November 10 to the 22.

šParticipation was 78.5 {a9d64f7890d157e71e6efcce19e215a5f853c7f4151cde0b7bf7aada464173f6}, with 55 students responding over a total of 70 currently in the course.

šThe Survey has 40 questions, with the results of each reported below.  In-Progress results speak of an overwhelmingly positive experience.  For details skip to penultimate slide.

The Survey is available at this link.

šIn-Progress Results

Event from a first glance to the percentages obtained in the top two options in each questions (Excellent and Very Good), it appears that the Hybrid course was an overwhelmingly positive experience for a vast majority of enrolled students.

šMore specific insights into the “best practices” that work well in this course and other similar courses may be inferred from a more specific analytical observation and discussion of the results in each question and cluster of related questions.

Thank you!

Questions, comments, observations?

 

Yay! May Day and the Experiment of Teaching Justice – “Debts” and Humanities First Hybrid

Dear Earthlings–

Rejoice with me!  Today, May 5th, 2016, I found out the requirement has been waived.  My two first hybrid sessions of H-Humanities 3112, Humanities and Love, are now being offered to all interested UPRM students.  I hear they filled up in a flash.  They’ll start in August.  I’m really happy to offer this service and learning opportunity to students who love to learn online.  Yay!

Read more about the saga below:

Today, April 30th, 2016, marks the first anniversary of my lynching by the Department of Humanities at UPRM.  That was really a very traumatic time.  I felt so bad I wanted to retire.  What was the big fight about?  Teaching in a part-online modality called “hybrid.”  The gory details are in two affidavits filed with the authorities of the campus.

A year later, my priority proposal has been approved of.  Woooow!  It’s H-Humanities 3112, from early modern to present time, with a focus on love.  The historical content– all freshly produced from what I call a public-private alliance between my 3WayKiss non-profit and the UPR–is all online.  It’s now a gift to the creative commons for those who believe in knowledge as love.  Enjoy it here! 

The Department even listened to the Proposal for Revitalization I designed, called “Action.”  The Prezi I made for the occasion is really fun.  You can watch it here: it’s public.  Colleagues listened carefully and a bunch of intelligent questions came after. What a great sign!  The gift economy is rich with imagination, and I do hope new life emanates from this proposal study.

However, as it turns out there is still a caveat.  Apparently, the Office of Academic Affairs now wants me to run a human experiment with my newly approved hybrid modality.  I think it’s a bad idea, and have expressed such.  Why?  Well, for any given course, a presential session must run parallel to any hybrid one.  That’s for purposes of comparison, authorities claim.  But the reality is that when teaching in a hybrid modality, to keep comparable standards and obtain comparable results, one must run a much more complex battery of tests and exams.  Memorization is not what does it.  Appropriate online tests are designed to train students in activating their minds and in thinking about what they’re studying. The tests are super time consuming and could never be run in class.  They really engage students who love to learn online.

So basically the human experiment Academic Affairs recommends is on in which one has to treat one group different from the other.  Now, I’ve never cared to be known as an easy-A professor.  But there hasn’t been a time when students have not found me to be very competent and just.  The hybrid modality I designed intended to alleviate their experience of learning in a degraded environments like our building, infested by dirty air-conditioner filters, fungi, asbestos and rats.  Something from which they suffered just as much as I did.

Now, if I did what Admins recommend,  I would probably risk my reputation as both competent and just, while I would also lose the best students’ trust.  What’s more, this human experiment would probably result in turning young minds off the desire to learn that spontaneously arises from their loving, enchanted minds.  Ouch!

One can certainly tell that the rules for online teaching modalities have NOT been designed by those familiar with the practice.  I can very well teach all my H-Huma 3112 sessions as hybrid next semester.  Students will be delighted, and that’s why I asked.

In a Puerto Rico crumbling under a debt much of which was fraudulently acquired, one would hope that common sense would prevail. There’s plenty of past and future session in the conventional style for comparison.  Wouldn’t this be a great time to support one another, and make the best of what little we have left?

May Day tomorrow is a time when we the people of the island  prepare for gathering in front of the Capitol, in San Juan, to reclaim our right to be treated like citizens.  I have my body sign ready.  It says: The people of Puerto Rico negotiate the debt.  Yes, the people and the land count.  More than whatever mess was engineered by financial capital and is now called “debt.”

A public university has the responsibility of behaving in ways that honor its commitment to knowledge, impartiality, and justice.  Beyond any ill fated or poorly conceived regulations.  I hope the Admins in question model this with their practice.  My right to be a teacher that’s competent and just is sacrosanct.

I have a request out to the Dean of Academic Affairs.   I hope the response comes fast.  Citizenship is a way of being one acquires when one stands by the principle that the laws and rules are made for the people and not vice versa.  Let’s practice that now!

It’s a GO – First Hybrid/Blended Sections of The Humanities and Love at UPRM

Dear world–

The proposal below was approved in April 14th, 2016.  It is for a hybrid/blended edition of the course Humanities 3112, thematically organized as The Humanities from the Point of View of Love.

Two sections of H-Humanities 3112 have been opened for the August 2016, offering.  They filled up quickly.  A third section was opened later, and it filled out as well.  This makes me feel they respond to a need and I’m very happy.

20160818_151641The Fall 2016 semester just started and I feel very happy that students in my courses can actively choose a hybrid/blended modality.  They are very excited to study the Humanities from the Point of View of Love.  My intent for the semester is that in the context of the new modality, the theme and the experience of being in the course align in more effective ways.

It is great to have one’s academic freedom returned.  It makes me love my job again.

I am also very happy about the new administrative stability the department has found under the directorship of Hector Huyke and Jeffrey Herlihy.  This happy resolution and new homeostatic balance was the work of a considerate and tactful colleague, Roberta Orlandini.  I am very grateful to her as well.

Proposal’s Documents–

My Proposal for a Hybrid Edition of an Existing Humanities Course at UPRM is coming up for evaluation.

It required the preparation of a Proposal Package composed of documents and online course materials.

It is the first time that a proposal like this is on the table.  Therefore I am making the whole package accessible here.

Proposal for a Hybrid Edition of Humanities  3112 at this link.

Hybrid Humanities 3112 – Template Syllabus at this link.

Conventional Humanities 3112 – Template Syllabus at this link.

Narrative Comparing Hybrid and Conventional Editions at this link.

Letter of Collaboration from CREAD at this link.

Online Course Content: Nine One-Hour Lectures on Early Modern and Modern History at this link.

Enjoy!

A Final Comment–Let’s Stop Discrimination against Bisexual People

This process started three years ago.   I believe it took so long to get this approval because my department and university are aware of my bisexual orientation (from my research) but not aware of how bisexual people are discriminated in the workplace.  So inadvertently they treated me differently from non-bisexual people.

An article I published in BiTopia (2011) indicates very clearly how bisexual people are typically treated in the workplace.  This type of discrimination is very different from that experienced by most monosexual people, for example, gays and lesbians, who are often oblivious to it, if not inadvertently complicitous.

In most workplaces where awareness of this kind of discrimination is not present, bisexual people are typically considered both “unpromotable” and “unreliable” because they are interpreted as people in-transition, confused, and unstable.  No matter how inconsistent that interpretation may be with reality, bisexual people are discriminated accordingly.  Bisexual people are the largest group in the LGBT spectrum.  We are a large group made to suffer in silence a lot.

I wish this kind of discrimination to stop, for all those it might affect, including myself.  Therefore I am making this article accessible in its pdf form here.

The research was conducted by Heidi Bruins Greens, Nicholas Payne, and Jamison Green.  Blessings to their efforts!

If you’re not aware of discrimination patterns against bisexual people, here’s a great opportunity to educate yourself.

Thank you.

Enjoy!

Revised August 22, 2016