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Week 2, Assignment 2: https://courses.edx.org/courses/MITx/11.132x/3T2014/

Does the pitch clearly state the topic to be covered?

What is the ideal society?
And, how would you build it if you had the chance?

The students will be challenged to build their own civilization in the first part of the course using Sid Meier's game, Civilization. In the second part of the course the class will transition to "Reacting to the Past," a role-playing game which recreates the threshold of democracy in Athens in 403 B.C.

Humanities classes focus on learning about cultures but why not provide students with the means to try and build one themselves? What is ideal way to govern? Should leaders control the people? Should the people do anything they want? How do you balance social vs. individual needs? Can your civilization survive? Can it thrive? How will you mediate conflicts within your civilization?

Democracy is one of the options to govern in Civilization and students will experience first-hand its drawbacks and its advantages. They will have to decide if it works or not in practice. As stated by Winston Churchill:

"Many forms of Gov­ern­ment have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pre­tends that democ­racy is per­fect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democ­racy is the worst form of Gov­ern­ment except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time."
(House of Com­mons, 11 Novem­ber 1947, http://richardlangworth.com/worst-form-of-government)

The challenge for students is to understand how democracy actually works out in practice. The game will allow them to consider the topic of governing a population and teaching civilization and democracy so that students understand history and the need to balance individual vs. social needs.

Does the pitch describe the setting and/or who the learners are?

The setting is a for-profit University where learners are working adults in night classes. The challenge is to use technology in an engaging way for students who do not need abstract ideas but need to see the practical challenges of building a civilization, testing whether democracy is the best form of government, and how to reconcile competing needs and priorities. It is important in that it cuts to the heart of issues besetting the American Republic today.

How well does the pitch explain why this area is challenging? How strong is the evidence provided?

This is a challenging area since students are working all day, have families, and many other adult responsibilities. It is difficult to convey the humanities material without directly involving them and providing a vehicle for them to learn. Many of our students have attended college previously and it did not work for them. Nonetheless, the mission of the University is to make high quality post-secondary education accessible to adults of diverse backgrounds and is organized around three primary goals: Educational Access, Academic Quality, and Student Success. In our University, we have to be conscious of how traditional androgyny does not always motivate our first-generation college students. Also, we also have a certain percentage of active duty military students or retired military who would find the gaming aspect, and the role-playing course work more involving. The curriculum must be innovative, relevant, and engaging for students. The University is investing in enhancing teaching and learning with technology. New technologies are integrated to enhance student learning, student engagement, and relevancy to the workplace.

What other insights, if any, can you provide that would help your classmate refine or develop their focus?

I will provide a brief description of how I plan to address the learning challenge. As I understand it, that is the next step of the process. Classes meet for four hours in the evening between 6 - 10 pm. Most of the students have put in a full day of work already before attending class and have numerous other adult responsibilities. Thus, the classes need to be dynamic, and engaging. I can schedule classes in a computer Lab thus the proposal is realistic and should work well on campus.

As described, my pitch has included a brief, concrete description of a situation in which learning is challenging for a number of reasons: full-time working adults, active military, or ex-military adjusting to civilian life, coupled with lengthy 4-hour session classes which can be held in a computer lab. The nature of the content is difficult enough in traditional short session classes, and often students do not obtain actual experience in building a civilization but they just read about it. In my case, I have taught in a wide variety of settings, K-12, traditional college age students, weekend college students, and at my present position which leads me to conclude that this project will go over well.

Relevant Academic literature, news articles, etc., will be listed

COURSE DESCRIPTION/PRINCIPAL TOPICS
This course introduces students to the idea of civilization from its origins in the late Bronze Age to the Renaissance with special focus on Athenian democracy. The course will be introduced with Civilization, a gaming accessory to illustrate the issues of balancing governance, social demands, defense, and a myriad of issues brought on with organizing a society. Thereafter, the class will transition to “Reacting to the Past,” a role-­playing game to enable students to relive important intellectual debates in a specific historical moment. With The Threshold of Democracy: Athens in 403 B.C., students will draw on Plato’s Republic as well as on excerpts from Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War, and other contemporary sources to debate the Reconciliation Agreement between Athens and Sparta after nearly three decades of war (431-­404 BC). Topics may include: Homeric poetry; Greek religion; from Dark Age to city-­state, 900-­600 B.C.; Herodotus and the Persian Wars (490–479 B.C.); Freedom and imperialism: the Athenian Empire; Athenian democracy and society; Attic drama; Thucydides and the Peloponnesian War (431–404 B.C.); Radical ideas and radical reactions; Socrates and Plato. By examining democracy at its threshold, the game provides the perspective to consider its subsequent evolution.

STUDENT LEARNING OUTCOMES
Students will:
1. Explain how key social, cultural, and artistic contributions contribute to historical changes.
2. Explain the importance of situating a society’s cultural and artistic expressions within a historical context.
3. Identify major historical developments in world cultures during the eras of antiquity to the Renaissance.
4. Identify and describe key artistic styles in the visual arts of world cultures during the eras of antiquity to the Renaissance.
5. Identify and describe key literary works, styles, and writers from world cultures during the eras of antiquity to the Renaissance.
6. Explore the presence of cultural parallels between the world’s cultures.
7. Examine the influences of intellectual, religious, political, and socio-economic forces on social, cultural, and artistic expressions.
8. Use technology and information resources to research issues in the study of world cultures.
9. Write clearly and concisely about world cultures using proper writing mechanics.
10.  Demonstrate their knowledge of basic literary, philosophical, social, and cultural developments that affect the interpretation of texts, artifacts, and historical events.
11. Develop strategies on how to read and/or interpret literary texts and artifacts from the ancient world, such as art objects, material remains, monuments, inscriptions, and so on.
12. Appraise information in primary sources so as to appreciate the values of the ancient Greek culture.
13. Distinguish the different theoretical approaches in evaluating primary sources from the ancient Greek world.
14. Create and Role - play a character based on primary sources, representing key positions, as outlined in the Student Reader.
15. Engage in debate through improvisation and composition of consistent, historically accurate and carefully argued speeches.

Master List assignment

Civilization is a game created in the 1990s by Sid Meier. There is an article on Wikipedia but fans have created sites as well.

Assignment 2.2: The Problem Pitch

INTRODUCTION

This assignment is the first in a series that will result in your course-long project. At the end of the course you’ll have a “product pitch” for a well-designed and pedagogically-sound educational technology. The first step, what you’ll do in this assignment, is to identify the problem you would like your project to address. From there, you’ll go about incorporating all the elements of a good learning tool, resulting in your final pitch.

WHAT TO DO

To start, identify a learning challenge - something that’s hard to teach or hard to learn, and which might benefit from additional resources and alternate approaches. You should have some experience or source that can back up your assertion that there is a need there. In ed tech, we always try to start with the problem and figure out what technology or design would best address the need.
For example, you might choose high school biology if you have been reading about the lack of students interested in STEM careers. Or even better, you might get more specific and choose the topic of DNA replication if you have a teacher friend who has told you about where and how students struggle with those concepts.

Next, craft it into a “problem pitch”  which describes the topic and setting, who the learners are, why it’s so challenging, and why it’s important. The pitch should include a brief, concrete description of a situation in which learning is challenging for any number of reasons. Articulate the reasons as best you can. Is it hard because of the nature of the content, the context in which it’s taught, or common misconceptions? Add credibility by grounding your assertions in some evidence, which could include personal experience, observations of your own learning, your classroom, relevant academic literature, news articles, etc.

Your pitch is focused on the initial idea and by nature probably doesn’t have any fancy visuals. So this assignment will most likely consist of less than a page of text, perhaps with a few links to support your points.

FEEDBACK CRITERIA

Although there is no need for a formal rubric in this assignment, these are the areas you should evaluate and respond to for each problem pitch you review:

• Does the pitch clearly state the topic to be covered?
• Does the pitch describe the setting and/or who the learners are?
• How well does the pitch explain why this area is challenging? How strong is the evidence provided?
• What other insights, if any, can you provide that would help your classmate refine or develop their focus?

Please note that for this assignment, there may or may not be a description of how the designer plans to address the learning challenge. That is the next step of the process so if it’s mentioned here that’s fine, but if not that’s fine too as next week’s assignment will move on to that step.

DUE DATE

Technically the only due date is to submit this assignment by the end of the course. However, to get the benefit of peer feedback, we stronly suggest you submit it by the end of Week 2: October 28th. After that time the majority of course participants will be moving on to Week 3 work and won't be focused on this specific topic.

DELIVERY FORMAT

In week 1 you turned in your assignment through the Peer Review tool. This week you will still get feedback from your peers, but in a less formal way. Each of you will post your pitch to the forums where it will hopefully generate some discussion. Once you post your pitch, please read through at least 3 other students’ pitches and comment on them. This way if people are drawn to topics they have experience with, the person writing the pitch can benefit from that expertise and use their classmates as a resource as they develop their idea.


What is Learning?

Activity Break: Learn to Juggle

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DHS Report States Terrorists Roam USA

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