Teaching Public History Online Working Group
In May 2020, it became clear that at least some, if not many or all, public history and museum studies classes would be partially or fully online for the following fall semester due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In response to discussions among public history educators on our public history educators’ listserv and Facebook Members’ Forum, NCPH created a summer 2020 working group to explore pedagogy and best practices for online public history education. A call for participants was shared, resulting in four facilitators and twenty-three discussants.
The team split into three smaller subgroups: Group 1: Best Practices, Online Teaching (In General); Group 2: Best Practices, Public History; and Group 3: Best Practices, Internships. During the first half of the summer, after an introductory Zoom meeting, each group worked asynchronously to collect resources. During the second half of the summer the group has reshuffled into various topic areas, with the objective of developing guidelines and lesson plans for two kinds of activities: 1) Small, single-session or weekly activities or assignments, and 2) Large, semester-long projects.
A blog post about their work is available on History@Work.
The resources they collected and created are currently accessible on Google Drive.
Working group members have also gathered interviews with public historians and behind-the-scenes videos at public history organizations in a YouTube playlist that can be helpful in the classroom while in-person visits are not possible.
If you have ideas or materials you’d like to share, please contact Abby Gautreau or Jen Black about having those added to the site.
Facilitators
Jennifer Black, Misericordia University
Katie Stringer Clary, Coastal Carolina University
Abigail Gautreau, Grand Valley State University
William Stoutamire, University of Nebraska at Kearney
Discussants
Nicole Belolan, Mid-Atlantic Regional Center for the Humanities, Rutgers-Camden
Andrea Burns, Appalachian State University
Marielena Di Benigno, College of William and Mary
Jennifer Dickey, Kennesaw State University
Evan Faulkenbury, SUNY Cortland
Scot French, University of Central Florida
Michelle Furlano Ridout, University of Rochester
Stephanie Gray, Duquesne University
Jennifer Knight, University of South Florida
Erin Lawrimore, University of North Carolina Greensboro
Anne Lindsay, California State University, Sacramento
Steven Lubar, Brown University
Ann McCleary, University of West Georgia
Tara Mielnik, Cumberland University
Marla Miller, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Corinna Moebius, Florida International University
Tracy Neumann, Wayne State University
Lindsey Passenger Wieck, St. Mary’s University
Mark Roblee, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Amy Sopcak-Joseph, Wilkes University
Jill Ogline Titus, Gettysburg College
Will Walker, Cooperstown Graduate Program (SUNY Oneonta)
Kate Wilson, Georgia State University