We don't have a teaching-themed weekly post (right?), so I suppose this is best here: I tried a "flipped" classroom yesterday, with practically no lecture. It was wild, and not unlike waiting tables; you have to constantly circulate the room, checking on the students. I had about 35 students in eight groups, and each group had quite specific instructions for what information to locate, what questions to ask, what things to read, etc. I'd go over these instructions with one group, and they'd assure me that they understood what they were doing. Ten minutes later, it's "Sorry, we're confused. What did you want us to do again?"

That said, it basically worked. These students were able to assemble a narrative about the Big Bang, human evolution, and pre-history from the bottom up. They now all have a substantial collection of curated documents and artifacts which allowed them considerable room for interpretation in a few areas but also laid out what I think is an acceptable meta-narrative. And, best of all, since they've done it themselves and they all have these sources, they're now fully responsible for them.

Sure, some students were dicking around on facebook or sleeping, and some parts didn't work especially well, but that's not really any different from a lecture. I have a lot of work to do, but I think it was a really positive step toward a more effective teaching strategy for me.

Two items:

First: This would have been more fitting in yesterday's thread, but I didn't know about it then.

An old internet pal of mine from back in my blogging days has finally had his new book published by the University of Pennsylvania Press. In The People's Network, Rob MacDougall describes the rise of the independent telephone system in Canada and the United States and what role this played in the political economy of the Gilded Age. I'd never even heard of the independent system at all, so I'm keen to see what's going on with it.

Second: Just finished a guest lecture this morning in a colleague's survey course in 20th C. British Literature -- I feel like 8:30AM is asking a bit much of anyone, but my school is run by sadists. Still, the lecture was a success in spite of the time constraints, and those present seemed duly interested in the response of Britain's literary establishment to the declaration of war in 1914. They laughed at the funny anecdotes and murmured at the dismaying ones, so that's all to the good.

We all know historical accuracy is important in history books, but what about those which are intentionally biased, like Churchill's The Second World War? Are there any biased historical accounts in your specialty that you would still recommend?

Another week, another controversy with Elsevier. They do not, to my knowledge, handle journals outside of the sciences, but I understand there are similar frustration in the humanities. I'm curious what the take of those who have extensive publishing experience is?

Not having such experience, I can see both the advantage of the "gatekeeper" approach, and the frustrations. One thing that is already starting to bother me is the tremendous slowness of the review and commentary process--I have read several books published within the last couple years that directly deal with my study and yet have few if any formal responses. I'm sure most people here are already pretty jaded to that but, well, I guess I'm not yet.

I had my exam introduction to historical theory today and one of the questions was: How did the idea of postmodernism in art, literature and philosophy influence the way we (historians) think about history. I couldn't quite answer this question and after reading the notes I took in college I still don't get it. Macfie was also mentioned I think. Can someone give me a short explanation?

-Excuse me if I made some mistakes in my grammar etc. Not an English native-speaker. Also I don't know if this is the right place to post this question. If it isn't ignore/delete it.