DISCUSSION OF MATRIX PROJECT
(Downstairs Discussion on entire project)
Vin Steponaitis: I don't know if this is the time, but one thing that I would really find useful. It's just a sense from you that how you see things playing out forward. You've asked us to comment or make suggestions, but the way this whole thing developed is the very, very beginning we presented with a sort of rigid model in some ways that various people raised questions about. And, then the model got reformulated, but I'm not sure that we every fully sort of got the reformulation all filled out and maybe it hasn't been reformulated. So, just a kind of summary of how you see things going maybe that would be a way of opening up the discussion.
Ann Pyburne: George and I wrote a grant proposal that had a very loose plan it. As far as I'm concerned, this is exactly the plan that we started out with. At one point, George's experience in the world, in many ways more appropriate than mine, caused him to want to be very direct and explicit and he did a whole bunch of things that I didn't' think would work. And, we disagreed about that and I went to Belize. When I came back, in spite of my feelings about it, he had asked that we do all of those things and that people hadn't been extremely unhappy about that. But, that he had also then communicated with people and we thought those things again and people were back on board again. My perspective is that the appropriate framework from us and now it's going from me to you, is what was originally spelled out in the grant proposal, which I hope you have all seen. It is itself not rigid. It's a very basic, loose framework from which you can go pretty much in any direction you want. The things that I think that if you want to change them, we need some broad consensus and we need to substitute something else are things, for example the three year time frame, which we're pretty much locked into by the grant proposal and the Society for American Archaeology.
So, the proposal was that sometime between the time that you teach the first course, which is supposed to be next semester, which is soon, but that's because we wanted have the meeting in November instead of sooner. The first course is supposed to be next semester. It's sometime between the time that first course is taught and the second course is taught in the following year. The first set of courses is supposed to go on the web. They're supposed to go up on the web in as complete as a form as is feasible, as is deemed possible and appropriate and they are supposed to include some amount of evaluation to be determined by us in consolation with professional evaluators, which point we will then go on to do this again for the second set of courses. Now, you the course designers, also, signed on to keeping your courses updated for I believe a period of three years, which means, I hope, that you will teach these courses a second time and you will come back to what's on the web and you will say, "this thing that I did this first time seemed wrong to me and the feed back I got from my students suggested another possibility." Because we want to keep a bulletin response from the discipline engaged with these course, " I see that the people at New Mexico State who used this gender segment in their class on Native American Architecture have problems with the blah blah project, therefore, I have redesigned it in this way." So, I hope that that will happen during the subsequent three years of the time down the road. So, I don't see that what's going on the web, within the first year of the first set of classes. I don't see that as being a finished product, I see that as us taking the conversation among us to the next level or the conversation of the discipline. I also don't see the courses that we put on the web and that we keep up to date for three years after they go on the web as some kind of solid in point, solidified, fossilized thing that's going to be what's taught in archaeology everywhere forever.
I see it as a kind of a, hopefully, as us creating a fresh hold for the discipline, some encouragement, some support . . . little bit of black mail mostly coming from the stature of you who are involved in this, to pay attention, to do a little more, a little different. The reason I said let's keep them upgraded for three years more or less, because by that time I hope that we will have done what needed to be done with this project. I don't see a group of people as greater than curriculum for archaeology for the world, forever. There's just some upgrading and some help that people need because I think that Allison is right. I think we have a paradigm shift going on here and I think that those of us who are in it up to our eye balls, but we might have an opportunity to help a little bit and this is a chance to do it.
Q: We're going to meet again next fall, right?
Are we? I think that would be a good idea. I don't know if we might the need the time as well.
R: I thought that I heard at the last meeting that we were going to have sort of instructions to class planners this time and then there was some ambiguity about, I mean there was going to be a fall meeting and there was ambiguity about whether we were going to have more input from sourced or whether we could use that meeting to maybe talk among ourselves and evaluate each other's courses and what we had done.
I was hoping that people would have more ideas about that, but it also seemed reasonable to me that you wouldn't know what you wanted to do next until you figured what was happening here. So, I'm hoping that people are going to draw some conclusions about what they need from what we've got here and that people will tell me, individually or as a group, I mean course designers in particular, that you feel that you need more time with Ed Neal, more time with Jean or just to do this all again or time with the course designers, maybe two days with the course designers and one day with Ed Neal. If you say, "Tell us what to do Ann" I guess I will. But, then I'll end up because I would do the same if you designed it for me spending all my time with you resisting the structure I provided and that's based for all us. If I knew what I wanted you to do, I wouldn't need you.
R: My feeling right now is that the feedback that the courses we designed year would be helpful both in redesigning, making them better before we put them up or after we put them up. And, also designing the second portion, we would know more what was good and was bad.
Q: I guess the question from whom would we look. That's the kind of pragmatics because there is this interesting issue of, and I was sort of feeling this when I was preparing these things, you could do this or this and I'm not on the front lines on this. It's real cheap in essence to say, "You should do this and this and go do it." So, it could be either the people who then presented could then give us some feedback of their ideas. It could be substantive experts, like I'm doing this course that I'm sort of more off my expertise than most people are, but you know it would be nice to have some historical archaeologists telling me the basic reading that I missed in my course. Or other course designers. I can basically see resources with course designers.
There is one piece of information that is related and I think I need to point out. I just found out that Indiana University, for example, if you try a new teaching technique and you use your student evaluations and performance to evaluate that technique and then you wish to make the results of that public that makes your students human subjects and you have to have their permission. So, you might want to take that into account when you're thinking about evaluations that are going to go up on the web. We could conceivably ask Lyon Gardner to come visit your class or we could ask Jean to come and spend a couple of days helping one of you design your web course or we could maybe get Rosemary to work with you directly on some aspect of hypertext. These are all possible
R: It would be nice to do just some basics though and understand that your role is first of all to you're going to maintain the website where all of this stuff is posted.
We're going to maintain it, but it's going to be connected to the SAA and it belongs to the SAA. It doesn't belong to IU. It's an SAA.
R: What I was expecting, or at least hoping, is that the syllabus I sent way back when it was due somebody or all the people presenting would look at it and say, "well this thing isn't bad, but boy this has to go. This idea of giving lectures or whatever." The first draft had been evaluated so we could already start implementing. And, of course I'm already cheated now having heard it.
I think most people didn't expect that and I didn't expect that. Because what I said to everybody explicitly was if you want to send a draft syllabus that's fine, but the point of this meeting is for you to design a syllabus. So, if you put a lot of work in it going in, it's going to be either frustrating to you or useless to you to go through what's going to happen now. And, that's why George was frustrated that people wanted to meet now instead of October because he felt you would need more time to do that after you had this. I said they're academics, they're used to putting things together in a couple of weeks. We don't have more than that.
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Bill? Dean?: If these are put up on the web, I presume they're at least going to be in the member section of the SAA website, and I think I would prefer that we not put it in a place where, I think Rosemary was alluding to this, where everybody–7,000 people taking potshots at these syllabi, not an attractive thought.
AP: Well they're not taking potshots at the syllabi. The syllabi are on the MATRIX webpage already. The MATRIX webpage has the syllabi that were sent posted–as long as we got early enough, they're posted already. And they're just from people in this room, but the stuff that's going to be on the web that's available to the discipline, it's going to be available to the discipline.
RJ: That's the final product.
AP: That's the final product.
DS: But in the meantime it'll just be MATRIX, Right?
AP: Right. When you get the finished thing ready to go up on the web, that's different. That will include a whole lot more than just a syllabus.
DS: I was thinking about down the road, how these things can or should continue to evolve, and whether there's going to be some giant democratic process here by which the whole membership of the SAA chips into the whole discussion of how Skip's offering for North American Archaeology gets edited and revised over time. It's an interesting problem?
AP: I don't understand what you're saying.
??: This is not about, they can pick and choose. It's not for everyone to decide, this is the model syllabus for–
DS: Right, but it is a model.
AP: Right, only Skip is going to be able to redo his syllabus. I mean we will encourage him to upgrade after he teaches it again, but what I visualize is that there would be place for people to make comments, "I tried this and it worked really well." Or "When I tried this I felt it needed this so I did this." It's not that they can log in and change it.
DS: How many years worth of this are we going to be responsible for? I mean I'm just thinking about it, how this plays out over the next decade.
AP: Well I said you're responsible for, I mean in your contract, three years. So, I mean you upgrade it probably after you teach it a 2nd time, you upgrade it again, unless you feel like the comments on the web are so valid that you want to take them into account. I mean you can ignore them if you want to, I mean I personally wouldn't be able to resist reading them, but no, as I said, this is not some kind of solidified fossil thing or permanent responsibility for the people in this room. It's an attempt to help the paradigm change that's under way [and] go positively and incorporate scholarship of teaching and learning.
Bill Lipe: Well I just wanted to make a comment on a different subject, or a different take on it. It seems to me our basic products are the courses we're designing, that's the . . . of the grant is the subjects . . . to produce these courses, so that's what we're shooting for. There may be a possibility of getting some of the material that was generated for this meeting out, which I think would be helpful, but that's kind of a unanticipated, that's probably not in the grant.
AP: No it is, that's why we're doing these recordings, we're recording everything you say, even right now everything you say is being recorded, and I have three graduate students who are hired, they're sitting in to hear what we say so that it will be easier for them to transcribe every word, then you will get a copy of the text of everything we said, and the opportunity to edit what you said in any way you wish. At that point we can vote on it, but I propose that we put that on the web for people to read.
BL: On what site?
AP: Well I propose that we definitely put it on our MATRIX website, it's a question whether or not you want to attach it to the SAA curriculum and development website, that's your choice.
BL: . . . My experience with transcripts like that is they're not terribly useful, some of things that are useful would be particular articles, something you've seen on a particular presentation that were made available for professional articles. But my main point was that our primary product is these redesigned courses, and they'll be out there for everybody to use as they see fit. It seems to me is that we need to get started on the process of developing those courses, and one way to do it would be to take our draft syllabi that we have now and circulate them to each other for some comments.
AP: They're one the web. You can comment on them. They're on the web; they're on the bulletin board, they're ready to be commented on. That's what we'd hoped would happen. You can print them out.
BL: Well I guess getting them all up there and having a process with some timelines for getting comments back, just some guidelines, maybe that's the direction that I was going. What are the guidelines for we course designers getting feedback, at least from each other on these.
RJ: Well, not wanting to speak for all the non-course designers, but I think since the course designers know what they–what your time frame is, that as a person who might review these things and give you feedback that you need to tell–you can go ahead and tell me when that would be useful back. That's the most direct way that I can see to set that kind of timeline is for course designers to say, "Okay, this is when we need you all to take a look at this stuff." And then, to the extent that any of us can do that, but I think that goes back to the somebody might not be able to, but those that can . . .
BL: That's a good point, you know what I'd like to do is go back work with Bill ??? my colleague to put out a somewhat different draft, and then get some feed back . . .
AP: But feel free to specify, feel free to say, "We would like for Ed and Neal to look at this by November the 25th and answer these questions."
BL: So this really is initiated by the individual course designers rather than being a group kind of process.
AP: I think both, because I think to some extent it would be, still important for you to agree about some division of labor, and some division of tools. Because I think it would be great if one of you incorporated a fair amount web design for students in your course, but I don't think it's necessary for you all to do that. I think that Vin's video is great, but it would be a shame if all the courses designed used Vin's video so I think that some collaboration on the content and the methods, the teaching methods and also the coverage of the principles.
IUPUI: What I was envisioning after these meetings, going back as course designer and taking the information that we received from people, and the guidance, and all the stuff that we've been talking about among ourselves and used that to help us design our course, not just a syllabus, but basically all the activities we want to do, everything we want to be doing. Take that and test it. I look at the Spring as a test, and then personally I think it would be helpful to come back after we've done that test and have a meeting where we can say from our own perspective what worked and what didn't work, have people reviewing what we have. It has to be more than a syllabus, unless it's like Skip's which is 26 pages, then it's not really fine. But, I'd have others look at what we said we were going to do, and at that point I think it's a good way for us to get a feel for what works as a first product, what doesn't work. We can do the revision of that, but have that information after designing the second one.
AP: That's exactly the way the grant was originally written, the only question now is, do you need something in between . . . between now and that.
IUPUI: This is what we need. My view is that this it what we needed. We needed to have this meeting. I would have liked it earlier, but at this point I can go back because we've all taught these classes before. These aren't new classes, what we're doing is trying to infuse these principles into the classes, and it's how do we infuse those principles. And that's really what I think is critical for us, to be thinking about those set of principles, which ones are going to be infused and how are we going to do that. I don't need another meeting between now and the time when I'm going to be ready to teach it, but I do need a meeting soon after I teach it for assessment so I can see what worked, what didn't. I couldn't figure out a way to get this principle . . . I think it belongs and maybe somebody has some ideas.
AP: And you should be able to get at least conversation on the web, or the phone, or email with us as you go along about ideas and questions that you have and queries or suggestions from all the group in general, or from specific people. But I have to confess that in some ways I've thrown a curve in here because besides introducing the specialists who have stuff about the principles to talk to you about, I introduced some people who are offering some new teaching tools to you. And that, well it's really not a curve because we would not have gotten this grant from the National Science Foundation if experts on teaching and evaluation had not been involved and included in it because that kind of assessment is what they're most interested promoting.
Dark haired: I have to ask about the second class because we need to do those schedules fast also, at least my department. And we are presumed only to be teaching the 2nd class that we designed that one time in the scenario? In other words, we teach our first class that we designed this Spring, then we teach the second one the following Spring, and one of those two the next Spring. Is that the general understanding? So in other words, one class gets more tested than the other, unless we do both classes.
AP: Well if you're responsible for keeping the web updated for three years, you have time, I think, to teach both classes twice and get the feed back incorporated into the web.
DHL: The reason I ask is, the potential second class. Here's a scenario, I don't know, if it would apply to anyone else. But my potential second class is going to be South American archaeology, which would be great, it would be fun. But, I'm not a South Americanist. I do that as a service course for my department, and if and I'd love to get feedback from, geez I don't care, the whole SAAs! But it's a little scary to think about that since it isn't my specialty area, and then the other thing is. Yes, we have been talking about the learning all these tools and stuff, which is really exciting, but we haven't really said much about those 7 principles and this whole thing started by being a public archaeology . . . they were about public archaeology and that we were not infusing enough about the majority of archaeology that gets done out there these days, which is not in academia, and really infusing those 7 principles is content change.
AP: Well that's what the first day was about, and what the 3rd day will be about so we haven't had the sessions yet, but indeed the middle day is about methods and the sandwich days were about content. If I had let Ed and Trudy have their way, they would have not bothered with content. But I said, "No, no you can have the middle, but you can't have . . ."
DHL: . . . I loved that, don't get me wrong–
AP: And I think it's useful and wonderful, but yes, the content as I've said many times is, the change of content is really the thrust here. That to me is the most important, but if you change the content and don't improve the delivery, it may not help as much as we'd hoped. Going back to your first question, I can't really answer you. I will tell you that on the one hand, it's the structure of the course and the method of teaching and the inclusion of the 7 principles that is what we ask from you. We did not pick you because of your expertise as a South Americanist. If you are uncomfortable going public with that expertise, then I guess maybe you should pick another course because we're paying you approximately $20,000 plus all these trips and wonderful food to do 2 courses. So if that's not the one you feel the most competent to do, even if you are supposed to do for your University, you might need to pick another one. One the other hand, I'm quite sure that if you sent an e-mail to Geoff Conrad, who's curator of the Mathers Museum. (He would have been there last night but he's traveling.) And you said, "Hey I'm one of the MATRIX project curriculum developers, one of that small number of elite people, and I'm working on a premier course on South American archaeology. Here's my reading list, what do you think?" He'd be delighted to be acknowledged as someone who had input in your product. . . . I think anything we do like that that shows broad cooperation in the field in what we produce is a great idea and is likely to enhance the receptivity of our colleagues.
IUPUI: Is there a process already established for adding in topics for these second courses being taught?
AP: Nope, again it would be a mistake for me to set that up. You guys have to set that up.
IUPUI: But given that this is product of this whole committee on education, this idea that has a range of courses that ultimately will be covered within this.
AP: No, the range of topics that will be covered within the courses, the 7 principles, that's what we produce.
RJ: There's no prescription in the grant for the content of the courses, even as a sweep. The grant is about making sure the principles are at different levels and different kinds of teaching settings in 12 different courses ultimately.
AP: Pretty much in every single course.
VS: I guess I want to clarify one thing I said, and just make a couple of suggestions that fall from all the good points that people have raised. I guess the question that I started with this afternoon, I used the wrong word. I said that the first model that was proposed was rigid, and I think that I conveyed the wrong impression because I don't think that the resistance was to the fact that there was sort of a clear model, the resistance was to the fact that the model that was presented at that point was so different from the model that had been presented earlier on, so I guess speaking on behalf of myself, sort of MATRIX central should not be too hesitant to sort of structure it and make suggestions, and you're very, very open to feedback and so forth, which is great, but we sort of are going to rely on MATRIX central to sort of establish the timeline, give us reminders. I think Rosemary's already sort of taking minutes on the board, but none of us are taking notes . . . I can speak for many of us, we're not going to reading the transcripts when they get on the Web, I mean it just takes too long. Somebody should send us a timeline, and say, "Does this look okay to you." . . . that kind of stuff.
AP: Okay . . . many times I've sent you timelines or how many times I've sent you e-mail asking you some just basic, small amounts of information. . . . I'm the same as you whenever I'm in this situation I'm, "Oh I don't have to do that yet, I'll do it tomorrow." And . . . I do resist being made into a clerical slave, I don't want to have to remind you every two days that you still have not signed your contract. It seems to me that if those guidelines come from me, the automatic result is that every single one of you has some particular reason why they don't quite work. This is why I'm determined that those are going to come from you, as soon as you come up with something about how you want to structure yourselves, I will do everything I can to help you enforce it.
RJ: Okay, I think this might be actually a point at which I would like to, the reason that I started writing on the board is it seems to me that I'm hearing two different things. One I think is just an aside, which is the past is past and it does us no good to go back over the uncertainties. I think everybody would say that the normal process happened which is many fine communications came and peoples responses were variable because of the real world. And you get all these wonderful people here and a wonderful productive thing is happening, so we don't need to really I think feel too bad about the process up until now, but the process up until now worked because it was just emergent, what's happening now is we've got this very complex set of things. And the 2nd thing I hear Anne saying other than--this is not going to work, this kind of process can not work in the future, which I completely agree with--is that this project will work best if the authorities, who actually are the teaching faculty, who are going to be doing this, help direct which activities are going to be useful in the future. And it's not so much even that you don't want to be clerical slave, although I'm sure that that's actually true, but that it wouldn't be very productive if this weren't, in fact, something we might just say, we all have a buy in, because, to whatever extent that we're involved, because we've looked at where the future is going and said, "Okay, these are the things that I need," which is why I sort of wrote some of these on the board . . . .
We actually have pretty clear sense of some things that could happen and maybe if we as an assembly, somebody said that about one of those teaching things, and I really like that metaphor, even more than ‘Forum' Ruth, the assembly. If we think of it as an assembly, then what we're trying to do is actually sketch out the future of our constitutional government, which a constitutional government can't be dictatorship, which is another thing I think you're trying to say. You are uncomfortable with being a dictator, and you're not comfortable with the alternative a benevolent dictator . . . So, we're here at this . . . workshop and wonderful things are happening, one of the things we know is going to come out of this, is that the course designers that have not yet done the . . . syllabi will look at what they've got and post those things, and I want to stress that website is got to be the sort of central communication device, otherwise we're all going to go insane with the kinds of communications. So it's very important that the bulletin board and the website be where we all centralize those kinds of comments and communications that are specific . . . .
So we're at this wonderful first workshop, and we have a website. And so we have these two things, we have a current complication, but we have a website, which following up on Ruth's thing, I would say we want to treat as our continuing place in hyperspace where this project goes on continuously, not at the specific moments when we can come together. Because I know one of the things everybody is thinking, and so I'll go ahead and say it is, "Gee I would love to come back right away for various sorts things, but Dear god my schedule is so inflexible, maybe next November." And maybe not?! So the website obviates the need for that kind of thing and allows us to continue to all be part of this process to the extent that we are capable of it, or feel like we have something to say. And here I think I can speak for, "What are we anyway?" You all are the course designers, what are the rest of us? [consultants, advisors]
RJ: Advisors, consultant. I like ‘others.' So, you know, ‘the others,' the advisors . . .
AP: We also have evaluators.
RJ: But the evaluators are not in the room right now, right?
AP: But they're another category.
RJ: In terms of this particular conversation, this in not meant to be a prescription for what should happen. This is meant to be a crystallization of things I'm hearing people say with some structure being imposed, yes, and 2 seconds list. The basic idea here is we've got the workshop, which is going to give feedback, including the transcripts and then any transcript groupies can read them entirely, or not. And I think one of the things I think I heard Bill saying is, do we possibly want to think about whether there's other kinds of products after this workshop that we can process. That's a separate, I think that's one of the things that actually a lot of us found a little threatening in the longer list of deliverables, certainly I hadn't thought about writing 20 pages, or 8 pages even on education, and I didn't feel authentic about. I will never feel authentic about writing that. So we've got the website, which is going to get feedback from the workshop, among the feedback from the workshop is communication between us. SO that if there's a specific thing, I'm not a South Americanist per se, I'm a Central Americanist, but I can certainly give feedback on South American materials because I've had the non-luxury of teaching all of Latin America . . . You don't always get to separate those things out.
So, one scenario is, you send a message to the bulletin board saying, "Here's my issue, does anybody feel like they can comment on it." And if you can't it's quite likely that somebody will say, I can't, but Geoff Conrad maybe would talk about it. So use it as a networking device, why not. So then we're going to have these course syllabi, which are the ones that your trying to finalize, and you're all going to be in different points of finalization, which is part of what I was trying to say. For us to set a date, ‘the others' to set a date and say, "The feedback on the syllabi will happen by Nov. 20th." For some of you that will be too late, for some of you that will be too early. It seems to me like the most useful way for this to happen again is for those of you who are trying to design the syllabi want feedback to say, "I need my feedback on syllabi by this date. It doesn't do me any good after that." And then that puts the ball in the court of anybody who, as among ‘the others,' and if you want input from a certain other, ask for it. I'm an adult, if you ask me to something by the dates that you want it by, I'll tell you yes, and then I won't do it, and then I'll feel guilty. So we want feedback to go into the course syllabi, and I showed that there's that 2-way communication, but not necessarily a group communication, and then courses round 1.
AP: Let me just say that one of the reasons that I'm so insistent that the deadlines and the structure come from the course designers is that . . . the web, the syllabi have been there, and no one's looked at them, I think I can say.
RJ: I had deliberately not looked at them because my understanding was that until we came to this workshop, I would be critiquing something you all didn't have any reason to be . . .
AP: Nevertheless, people sent them in saying that they wanted to look at each other's syllabi ahead of time, so we put them up. The web only works if we agree to use it, and I don't think unless you say, "We want this to be a part of our structure, and we want it to be used in this way." It's not going to magically happen. I also think that as much as possible, you can be specific about what help you want from whom, that's much more likely to give you useful responses.
Ruth Tringham: And I think also it would help, since I don't look at MATRIX website everyday, you know I'm not that kind of browser. It would really help if somebody, for example, needed my help immediately, then they would e-mail me as well.
AP: Directly, yeah.
VS: And I would second that. I'm on e-mail all the time, and I use the web to get information, but if I have to go to a bulletin board just to check, I'd just never do it.
AP: My perception is that the bulletin board, the webpage is for the course designers, and if the consultants and the evaluators or the advisors are wanted, if attention is wanted from them, then they need to be contacted directly. Or you can contact me, and I'll contact them or whatever, but it seems to me that the course designers probably do need to do the regular, keep up with what's happening on the web because if somebody says, "Today, gee I've decided to use Vin's video. How many other people are using it?" You guys probably need to have a regular dialogue going on there, but I'm not sure that all the evaluators need to or can be expected to do that.
??: I want a simple mechanical thing now, but would it be possible to get a list of everybody's e-mail.
RJ: Actually, I was going to ask whether we might ask Erin, I don't know what your technology it, not just an e-mail list, but if you could put---
AP: Hot buttons,
RJ: So if I'm not at home and I don't have my list of addresses, I can go to the MATRIX website and click on his name.
IUPUI: Another thing that people can do too is create your own little listserve, create your own listserve. I mean that's what I'm going to do after this is activate my own that will just have all the course designers on is so that if I want feedback, I'll put it up on my website, and I'll send it out to the other course designers . . . Because . . . you know I can put something on the bulletin, and the course designers aren't going to look at it any more than the advisors probably on a regular basis, but we can create our own . . .
Women (white haired?): I just think, first of all it's very hard to see things on the web so a lot of these courses really they're going to have to be printed out and we're going to have to sit down and look at them. And I think it would be nice maybe if we didn't all look at all the courses, you know that seems like a lot of work, and maybe we should have a sign up list and list the courses and then maybe have three people read. . . Or three people will agree to look at each course as a team. And I think that way it would be less overwhelming than to just go to this webpage, you know, there's all these courses floating around. I mean let's have a clear division of labor, with some clear assignments.
RJ: So the basic idea there, it's certainly more efficient and it builds on the teamwork thing, basic idea there would be . . . do you want to actually decide who you'd like to do this exchange with? Or? You course designers . . . would the course designers prefer to set up those kinds of relationships that is . . . and say, I think that would be real useful? Or do you want to randomize selection so that we don't all the . . .
WHitehaired: Well, I mean, for instance, I know that for my course I want Maria Franklin.
RJ: Because of the content . .
WH: But other than that, you know, I have tremendous regard for everybody here.
Francis: Well I would assume though that if, you know, we could still individually get in touch with people.
AP: The evaluators have already divided you up. Each evaluator has divided, has taken a certain number of course designers that they want to be in contact with.
AP: I thought the email addresses were on the website, they may not be, I thought they were.
?: Is there any particular format to the syllabi? [RJ: No . . .] Okay, when I hear syllabi, I think of . . . what was shown today, and that was the very annotative. Here's my question, and I'm not designing a course, that's not my role here, but let's say I want to now, let's say this project has now been completed and it's on the web, and now I want to go look at a course in public archaeology. A syllabus is kind of okay, you can use the bibliography, maybe some topics, but it really doesn't give you much to help you teach that course. What you need are the content, exercises, etc.
RT: I like the other word, manual. I think that would . . .
IUPUI: You see that's what's been confusing to me. I thought we were supposed to, I thought the syllabus was not the goal of this.
AP: It's not, the syllabus was just what you were putting up preliminary–as a point of discussion before you came. No, that's not the goal . . .
WHL: A course design.
AP: Right!
RJ: The syllabi are just documents and basically, I hope everybody is one the same page as I understand it, which is that what this is is a joint effort in creating curriculum resources, not a curriculum either, not a prescriptive this is what you have to learn, curriculum resources that implement those principles. Curriculum resources actually can include syllabi in the sort of traditional sense, or manuals–I like that term as well. It can also include lesson plans, that can include exercises, and it seems to me that the grant was deliberately written in an open-ended fashion to allow us, as an assembly, to define what those resources would be and as a non-course designer, the only useful thing I can see that I can do is to provide potential exercise and things and case studies, which is why . . . all the way back to that morning thing I said, "I'd be willing to write this case study." What I meant was if any of you think it would have earthly interest to you, I'm not going to write it if nobody's going to use it until I teach a course that I can use it in. So, syllabi are mechanism, they're an exercise . . .we're learning. Syllabi are an exercise we're using to learn with, but the end goal is resources for teaching that implement all of these principles.
AP: I was at a loss as to how to get some sense that there was any variety in what people were willing to teach at all. That's why I suggested, give us a syllabus so that we can at least tell that we have 6 somewhat different courses going on here. And I thought by looking at each others that would help you divide up what you're doing into different areas and different trajectories because I couldn't ask you to start with a manual or course plan. I would on the other hand say that a syllabus is not an acceptable product from the grant, and I would be very disappointed if your product didn't include a manual and projects and various kinds of resources of the kind that we talk about. I am expecting that they will be . . .
RJ: Including evaluation tools, I mean ideally at the end of the curriculum project what you get is the syllabus, the reading list, the various kinds of activity, things that were separate, much of the stuff that Ruth gave out was actually from the course we taught, that would be included, the things that you would give a teaching assistant to tell them how to do these things, and then all the things you use to test people. Bill and then Francis I think.
BL: This is really just a housekeeping issue that I'm bringing up so I don't forget it. It would be really helpful if the advisors would each list the readings, and courses, and information that was passed out. I completely lost track of what goes with what particular presentation. I can't speak for anybody else, but my intention when I go back is to send Erin the text that I did with the things that were on it originally and then things that weren't on it originally as my reading list.
AP: Erin has created a syllabus for reading lists.
BL: . . . I made folders for each one [of the advisor's presentations] and I tried to get it all straight, but it no longer is because we got additional stuff and we got stuff that we didn't get reading lists for . .
AP: That stuff is going on the web as soon as possible, but you have to understand that we got some of the reading lists two days ago.
BL: I know, I understand that, it just seems like it would be helpful if we could get that and to help us sort these things out.
RJ: I think what Anne is trying to say is that that is absolutely part of the plan, and so any thing that goes to Erin with the explicit instructions that, ‘this is part of my stuff.' It will get up there . . . . Again, just from the point of you of documenting the project I think it's good if, I know that it adds an extra thing, but if anybody has any documents that we send around to anybody else, to send a copy to Erin, centrally a product of this will be all of the working materials.
AP: So if you lose something, you can say, can you send me a replacement for, and as Toby has pointed out, because we didn't get reading lists quite early enough, we are in violation of various copyright laws at this point, with the packets that you've all been given. If we agreed to get copyright, it would have taken an additional 24 hours . . . so if anybody asks I would appreciate it if you said that you made your own copies of the readings.
. . .
Lynn: Well I would like to bring up . . . and remind us that the point of all this was that there's an enormous population of archaeologists out there, who are not academics and that the whole question was training people to go into those kinds of career paths. And there's also, Joel and I can tell you among the CRM people, there's a real angry sense that they can't get this . . . . So given those things . . . is how can this group, beccause one of the things Joel and I were telling these people who were whining on . . . is SAA has a group that's working at this, you know give them a little time. Somehow I think it's important for this group to communicate to the CRM profession what it is that you're doing and how it is that what you're doing is going to help some of their challenges.
AP: I'd like as much as possible to do that. I don't think it works for academics to tell CRM professionals that we're going to solve their problems. We're not trustworthy, we know it. But whatever we can do to bring in information from CRM community into our course designs and evaluation of those designs would be good for us and for the CRM community so maybe what we need to do is more actively solicit input.
LS: . . . at some point to give the information out to . . . We got this grant, this is what we've, this is how the first couple of years courses were going, this is the kind of skills we're trying to give kids. Just to show them that SAA really is trying to address this major concern, a huge part . . .
AP: We need to put some notes in Newsletters and stuff like that.
LS: Well it happens that I'm the editor of the CRM . . . and the Archaeological Record, so if anyone would like to write up this workshop, or write up the results of the first year of courses.
AP: Would you be willing to do that?
LS: Well I'm not teaching any of the courses.
AP: But you could write up the workshop, or some aspect of it? Or announce it . ..
RJ: Or as simple as saying, this process has begun, this workshop was held, the key thing is over this long span of time these things are going to happen.
Francis: . . . I know that we'd like to get everything hammered out now about whether we're going to overlap or not overlap, but I don't know about the other designers, but I'm realizing now major ways that I want to revamp my course. So I don't know if I'm ready, right after this meeting to be able to say whether I'm going to use this 60 minute clip. So I on the one hand don't mind talking to people what I'm working on, but I'm not ready to say, well this is what I'm going to do.
. . .
Dean Snow: I ran into a Chuck McKale? A year ago in Portugal and asked him about what ???AKRA was doing. Because we'd got assigned to field school at the time and I'm mindful that projects at our field schools have not been, have not tended to have the skills needed by CRM companie, and they're hiring them. He said there was a committee working on this and gave me a name, which I've now forgotten, but I've got it in my notes in the computer. And I haven't heard anything since, so if Bill's going to make any progress on his part of this task, and if I'm going to get a field school latched together yet again this coming summer in a way that at least approaches the needs of the CRM community. I think we need to hear from that committee, and does anybody know if anything has been happening there? Joel or Lynn.
VS: Yeah I have a response to that, and I'm not the CRM community, but what I was going to say when I raised my hand early and this is the appropriate time to say it. You recall that, and maybe all of you all already know this, but the Wicula Springs workshop that spawned the grant proposal that spawned this meeting. There was actually a lot of discussion specifically about which principles might be deployed at which level in the curriculum and which kinds of course, and there was as I recall a spreadsheet that really spells that out in some detail, now that is to say, the course designers may or may not agree with that and may or may not want to do it quite that way. But I just wanted to make sure that everybody remembered that exists, and that in a way, it was at least that groups consensus at that time, which can certainly change and doesn't necessarily need to be anybody else's consensus of how some of these principles were to be deployed. In part it was a specific response to some of the issues that were being raised by the representatives of the CRM community at the time.
BL: Well some of us weren't at that meeting. [VS: Which is why I brought it up]
Joel Schuldenrein: Well, we're really kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place in the CRM community. You know, Lynn said and I would have to agree with it that our situation is, yes we know a whole lot, but we're not in this position of being the people who are designing the courses. We are not the teachers, okay. Well, the obvious jump is we need to be the teachers, and that is really the sea change [AP: yeah.] that has to occur, so at some point a committee of this magnitude has to make some very, very bold proposals to say that the people who need to instruct and teach archaeology in the 21st century and beyond have to come from different communities, and that's a very serious issue, and obviously it's a very hard one because we're in a system within a framework. We know what the priorities are for the greater world, and that there's a structure to the university, and as 16th century as it is, it's the structure. [RJ: It's actually 19th century]
Well, I'm being very generous, but the point is that really is going to have to change and the committee is going to have to make these bold proposals. I don't know where it's at, and it would presumptuous for me to do that.
RJ: This is actually something that I couldn't agree with you more. Obviously because of my own background, I came out of Museums and then came into the Academy, and so this is really important to me that students that I have don't think that A) oh, this is what you do when you don't get a real job and B) that you get a museum job by going a month before you file, and say, "So how do I get a museum job?" But we've actually been able to hire a contract-sector archaeologist to teach public archaeology at Berkeley as an adjunct position. And I think you're going to, your right, you're going to have to see more major theoretically-engaged Universities making a point in their hiring plans to their campuses that this is, you need an engaged practitioner, and the SAA probably can communicate to somebody, but that's a multi-change area. . . .
Shareen . . . : Well there was one other thing at Wicula, the conference didn't only talk about CRM, part of the reason we came up with that Matrix was that we also are realizing that we have one shot at a lot of students who take one anthropology class and then they move on. The idea was how can we infuse certain principles into the one time that they get that. The majors are a whole different group, so that's where that matrix emerged is that you have the one-shotters–what kind of principles do you want to teach those that will never take another anthropology class or archaeology class? . . . and that's why there are other principles to teach potential CRM folks, future graduate students, whoever those are, and there are different ones, and we have to remember that a big part of the population that we teach are one-shotters.
RJ: Actually the majority of the population that we teach are not going to be archaeologists professionally in any sense because the majority of the people we teach are in undergraduate courses that are counting this as electives, and that's something . . . . We have this incredible jump because we've got these different populations.
BL: Well I think . . . a couple points, one is that the CRM community has worked at various times to help get the Universities out of the CRM business so it's hard to put together some of the faculty . . . because there are people or faculties who do this kind of work, so that's another issue that we can't deal with at this point. We have to do what Joe says and try to bring people in who have that experience. But the 2nd point I want to make is there's problems at the graduate level too, you know we get a . . . graduate student with good grades, with good GREs, who just don't have, you know they've had no experience with research. They can't read a journal article. I mean they learn pretty fast, but they've never been exposed to basic archaeological skills, and that's an important problem with the Universities as well, independent of the problem that we're talking about in producing people who can work in the CRM field.
RJ: If I were to interject . . . one of the products that I would envisage as a part of this curriculum would, in fact, be various of these kinds of very concrete skills or objectives that by the end of a curriculum in archaeology a student should be able to read a journal article understand the relationship between the data and the interpretation. So, you know, those things I would see as something that gets, that comes out of the whole assembly . . .and aren't necessarily just in individual courses. And that's ultimately going to be a product that I think will be much more important in some ways than individual course, if we can actually get this list, "Here are things you might think of trying to get your students to do." That anybody no matter what they're teaching could do.
Nancy . . .: I was going to say that actually still a few of us around doing CRM stuff and academic stuff . . . . The point I want to make, you just iterated really Rosemary, the skills are the same. The skills are the same, the principles are the same, social-awareness and the ability to write a sentence in English is the same, and part of our mission is to make the profession aware of that to make the academics aware of that. If you train with these principles, they can go out there and be welcomed by CRM firms or Phd programs or Museums or anywhere. If we would stop making that such a false dichotomy . . .
RJ: If they're those anchors, those students who don't go on at all, they can use that skill in reading a newspaper.
N . . .: The majority that we teach, who are never going to have another course, where are they going to deal with archaeology? They will at least know that the archaeologists that they'll probably deal with will be in the paper, not the academics. They're the ones who, you know, "burial discovered under bank building." And I'm the bank building designer and I have to figure out what to do.
AP: When I talk about the division of labor among the courses, I don't mean to divide up the labor of teaching the principles. Although some of the principles may receive more emphasis than others, one of the things that we did agree on in Wacula Springs is that no course should miss any of them.
VS: I don't think that's true, I mean if we divvy it up specifically that certain principles were more naturally taught it certain levels and to certain audiences, then . . . by the time you get to the end of the curriculum, you will have been exposed to all these things. But, I think that's what the spreadsheet was about . . .
AP: I know, I've heard you say that, I don't agree with you. I think that there should be no archaeology courses that don't teach ethics. I think there should be no archaeology courses that don't descendent communities and diverse pasts. They don't have to teach them deeply, and some emphasize [some principles] more than others, but I don't think we can teach an archaeology course that ignores CRM anymore.
JS: You know I'm kind of encouraged in a sense, obviously it's turning into some kind of a dichotomy between the two . . . both segments of the community, although we want to say that everything's the same. The real issue is going to be at the graduate level because that's when we're going to really have to start talking about nuts and bolts, and we're talking about people who really do want to make archaeology a career. And in that case, that instance we're really going to have to start to grapple with much more serious issues with respect to career pathways and with respect to training, which obviously becomes more focused the higher up you get in whatever system you're in.
RJ: Well we might again want to rethink the US's long ago decision that anthropology is a straight Phd program. . . .
JS: So in this case, since we're dealing with undergraduates . . .
AP: Let's don't go there again, let's don't go to graduates yet.
JS: What I'm saying is that this is an excellent trial balloon because in a sense–I don't personally think, some of my colleagues may disagree–I don't think our stakes are quite as high at this point. I mean we need to obviously all get the sense that we have to introduce public archaeology as a major component, but again what we're talking about are the bankers, and the people who will be making decisions they do need to know. But once we start addressing our own constituency in a very, very focused way, this is going to be critical.
IUPUI: . . . This is maybe unique to my situation, but I think it raises in some ways the ethics of what we're doing and it's relationship as service. The course that I'm teaching Museum Methods is part of a very inter-disciplinary program, where there's not only non-majors, there's people who are Art History who want to use this subject matter in the service of their professional paths. So I teach it very broadly from a discipline-basis. I could conceive of the same course focused on archaeologists. Should I invent a sort of fictional version of this class, the one that's destined for the web for SAA that I haven't really taught in that version because I was also addressing . . .
RJ: What do you think?
IUPUI: It's less work to do one.
RJ: And isn't it more true to life, I mean basically we're not trying to pretend that these are courses someone could teach. We're trying to say, in a course that a real human being taught, that's part of what Anne's point, part of the reason that anybody's going to think these are useful things because we're going to be able to say that Liz C. taught this course. So, it's got a guarantee: taught it with evaluation, and print it, here's the proof. So to invent a pretend course would be, in my view–in my personal view, you should do it as a course in which archaeologists are a minority because that's part of what we're saying here is that we are teaching this very diverse body of students, and it's that very diversity that where those students are going that has caused all sorts of interesting issues for us in conveying archaeological principles. When I teach Museum studies, I got cross-disciplinary enrollment. So one of the things that I have to do is say, "The SAA says these things about looted objects. Here's what the AAM says." And the Art historians they routinely say, "Do you mean that you couldn't . . . if there was an object, the only one of its kind, and it was looted!" And I keep saying, "No really mean that because it's not useful for us. I know it's useful for you, but it's not useful for us." And so that's a really good way to get the ethics debate started, you've got an advantage because you've got an inherently diverse community in your class that isn't going to necessarily accept that set of principles.
AP: So that's really a good point, because one of the things that I think would be a good idea for the designers to think is that the courses should be at different levels. All along we have said that they would be designed so that they could be ratcheted up and down for different levels, different student populations, but it would be good if some of the courses that you design are for majors and would have prerequisites. That they would not all be introductory courses, there would be a couple that would say, "this is for the course who already is able to make a web page, who already is able to critique an article, who already has intro and blah blah blah as prerequisites, and at that level we want them to do these things."
IUPUI: Mine's actually taught simultaneously for undergraduate and graduate credit, so I already have these two parallel paths going on, readily broken into . . .
AP: It would be great for one course to have those things in it, but it also seems reasonable to me that some of you will want to design an upper division class.
RJ: Well this again brings up the issue of the difference between the course you're teaching, the syllabus and the particular resources. One of things that's going to be happening is there will be these, think of them as modules, think of them as components, think of them as resources that are in courses that may be transportable across courses, but there's also going to be–this is the way that so and so taught this specific course at this specific historical point in time to these kinds of students, and I–I'm way out of line here Anne, but I would suggest that one of things that has to be in this final product is an ethnography of the student-base. That is, this course can't just be offered up as if it's a pristine course from nowhere, it has to be: this was taught in ‘Iupui,' which is an urban campus which gets mainly commuter base, including a large body of continuing students in the ethnically homogenous? population, diverse?–I don't know Indianapolis at all.
IUPUI: Depends which class.
RJ: So if I were Anne, I would saying at the end, warning the course designers at the end, I'm going to want you to tell me who this course was taught to, because I know myself that the vast difference between when I taught at Jackson Community College–did I ever tell you that? I taught at Jackson Community College, that was the first teaching I did . . . . I taught anthropology to what was primarily a bunch of adults, who were nurses and were going to go the University of Michigan to get an additional credential. And I taught a second section at Jackson where it was primarily recent highschool graduates, and the same material, the same semester, Tuesdays here Wednesdays there, and it was like two different courses. It had to be two different courses, and we all know that, right? We've all had those kinds of experiences.
Someone: Did you know that Joe spent 8 years in Jackson?
RJ: Have you really? At the community college?
JS: No, at the prison. [laughter and more conversation about Jackson]
IUPUI: Then are we going to have to go through Human Subject review if we're going to reveal on the web our student constituency?
RJ: No, nothing like that . . . you can generalize it.
Shareen: . . . it's worth it if you haven't taken the time to read the report, it's on the web. It really helps to take another look at the grant.
AP: And Teaching Archaeology in the 21st Century.
Shareen: Yes, and the book, those kinds of things would really help if you're feeling like, "Well I wasn't there, and I don't have that background." Once you've looked at all that, you'll feel like you were there.
VS: And I think that, I sort of don't remember what the exact distinctions are, but there was a sort of report, and then there were two summary articles that were written for the bulletin, they're also on the web. Maybe having links to those on the MATRIX page would be a really easy way to let people find them.
WHL: Well, I just wanted to revisit this question of the 2nd workshop. So, if we could agree quickly, we could get this done, but maybe we're not ready to agree. So an other thing would be when, so the when seems either like late Spring, early Summer or a year, you know, October. If we could decide between those two and then the who, I can imagine four constituencies of which we could invite all or just some, so we could write those up on the board and maybe we'd either vote or come to a consensus or . . .
RJ: The four are . . .?
WHL: Okay the four are the designers, the advisors, the evaluators, and perhaps content specialists–
]
VS: --which is a new category.
VHL: Which is a new category. [others assert that they thought that was what the advisors were.]
RJ: It's used interchangeably. I happen to know the answer because I couldn't figure out what I was. I kept going to the back to find out, sometimes I'm a content specialist and sometimes I'm an expert advisor.
WHL: I've been thinking of the advisors not as content specialists, those that are more pedagogical.
Ruth Tringham: I'm as specialized as you'll get on . . .
IUPUI: I think they're overlapping.
AP: We didn't try to do Culture areas or anything like that.
IUPUI: I know it's going to be summer when it's the time when I get to do the creative, sit-back and thinking work as opposed to, "Oh my god are the textbooks due tomorrow?"
RJ: So that's a vote for not summer, right? [explains more] So, Liz is saying that Summer, next summer is the time that she can see that she'll be able to think about the . . . of the summer will be after round one and would then allow you to think it through.
Liz: This idea of late Spring or early summer because of our summer sessions end before official summer begins on the calendar . . .
RJ: And this is not a binding vote, but are there people for whom the late Spring, early Summer would be completely impossible, unthinkable and would be horrific.
AP: Course designers.
BL: . . . Well the field school course, the first round for us can't be done for us until the summer. We won't be able to report how that went until after July.
Shareen?: You know as much as I would like to have this at that time, I would rather, I think that I could use the summer to actually do the self-evaluation of the class, to start working on the next class, and then come in early, like September, and come in and then we could do an evaluation of the first time and really work towards. And maybe this time the designers would be presenting, instead of the advisors. We're presenting . . . . telling about what worked or didn't worked and having that kind of discussion. Do that early enough to give us several months to take that input and design the next courses. So I would say September . . . .
Nancy . . . : Yeah because late Spring, early Summer is prime field time. . . . If we did it in the middle or end of September, then we'd only be a couple weeks into the semester, which would not be a semester or quarter that would include the course being evaluated so . . .
AP: Are there any course designers who can not come in September?
SM: I may be in Thailand . . .
JS: That's always going to happen.
DS: I might have a heart attack, you know, I've got it penciled in.
AP: No excuses!
NW: What about for people who can't be here do a presentation, a videotape or just say here's what I did, and here's what happened . . .
RJ: A virtual presence . . . [more scheduling discussion]
NW: I have another suggestion to throw out that the Autumn equinox, which is about the third week in September might be an important ritual time that we could all be together, but it does fall on a weekend. [more scheduling discussion]
RJ: The course designers then are interested in having the advisors and evaluators at this. It's not that you want the course designers to meet at that point, and I must say that as a non-course designer that makes sense to me. And the course designers then are up for talking about what you did, and what worked, which also seems the right kind of move. Now the only thing is where? Ah September, some place very warm.
Someone: Hawai'i!
AP: You have one month to nominate locations, one month to seriously propose locations for the September . . . [more discussion on possible places]
AP: Let me just say to the course designers, if at some point between now and January when you start teaching your first class, or some point any time between now and our next group meeting, if you find that you desperately need consultation with other members of the group. You feel like you need personal, face-to-face discussion, contact me. I can try to arrange it.
WHL: Well could we circulate a list of courses being designed this year, and then have three people sign up to be consultants. . . . and we can even politic for the people we want.
RJ: If I can suggest a mechanism, what I make my students to do when they're trying to sign up for teams like this, list the people you'd like in order–so that would mean that you would have Maria as your number 1, so then we'd know, and that way we could spread the effort around . . . . [more planning discussion]