Tag Archives: Higher Education

Teaching Philosophies

This is the second in a new series of blog postings by the Anthropology Teaching Forum (ATF) at the University of Texas, San Antonio. This post offers a recap of a recent discussion on teaching philosophies—what they are, how they are defined, and how they inform different teaching styles—hosted by the ATF. read more…

  • dateOctober 30, 2014
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  • posted byLeah McCurdy
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The Anthropology Teaching Forum (ATF)

This post marks the beginning of a collaboration with the Anthropology Teaching Forum (ATF) at the University of Texas, San Antonio. Here, graduate student Leah McCurdy describes how the ATF was born and outlines its lofty goals. For those of you who aren’t lucky enough to have such an engaged teaching culture in your department, the ATF has been kind enough to share summaries of past talks in this post and future talks in future posts. read more…

  • dateOctober 24, 2014
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  • posted byLeah McCurdy
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Sharing Syllabi: Murder and Culture

The study of murder has been a mainstay in psychology and criminology departments for decades. This course was designed to add another piece to the puzzle: the cultural piece. This class takes a cultural look at murder, including how culture is involved leading up to a murder, how culture dictates the ways that murder is investigated, and how culture forms and influences the public’s reaction to murder. read more…

  • dateMarch 13, 2014
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  • posted byRebecca Ann Forrest
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Getting Real and Making it Relevant: Teaching Introductory Anthropology

I survey my students on the first day of class to find out why they’ve come and from that data I know to treat their arrival as a gift. I’ve got just one chance to make anthropology relevant to their lives. If I try to treat them as potential colleagues—as anthropologists-in-the-making—I risk alienating them. That risk rises if I require them to read textbooks thick with hundreds of pages of abstract or alien information. Will all that “stuff” survive a few months’ brain storage let alone a lifetime? If not, then it might be better to get something anthropological to stick for their lifetime. In this blog post I provide a few concrete examples of the pedagogical approaches I use. read more…

  • dateFebruary 27, 2014
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  • posted bySarah Mahler
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How to Make (Some) Anthro Stick: Teaching Introductory Anthropology

So you are planning your first Introduction to Anthropology course or you are considering an overhaul of this course. What do you do? In my previous blog post I suggested that you approach the course design from the perspective that you only have one shot to make this course relevant to most students. Know your audience, I recommend. I find that a third or more of my students arrive just to fulfill a social science requirement but, more importantly, almost every student arrives without ever having taken any social science in their K-12 years. Therefore, I tell my students how glad I am that they now have a chance to learn some social science, specifically anthropology. read more…

  • dateFebruary 25, 2014
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  • posted bySarah Mahler
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