The last several years have been a time of much creative change in the History Department's curriculum. Much of the exciting new scholarship has made its way into the classroom, and our students in the basic freshman survey are now exposed to some of the new thinking about the making of the past. If the curriculum taught in the classroom is new and improved, the same cannot be said of the manner in which we deliver it. If by magic carpet or time machine, we could transport a Heidelberg-trained historian of a century ago to Hibbard Hall 101, he would feel quite at home with the lecture format, even if bewildered by the talk of race, class, and gender.
Students sit in ranks waiting to learn from the spoken word.
Of course, in recent years, the lecture format has been modified to include the visual image, whether on slide, transparency, or video, but the path the image takes is still hierarchical, from the instructor down to the students. Just as we worked to change the curriculum in the survey class, we can work to change how we teach it. I believe that a careful use of information technology can improve the opportunity for our students to learn in more active ways. I have experimented with this problem this semester in History 201, the first half of the History Department's U.S. survey course. From time to time, I would lead the class in a discussion of the project and have the ability to call up the file on the overhead screen.