Two Places At Once: Inquiry-Based Learning In A Hybrid Course

Abstract

Location: Dewberry Hall

Drawing from both personal experience and research, this poster will exhibit how inquiry-based learning in hybrid spaces can be a particularly good fit. A graduate, hybrid course, Teaching Hidden History, will be used as a case study. My colleagues and I at the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media here at Mason developed this course in 2015. It was taught in the summer of 2015 and then again in 2016 and since then we have conducted numerous student interviews to gain insights into the students' learning processes. Students in the course each created an online learning module designed to teach history and historical inquiry skills. The course was taught over 9 weeks with the first 5 weeks conducted in person. During this time students chose their module topics, learned research skills, digital skills, and read scholarship on using digital methods to teach history. In the second iteration of the course material related to explicitly teaching collaboration was added. The next 3 weeks of the course were online and asynchronous. Students did not work in isolation, however. They collaborated with each other in assigned collaborative groups in the first iteration and in collaborative partnerships in the second iteration. They also met with professors either in person or virtually. From interviews it was clear that careful scaffolding and supported collaboration were key to successful projects. The poster will share student testimony and provide project examples.