Lesson Cycle

Lesson: Explanation and Interpretation in Archaeology.

This lesson was developed as an hybrid lesson that is composed of a physical and a digital component. The idea is to intersect these two components such that student engagement in class can benefit their performance through digital learning. Furthermore, the digital component was developed to promote a collaborative learning environment, which seeks to promote better communication among the students and between student and instructor.

In this section you can also find the complete outline of the lesson, the handouts to be given to the students, readings, and examples of assessments and evaluations used inside and outside the classroom.

This lesson cycle has been implemented - you can watch it here. I also had the opportunity of observing myself applying this lesson, and to be evaluated by my peers. This opportunity allowed me to develop important modifications and to improve my teaching delivery method. You can check more details about this lesson cycle evaluation in the Supporting Material section. 

Class Structure

Course: Undergraduate (Q) course, Introduction to Anthropology

Class size: 60 students 

Duration

Physical class: 50 minutes; in an auditorium for 60 students, in which students can move the chairs and form groups of three. 

Digital Learning: Student engagement might take 4-5 hours in total; All activities will be submitted using Google Docs and BlackBoard Learn tools. 

Section: Third week of the Archaeology module. The digital component will serve as the final assignment for the archaeology module. The content will recapitulate some topics previously covered in Cultural Anthropology.

Equipment needed: Computer, projector and white screen, printer (to prepare the material that will be handled to students), a set of historical pictures, a video related to the set of photographs, and speakers connected to the computer.

Description

Rationale: This lesson was developed to cover the topic of explanation and interpretation in archaeology. The lesson will include short lectures during the class alternated with hands-on activities. 

Pictures are artistic expressions of the human record, used by modern people to register their life-style, important historical and cultural events, and social activities. Thus pictures are an interesting source of information to characterize the cultural, biological, historical, and even psychological aspects of the elements in the picture, as well as of the photographer her/himself. Historical Archaeology uses photo records to determine patterns of migration of people and landscape modification and usage. Photographs can help to interpret objects recovered during excavations, and provide the students with a perspective that is different from that provided by excavation alone.

Anticipatory set: The students will have been previously introduced to the field of Anthropology (e.g., methods, overview of the history of the discipline, types of archaeological data) and will therefore have acquired more detailed knowledge about specific topics in the field (e.g., ideology, symbolism and cognitive approaches, past environments). 

Materials: Computer, Power Point presentation with short written information (key words and concept definitions, instructions for assessments in the classroom), pictures projected for discussions in class, printed news articles to be distributed in class, video.

Goals: Students will have the opportunity to learn about applied methods and techniques for the explanation and interpretation of archaeological data in a historical context; understand the limitations of the archaeological record, interpret the archaeological record accounting for the presence, as well as the absence, of records; and accounting for external sources of information. 

Objectives: Apply the concepts learned in class, by recognizing that photographs represent a primary source of information that can be used for interpretation and comparative purposes in Archaeology. Students will prepare a methodological protocol to standardize data gathering and to investigate, examine, and interpret available information in photographs. Students will prepare a journal to keep record of their interpretation process, submit a report detailing their examination and interpretation of photographs, share their work with other students, and engage in peer-review.

Type of activities

Physical class: The activity will unfold in the classroom as I present new information to the students over the course of the class. This information will come from different sources and consist of different media types (e.g., movies, real footage, projected photographs, printed material, and real-time digital collaborative editing). In the classroom, the students will engage in problem-based learning, discussion in small groups (three students), and discussion with the class as a whole.

Digital portion of the lesson: The digital component of this lesson has three parts: Collaborative assignment, individual problem-based assignment, and peer-review. These activities will make use of the following digital resources:

• 1. Production of a collaborative document (such as a Google Docs document): A collaborative document will serve as a protocol and general guide that the entire class must follow to produce their individual final project (a blog; see below). Individual collaboration to the organization and editing of this document will result in extra credit;

  2. An online journal: The journal will be a space for students to share their learning process individually and directly with the teacher. Students will describe how their interpretation of individual photographs was constructed and changed during the activities and discussions that happen in the classroom. 

  3. The Blog: This blog will be open to all students, through which they will be able to read and share their points of view, compliments, and criticisms. If one student comments in another blog in a way that contributes to the first's analysis, and if the first decides to incorporate these suggestions to the blog, both students are rewarded with extra credit.

Assessment

Physically: Participation in the discussion and the completion of the handout distributed in class, which is a first draft of their journal. This outline must be scanned and attached to the journal assignment when submitted on Canvas. Participation in the editing of the collaborative documents will be used as a measure of student engagement during the physical class, which will render extra credit.

Digitally: The journal will be graded based on the quality and detail of each step related to their interpretation process, as well as on the structure and organization of the submitted journal. The Blog, which will represent and student's final project, will serve as a measure of engagement, of how much was retained about the topics covered in class, and an student's capacity to critically analyse the material. The blog will be evaluated based on the description of the material, on whether the student followed the protocol generated through the collaborative document (guide), on the quality of the analysis provided, and on the “invitation post”, which should be a concise overview of their blog post.