Call for Submissions
Deadline: November 1, 2019

Please submit an assignment to participate in a special workshop at this year's AHA Annual Meeting. We welcome assignments for all levels of history education. Anyone with a valued teaching assignment (to include traditional assignments, educational activities, or assessments) or a brand new one that would benefit from in-depth review and discussion with faculty from other institutions should consider applying. Assignments in which students engage with primary sources are particularly welcome. 

Date and Time 

Sunday, January 5, 2020: 9:00 AM-12:00 PM 

Concourse A, Hilton New York

Workshop Description

The 3-hour workshop will begin with a short orientation; the bulk of the time will be reserved for participants to work in small groups with a facilitator and offer in-depth feedback on each other's assignments. Each participant will have a few minutes to introduce his/her submitted assignment(s) and request particular help with problems or aspects of designing or implementing it and/or with assessing students' work. The expectation is that participants will use feedback to revise their assignments for the future. Participants will reconvene at the end of the period to discuss the lessons from all groups. 

Eligibility 

All part- or full-time faculty members, including college and university instructors, graduate students with responsibility for teaching one or more history courses, dual-enrollment instructors, and teachers in grades K-12, are welcome. 

Submission Process 

The 2020 Assignment Charrette submission form is now closed.

Submissions must include one assignment, activity, or assessment that you have used in the classroom (including online courses), or one you have developed but have not yet used. The assignment should be linked to at least one learning outcome or proficiency that is important to your curriculum and/or history (or social studies) department. Assignments covering a range of innovative and creative activities are welcomed. Assignments of research papers or other individual writing assignments are included. To apply, complete the online application form, and at the bottom attach 1) a copy of the assignment - in the form that you present it to your students - that you propose to work on, along with 2) any rubric or set of criteria used to evaluate it. Applications must be received by Friday, November 1, 2019. Notifications will be made in mid-November. If you have trouble with the online form, which is run through the AirTable application, please let Megan Connor (mconnor@historians.org) know as soon as possible. 

Participant Responsibility 

Participants will be expected to read thoroughly and review around 4 other assignments, and to offer constructive feedback, including a written feedback form, during the workshop. 

Criteria for Selection 

We anticipate accepting all submissions. We seek participants who teach at a variety of institutions that serve different missions and student populations at different educational levels. In the event we are over-subscribed, program staff will evaluate applications based on the clarity of the assignment and instructions, the fit between the stated proficiencies and the assignment, and its appropriateness in the context of the course and its students. Selected participants will show a genuine interest in student learning. 

Accepted participants will receive a formal letter of invitation to present their work at the AHA annual meeting. Some past participants have found such a letter helpful in obtaining travel funds from their home institutions. 

Related Information 

For details on the AHA's Tuning project, which provides a context for faculty development of core competencies/proficiencies associated with undergraduate history teaching, go to historians.org/tuning. 

Please address all questions to Megan Connor, AHA Program Associate, at mconnor@historians.org. 

Featured Guest:

Pat Hutchings is a senior scholar with the National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment (NILOA). Her work has focused on a variety of strategies for creating a campus culture of teaching and learning: student learning outcomes assessment, assignment design, integrative learning, the peer collaboration and review of teaching, and the scholarship of teaching and learning.  Prior to her work with NILOA she was senior scholar and vice president at The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Recent publications include The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Reconsidered: Institutional Integration and Impact, co-authored with Mary Taylor Huber and Anthony Ciccone (2011); and, as part of the NILOA team, Using Evidence of Student Learning to Improve Higher Education (2015).  She received her BA from Northwestern University and a Ph.D. in English from the University of Iowa.