Module Overview
These are CLASS LECTURE OUTLINES as I delivered them for the course, with suggestions for QUESTION-ANSWER AND DISCUSSION IN CLASS AND ONLINE, and with LEARNING or LESSON OBJECTIVES noted. Since MATRIX course designers were asked to include complete lectures, they are presented here in modular form according to the syllabus topics. Most new ideas begin with questions to ask the class to answer and discuss as they proceed through the subject matter. Each lecture is written with the considerations of :
1. Integrating all of the Seven Principles
2. Trying to lecture less and get students to participate more actively
3. Making the story both intriguing and connected with the students' everyday lives
Beginning lecture topics with questions and continuing not just to tell all but to ask for the students’ ideas and opinions every step of the way (a very modified Socratic method) encourages participation from the first day onward. To ascertain their base knowledge at the beginning of class, a pre-test was administered, not to be collected and graded, but for the students to determine how much they already knew or did not know, and to set goals for the course.
In 2002, the class used the electronic BlackBoard portal system that USF activates for all courses. Part of the class participation requirement for each student was to bring up relevant new information on an assigned course topic, post it for the class on the BlackBoard, and discuss it when the subject came up on the syllabus schedule (usually the second half of the schedule on world archaeology). With the computer in the classroom tied into the screen, each student’s contribution can be seen. This portion of the assignment tends to help those students who don’t feel comfortable speaking out in class, because they can do it online. The rest of the class participation grade is determined by giving an individual grade when taking attendance (not every day, but at least 10 times throughout the semester), based on the amount of discussion or question-answering each student has done in the classroom.
These lectures do NOT repeat what is in the two textbooks (Ashmore and Sharer 2000; Price and Feinman 2000), which students are supposed to read on their own, but integrate it into basic archaeological knowledge. They are fairly general, as the course is a broad survey of the field. Pictures from many archaeology books, my own slides, videos, and other visuals are shown throughout all the lectures. Especially useful are issues of National Geographic and their large-format book The Adventure of Archaeology (Fagan 1985), both of which have stunning photos. Coffee-table archaeology books that every archaeologist acquires are also good if you have a document camera (Elmo) that can project pictures onto the screen, or if you make slides of them or scan for a cd presentation. Every class session is accompanied by some kind of visual aid, from pictures on the screen to artifacts that can be passed around. This is important because archaeology is such a visual discipline.
Using the Modules
The lectures/questions are organized into modules by syllabus topic. Lectures and other class activities are very idiosyncratic to each instructor. Though these can certainly be used exactly as given, any instructor will change things constantly and probably use them as I do, merely as guides for each class. Modules can be expanded or contracted; they can be grouped by the two halves of the class and two textbooks:
1. Doing archaeology (first half of lectures, coordinated with Ashmore and Sharer 2000 book)
1. What is Archaeology?
2. Kinds of Archaeology
3. History of Archaeology
4. Different Theoretical Approaches in Archaeology
5. Types of Archaeological Data
6. Archaeological Survey and Excavation
7. Archaeological Classification and Analysis
8. Archaeological Interpretation and Reconstruction
9. Public Archaeology and Modern Society
2. World prehistory, archaeology and society (second half of lectures, coordinated with Price and Feinman 2000 book)
10. The First People and Culture
11. Middle and Upper Paleolithic Hunter-Gatherers and the Emergence of Modern Humans
12. Origins of Food Production
13. North American Prehistory
14. Mesoamerican Archaeology
15. South American Prehistory
16. Old World Prehistory, Origins of Civilizations
17. Course Review and Relevance of the Seven Principles
Modules comprising the first half of the course build upon each other. The concepts and principles learned in the first half are used in the second half to examine culture history. This (incredibly brief) review of 2 million years of the human past does not pretend to be comprehensive. The New World is a little more emphasized because we live here. Culture process is always discussed, as is contextual archaeology when possible, and the Seven Principles are tied into details of individual sites in the book. Maps are often on the screen, to be clear on the geography. Some book chapters are skipped, and details such as names of time periods and multitudes of dates are also not emphasized so as not to overwhelm the introductory student. For all topics, class includes showing pictures from Fagan (1985), Archaeology magazine, and many other sources. In the classroom the romance and adventure of finding the past, and how past people lived, needs to be conveyed with enthusiasm and the demonstration of the lecturer’s own excitement in having done fieldwork and lab analysis and made discoveries. Some of this can be done using information from Allen 2002, Fagan 2002, Joyce 2002, Lipe 2002, and Young 2002. Instructors should of course bring in their own specific research and public archaeology, in field/lab stories, slides, and other ways.