HIST23 Highlights

Images over the years from the maps class, HIST23. Maps: past present and future. First year was January 1923, that was hist23a, then January 20 24, which was his 23B, then January 2025, which was his 23C.

As a guideline you could answer any (or several) of these prompts 
When and why did you start teaching Winter Study. What has kept you coming back year after year? 
How does Winter study of today compare to your experience as a student? 
How has your class evolved since you started teaching? 
What types of students have you met (or what reasons have students given for taking your class?) 

Transcription | Voice Note [2025-10-13 15:37]
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OK, I'm gonna try to answer your questions, Katie, uh, and I'm doing it. Uh, I'll do it this way, and we'll see how this goes. So when and why did you start teaching winter study? Um, my gosh, this is kind of a funny story, um. Uh, January of 23 was my first year. But. Um, in COVID, I went deep into maps and somewhere along the way in like 21 or 22, I gave a talk about how antique maps and modern day mapping had similarities and that talk begot, hey, I might actually have a winter study class, but I was kind of late. I think I was in July before the January winter study thinking before the winter study of what would that have been that that had been like 21. Um, hoping for 22 and, and I, I was late, so I. Emailed professors and went out in January of 22 anyways, and anyway, I um I, why did I do it? Um. Because I had something that I thought, you know, might be relevant and that might be interesting to to students. I've definitely pulled on the string, as it were, of. A maps over the last 10 years and it's led me into some interesting places, but again for my work I was doing. Uh, I was doing. Modern day mapping, geospatial analytics, but I had also sort of at the same time gotten interested in old maps and that, and they were separate realms in my life and then I gave this one talk and that that. The the talk like people are like, hey, you know, your ideas are like that's kind of legit like the speculation that you see on old maps happens today or the estimation, which is a good practice that happens today. Old maps have bad design and good design. New maps have bad design and good design. Um, uh, old maps are produced by certain people who have interests and, uh, and so therefore are biased and new maps are the same way. Who produces it and what, what they want to tell is the same thing today. So, uh, that's why what's kept me coming back? Well, the students are a lot of fun. I learned by teaching. And one of the unexpected benefits is the other instructors. They are great and it's so much fun to get together and reconnect with them and, and hear about what they're teaching. Mark Robertson and I have been talking about having a like 5 minute TED Talk uh from, you know, a dozen instructors, so people get in rapid fire, hear about what everybody's teaching about. We've had these winter study gatherings of the instructors every Wednesday at the, now it's at the Purple Pub, 5:30 to 7:30. That's been great. So it's the students, it's the learning, and then it's the other instructors. How does winter study of today compare to your experience as a student? I think it's similar. And it's interesting how there are students who want to focus on. Uh, just hanging out, right? Hanging out with their friends, and they don't want to do a hard subject or a hard winter study, um. And uh they want to do glass blowing, uh, and then there's students who are, you know, very pretty professional and they want to do something hard and, and uh they take a class about consulting or or or some research project, um. So I don't have all the data, but. I think you've got a wide spectrum of students taking advantage of this month in very different ways, and I'm delighted with the work that Katie has done and, and the way that she's uh recruiting more uh instructors. Uh, I think I've got, uh, Linda, I know I've got Linda Thompson who's going to be there this January. And um Uh, back to why I, I, David Pesikoff and, uh, Peter, uh, McKelvey have become great friends, uh, because we teach at the same time. But Linda's, Linda's coming, and who else is coming? There's some, or there's somebody else, there's other people. Oh, I've tried to get Freddie Nathan, um, uh, he would be great. Uh, so I'm, I'm on the recruiting team even though I may not have been appointed. Um, how has your class evolved since you started teaching, uh. Well, I'm not as afraid as I was before the first day of my first class. Holy smokes, I've never taught before and I've never been more scared than before that first day, first day, knowing that I had 30 students who are going to walk in and they're all super smart and and I'd better engage them. Uh, so I figured out more ways to engage. Uh, more involvement, more exercises, um, I never, I, I didn't lecture. I knew I didn't want to lecture, but I. I um Uh, yeah, my syllabus has gotten better. It's more readable now. It's chock full of stuff, but it's, but it's more readable. Um, what types of students have you met or what reasons have students given for taking your class? Uh, great question. Um, There's like there's always like, like 25% of the class that is just they're map heads like they've always been just wildly interested in maps and uh and then there's. There's a. There's probably 25% that are like, oh, that's kind of interesting, you know, I'll give that a shot. Uh, like they didn't have a map interest. Uh, and then there's a group, maybe those numbers on either end, maybe the map heads is bigger, maybe it's 40 or 50%, um. And then maybe it's 25% for the for the, you know, hey, that's kind of interesting. And then there's, and then there's probably 25% that might have heard about it and I'm not, this is not a highly rigorous class, uh, uh, and um. And so yeah that that that's the other group. um I will say my learning objectives have changed over time and I'll see if I can remember them. I mean it was always to teach about maps and these ideas about old maps and new maps and how they, how they're similar to each other, um, but I've also taught and one of my learning objectives is questions, asking questions and being completely unafraid to ask questions, um. Uh, and encouraging the students, hey, step in, you know, you, you, you learning about maps or anything is kind of like, uh, like, like geology. You gotta look at a lot of rocks to, uh, learn something, and so you could just look at a lot of maps and, and ask questions. That's what really feeds the inquiry. What's this? What's that? Um, the second one, Is learning how to present And then the uh which was so so this is a change these objectives now have been better articulated and I think I did that last year. I think last year was the first time I think I think the school might have asked and then and then the um so learning how to present I've been explicit about wanting to teach students how to present. It's easy to present in 10 minutes or when you have no time limit. It's much harder when I say look, you've got 3 minutes. Like what are your high points? Um, and then, uh, my fourth learning objective, uh, is teaching them how to politely interrupt, uh, uh. Um, I'm, I'm, I'm somewhat proud of this because I think that, uh, too often students think that they are, should stay in a box and, um. Uh, that's just not my belief, um, that, that if you're bored, uh, you need to interrupt, you need to get engaged, and if you have a bored, you know, other students are going to be bored. If you have a question, you know, other people have questions, and if you don't, if somebody's blathering on like me or a speaker or another student, you know, you owe it to the group to, uh, uh, to interrupt. OK, I hope this has been helpful. Uh, I'm going to have this transcribed. And, yeah, and I've got some pictures for you too. Uh, it's in this exhibit. So I hope you can, hopefully you can find all this. You'll get to sample, uh, Pixium in the looking here. Let me know if you have any questions. Thanks.