A few universities and colleges are offering employment guarantees as an inducement to prospective students. DePauw University last year started promising job placement or a free additional semester to graduates who meet certain guidelines but don’t have jobs within six months. Some Davenport University graduates who can’t find jobs in their fields of study within six months get up to 48 additional credit hours free.
Even colleges that don’t have job guarantees are scrambling to add subjects that connect with real-world demand.
The Senate acquitted President Trump on Wednesday of charges that he abused his power and obstructed Congress, as Republicans turned back an election-year attempt by House Democrats to remove him from office over accusations that he pressured a foreign power to incriminate his political rivals.
In this lesson, students will learn more about the historic vote in the United States Senate and examine the various arguments for and against the conviction and removal of Mr. Trump presented by Democrats and Republicans. In a Going Further activity, students will explore their feelings and reactions to the acquittal, consider how it will affect our nation and speculate on how history will remember this moment 50 years from now.
Warm Up
On Wednesday, the Senate voted to acquit President Trump on the charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.
How much have you read, seen or heard about the Senate trial and the acquittal? Have you talked about it at school, or with your friends or family? If so, what are the people you know saying?
The New York Times reporter Nicholas Fandos summarizes the historic vote:
After five months of hearings, investigations and revelations about President Trump’s dealings with Ukraine, a divided United States Senate acquitted him on Wednesday of charges that he abused his power and obstructed Congress to aid his own re-election, bringing an acrimonious impeachment trial to its expected end.
In a pair of votes whose outcome was never in doubt, the Senate fell well short of the two-thirds margin that would have been needed to remove the 45th president. The verdicts came down — after three weeks of debate — almost entirely along party lines, with every Democrat voting “guilty” on both charges and Republicans uniformly voting “not guilty” on the obstruction of Congress charge.
Next, watch the three-minute video below with the highlights from the closing arguments to senators by House impeachment managers and President Trump’s legal team on Feb. 3. Then, respond to these three questions:
What is one argument Mr. Trump’s lawyers used in favor of acquittal?
What is one argument House impeachment managers used for conviction?
What is one question you have about the Senate trial?
(For more background information, you can read the two articles of impeachment here and how the Constitution defines impeachable here. For more on the Senate trial process, you can read this article. In addition, “A Guide to the Case For and Against Removing Trump” provides a good introduction and overview to the arguments provided in the trial. “Gavel to Gavel” provides a superb photographic review of the nearly three-week Senate trial.)
Questions for Writing and Discussion
Read the article, then answer the following questions:
1. How was the verdict a “sign of the widening partisan divide testing the country and its institutions” according to the article? Why was the outcome “never in doubt”?
2. During the day of debate on the Senate floor, many arguments were put forth on whether to convict or acquit the president. Give at least two for each side.
3. Why was the vote by Senator Mitt Romney of Utah significant? How was it “a stark reflection of the sweeping transformation of the Republican Party over the past eight years,” according to the article?
4. How did President Trump and his aides react to the impeachment vote?
5. Mr. Fandos writes, “the impeachment of Mr. Trump appears to have evenly divided the nation.” What evidence does he provide to support this claim?
6. How does the Senate trial of President Trump compare with those of Presidents Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton, according to the article?
Going Further
What is your reaction to the acquittal of President Trump? How do you think it will affect him, his presidency and this nation? What do you think it means for you, your family and your community?
Do you agree with Republicans like Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, who said: “We will reject this incoherent case that comes nowhere near justifying the first presidential removal in history”? Or, do you agree with Democrats like Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the minority leader, who said, “By refusing the facts — by refusing witnesses and documents — the Republican majority has placed a giant asterisk, the asterisk of a sham trial, next to the acquittal of President Trump, written in permanent ink”?
If you were a member of the Senate, would you have voted to convict or acquit President Trump on both charges facing him — abuse of power and obstruction of Congress? What arguments would you have considered to make your decision? Use evidence to explain your reasoning.
Was impeachment worth it if the outcome in the Senate was never in doubt? Was it a waste of time or taxpayer money? Or was it the right thing to do, even if the president was not removed from office? Do you think it will benefit Mr. Trump or Democrats in the 2020 presidential election in November?
Representative Adam B. Schiff, Democrat of California and the lead House impeachment manager, said:
“America believes in a thing called truth. She does not believe we are entitled to our own alternate facts. She recoils at those who spread pernicious falsehoods. To her, truth matters. There is nothing more corrosive to a democracy than the idea that there is no truth. America also believes there is a difference between right and wrong. And right matters here.”
How has impeachment affected your view of American politics and this country’s political leaders? Has it increased or hurt your faith in American democracy? Explain why or why not.
When the history books are written about this day, they will surely record it as the culmination of a monumental three-year political battle that tested American democracy and delivered victory to an enraged and enraging president over his relentless foes. But they will not record it as the end of the struggle.
President Trump’s acquittal on Wednesday after a fiery three-week Senate impeachment trial provided him a moment of triumph, a sense of validation, a shot of momentum — anything but the finality that he might want. The president who vowed to bring an end to endless wars overseas remains at the center of an endless war at home, one that now moves to the campaign trail and will not be resolved until November at the earliest.
Do you think there is a certain age when someone becomes an adult? How can you know what that age is?
What are the privileges associated with adulthood in your state or country? What are the responsibilities?
What about within your family? Are you expected to do certain “adult” things by a certain age?
In “When Are You Really an Adult?,” Maria Cramer writes about a Vermont senator, John Rodgers, who proposed a bill to outlaw cellphone use by anyone under 21 to make a point about a Vermont law that banned the sale of firearms to most people under that same age:
“There are all these pushes around some parts of the country for 16-year-olds to vote but we’re saying they’re not mature enough to smoke or purchase a gun. So which is it?” said Mr. Rodgers. “When are you really an adult?”
It is a question that has possessed both poets and lawmakers.
But there is not much clarity in state laws. In Alaska, teenagers as young as 14 can get married with a court order. Only a handful of states allow drinking under 21 and that is under strict circumstances, like when a parent or legal guardian is present.
Eighteen-year-old adults can run for office, go to strip clubs, be sentenced to life in prison, and volunteer to go to war or be drafted, but as of last December, they cannot vape or smoke tobacco products.
And since 1984, when states began raising the legal age of drinking to 21 from 18 in exchange for federal highway funds — in some cases barely a decade after lowering it — they have not been able to buy a beer at a bar in most of the United States, a restriction that has infuriated college students ever since.
“If 18-year-olds are burdened with the responsibility of adulthood, they should be afforded some of its privileges,” said Charlotte Lawson, a 21-year-old fourth-year student at the University of Virginia who wrote an opinion piece in the campus paper in 2018 calling for the drinking age to be lowered from 21.
“It’s interesting these are people who work full-time jobs, pay their own rent, pay taxes and are eligible to vote,” she said. “Yet none of this constitutes adequate proof that a person is responsible enough to drink.”
The article looks at the history of the changing drinking age throughout the 20th century:
After the end of Prohibition in 1933, most states set the drinking age at 21, which was also the minimum voting age at the time.
Lawmakers reasoned that if you were old enough to vote, you were old enough to drink, Mr. Parent said.
That philosophy continued in 1971, when Congress lowered the voting age to 18 in response to fury over the draft during the Vietnam War, which conscripted thousands of men between 18 and 21 into war.
States, in turn, lowered the drinking age to 18, Mr. Parent said.
But in 1984, President Ronald Reagan began pushing hard for states to raise their drinking age, citing what he called a “great national problem” of drinking and driving by teenagers.
In July of that year, Congress passed the National Minimum Drinking Age Act, which required states to raise the age of drinking to 21 or risk a 10 percent cut in their federal highway funds.
Scientists are also trying to answer this question by looking at brain development:
The scientific consensus that most brains do not fully develop until age 25 has led to a host of reforms in the criminal justice system and reexaminations about how society should punish young adults.
But it has also fed the confusion over what young adults should be allowed to do when scientists know that they use less restraint and discipline than older people, said Warren Binford, a law professor at Willamette University and founder of the school’s Child and Family Advocacy Clinic.
“We’re constantly trying to balance the rights to protection and the rights to participation,” said Ms. Binford. “We are a society that loves its liberty, but we’re also a society that recognizes that children are unique and special and deserving of protection.”
Do you feel that you are an adult now? Why or why not? How will you know when you have reached adulthood? Do you think adulthood is connected to being a certain age or having specific responsibilities? Are there legal rights, like voting or drinking, that you think will help you demonstrate your own transition into adulthood?
What do you think should be the legal minimum age for doing the following “adult” activities: getting married, voting, enlisting in the military, buying alcohol, buying cigarettes, owning a firearm, being tried as an adult in court? Do you think minimum age requirements are necessary to protect young people from adult risks and responsibilities?
Who do you think should be responsible for setting these age requirements? What do you think should inform or determine those decisions? Should it be brain development, educational achievements, maturity or something else?
Benming Zhang, who was elected to the City Council in Williamsburg, Va., during his final undergraduate year in college, said he faced the most skepticism about his campaign from his peers. Why do you think that was? Would you trust one of your peers if he or she was running for a political office now? How about in five years? Do you think there are certain experiences or qualifications that someone needs to be in a role of political leadership?
How do you feel about the voting age in the United States? Do you think that you, or your peers, would be more active politically if you were able to vote? How do you think the voting age should be determined?
Students 13 and older are invited to comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff, but please keep in mind that once your comment is accepted, it will be made public.
“College Football Prospects Actually Signing on Signing Day? That’s So 2017,” by Alan Blinder
Image
College football’s national signing day was more than a week away, but P. J. Fleck, the coach at Minnesota, had little reason to care.
He had finished recruiting this year’s class before Christmas.
Alan Blinder: Before I even got off the phone with Fleck, I had a hunch I might have the lead of my article. Luck sometimes strikes like that.
But when I first drafted the top of the story, the lead was probably twice this large and far, far too long. It meandered. It had extra information. I worried a busy reader might give up and move on to another article. So I started tightening, striking some details entirely and relocating others elsewhere in the article. The result? Two snappier sentences.
We do not, however, want to surrender accuracy while we self-edit, and there is a crucial word in the first sentence: “little.” I feared that saying “no reason to care,” though sharper and a bit more of a gut punch, might suggest Fleck was totally checked out. That wouldn’t have been accurate: Every coach is still paying some attention to signing day, even if only to watch which players their friends and rivals sign.
“We don’t even talk about signing day anymore, we’re so December-driven,” Fleck, already focused on who might play in Minneapolis in 2021 and beyond, said as he glad-handed his way through 10 Texas high schools last Tuesday.
All I knew was I didn’t want to use the word “visited.” It’s boring. ”Dashed” would have worked. “Scrambled,” too. But when I considered what Fleck had told me about his day — a marathon of meetings with coaches — “glad-handed” was the easy choice.
As recently as three years ago, the start of the traditional national signing window — this year, it is on Wednesday — was a coast-to-coast high school spectacle of news conferences, pep rallies and marching bands. Then a rule change allowed football players to sign over the course of a few days in December, which sparked a seismic reordering of the calendar, altering how coaches, recruits and parents navigated a pressurized, intensely public process.
Check your facts before you publish. I had it in my head for a bit that the signing window was precisely 72 hours, but a quick spin through my draft to confirm some facts and figures revealed that, technically, the signing period doesn’t last for 72 hours. (In 2019, it began at 7 a.m., based on a recruit’s time zone, on Dec. 18 and ended at 11:59 p.m. on Dec. 20.) So I used “a few days.”
Another choice I made: The rule change didn’t lead to a calendar tweak here or there; it revolutionized recruiting. “Sparked” was a vibrant, active word, and “seismic” signaled that this was no ordinary change for college football. “A big reordering” just felt flat to me.
One consequence is already clear: The so-called early signing period is no longer early at all in the competitive world of recruiting.
This paragraph was my editor’s idea. He wanted an unvarnished statement of how the early signing period is no outlier. I was on a reporting trip for another article when I filed my story from the airport; by the time I got home a few hours later, Oskar Garcia, my editor, had added a version of this line. I tweaked it a bit, and we were good to go. Journalism is very often a team sport, and it should be.
Only a handful of elite players remained available entering Wednesday, more than six weeks after hundreds of high school athletes made binding commitments to colleges. Many players, looking for the edge in the fall that can come from spring practice, have already begun classes on their new campuses.
We needed to mention the early signing period had affected the remaining talent pool, but how? Not everyone is steeped in recruiting, so I settled on an approach that would make the point — there weren’t many sought-after players left — but avoid jargon and subjective assessments that might confuse some readers.
“The fax machine and February signing day are dinosaurs,” said Brandon Huffman, the national recruiting editor for 247Sports, a website that rates and tracks prospects. “They are what used to be, not what currently is.”
First, who doesn’t love a quote about dinosaurs? Second, say you were one of those readers who wanted to learn more about the players who could still sign. By mentioning the website, we established Huffman’s credentials and suggested a resource for readers who might want to learn more.
The early signing period proved popular from the start: In 2017, according to the N.C.A.A., nearly three in four Football Bowl Subdivision recruits signed their national letters of intent — formal agreements that cover attendance and financial aid — in December. In 2018, that figure surpassed 80 percent. (The option has not been used as often among Football Championship Subdivision teams, which saw less than half of recruits sign early during the first two years under the new rule.)
A crucial part of reporting is finding reliable information. Recruiting websites — real-deal operations, blogs, message boards — abound and offer plenty of information, but I wanted hard numbers and figured that the N.C.A.A., which oversees the early signing period, would have the most comprehensive data. It was not difficult to get; I simply asked for it.
As for the numbers, I used “nearly three in four” earlier in this paragraph, so I can switch to “more than 80 percent here” without feeling like I’m using the same phrases and just swapping out percentages. The paragraph becomes duller if I say “almost 75 percent” and “more than 80 percent.”
Although the N.C.A.A. has not finalized its data for this recruiting cycle, the trend appears to have continued, especially among the football juggernauts. Alabama and Clemson each opened the 2017 round by inking agreements with 15 players; this December, Clemson signed 24 recruits, while Alabama picked up 22. Ohio State, formidable from the dawn of the new rule with 21 recruits, managed 24.
If you don’t have some information from your reporting or research, it helps to explain why. Sometimes, it’s because a prospective source did not respond to a message or declined to comment. On another occasion, it might be because the available information might not be reliable. In this case, the official numbers were incomplete and unavailable.
In terms of the specific schools I used here, hundreds accept national letters of intent, but I wanted to show how some of the biggest brands in college football use the early signing window. Alabama and Clemson have won a lot of titles lately, and Ohio State is renowned for its recruiting. I considered mentioning Louisiana State, but I ran into two realities: that the Tigers had not used the early signing period as much as some other big names, and the fact that I was going to be running out of space for my article.
“From year one to year two, from the coaches’ side of it, they probably learned a lot as far as how many offers to make early, how many to hold back for February,” said Susan Peal, the N.C.A.A. official who directs the national letter of intent program. “They were learning that process along the way.”
Indeed, Mack Brown, North Carolina’s coach, said in an interview this week that the early signing period was “the biggest difference” when he returned to coaching after a five-season hiatus.
Mack Brown is one of the biggest names in coaching: He spent many years at Texas, where he won a national championship, before he took over North Carolina’s program for a second time. But I wanted to talk to him for other reasons. I knew from my research and reporting that Brown had been involved in some of the debates about creating the early signing period, and I also knew that he had expressed some worries about how it affected new coaches. I knew his perspective would be good for me to have rattling around in my brain when I sat down to write, and I knew it would be good for readers to see, too.
Coaches were among the first backers of an early signing period for football, though Brown noted that some had envisioned a more limited system that would have allowed, for instance, only early enrollees to reach formal agreements in December.
History matters. A lot of folks will support an idea once it proves successful or becomes popular, but we wanted to show how the thinking had evolved.
If I could do this article again, or if I had a larger word count, I would probably spend more time delving into what happened before the rule change.
Instead, as Brown put it, “the floodgates were opened.”
These graphs, which show how much people spend on engagement rings, appeared elsewhere on NYTimes.com.
By Friday morning, Feb. 14, we will provide the “Reveal” — the graphs’ free online link, additional background and questions, shout outs highlighting student comments and headlines, and Stat Nuggets.
After looking closely at the graphs above (or at this full-size image), think about these three questions:
What do you notice? If you make a claim, tell us what you noticed that supports your claim.
What do you wonder? What are you curious about that comes from what you notice in the graphs?
The questions are intended to build on one another, so try to answer them in order. Start with “I notice,” then “I wonder,” and end with a catchy headline.
2. Next, join the conversation by clicking on the comment button and posting in the box that opens on the right. (Students 13 and older are invited to comment online. Teachers of younger students are welcome to post what their students say.)
3. After you have posted, read what others have said, then respond to someone else by posting a comment. Use the “Reply” button or the @ symbol to address that student directly.
On Wednesday, Feb. 12, our collaborator, the American Statistical Association, will facilitate this discussion from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Eastern time to help students’ understanding go deeper. You might use their responses as models for your own.
4. By Friday morning, Feb. 14, we will reveal more information about the graphs at the bottom of this post. Students, we encourage you to post an additional comment after reading the reveal. How does the original article and the moderators’ comments help you see the graphs differently? Try to incorporate the statistical terms defined in the Stat Nuggets in your response.
More?
Read our 2019-20 introductory post, which includes the archives of past releases by topic and graph type.
Learn more about the “Notice and Wonder” teaching strategy and how and why other teachers are using this feature from our on-demand webinar.
Sign up for our free weekly newsletter so you never miss a graph, and add our 2019-20 “What’s Going On in This Graph?” live-moderated discussion Wednesdays to your Google calendar (2/12, 2/26, 3/4, 3/11, 3/18, 3/25, 4/1, 4/8).Graphs are always released by the Friday before to give teachers time to plan ahead.
Go to the A.S.A. K-12 website, which includes This is Statistics, resources, professional development, student competitions, curriculum, courses and careers.
What do you think this image is saying? How does it relate to or comment on society or the world today? Can you relate to it personally? What is your opinion of its message?
Tell us in the comments, then read the related article to find out what it means.
Find many more ways to use our Picture Prompt feature in this lesson plan. You can find all our Picture Prompts in this column.
Ford Motor’s latest offering seems like an oxymoron twice over: It’s a sport utility vehicle that’s electric … that’s a Mustang.
It’s also Detroit’s biggest bet yet on a mass-market future for battery-powered cars.
…. European luxury-car makers like Jaguar, Audi and Mercedes-Benz have added electrified models — all S.U.V.s. Tesla, which has a fervent following, is on track to sell about 360,000 cars this year and is supposed to add a fourth model, a crossover vehicle, next year.
Use your imagination to write the opening of a short story or poem inspired by what you see. Or, tell us about a memory from your own life that this photo makes you think of.
Tell us in the comments, then read the related article to see more photos of the U.S.C. and U.C.L.A. marching bands.
Find many more ways to use our Picture Prompt feature in this lesson plan. You can find all our Picture Prompts in this column.
When is the last time you can remember thinking about your racial identity? Was it prompted by something someone said or did? Do you think your experience of race is similar or different from that of your peers?
In “How Much Racism Do You Face Every Day?” Amy Harmon writes about the experiences of 101 black teenagers in Washington, D.C., who were surveyed about how much racism they experience on a daily basis:
Collectively, the 101 black teens participating in the study reported more than 5,600 experiences of racial discrimination over two weeks. That boils down to an average of more than five instances per day for each teenager. That’s more than 70 over two weeks.
Those findings may not be surprising to those who face routine discrimination, but they reflect a higher frequency of racism than has previously been reported.
What caused the increase? Researchers say that the study was the first to include so many expressions of racial bias, 58 in all, and to ask participants to record them daily. Previous studies have typically asked participants to recall experiences from the past, which researchers say is not as accurate.
Although there has been an increase in hate crimes during the Trump administration, this study measures incidents that occurred when Barack Obama was in the White House.
The teens who participated in the study were students at a middle school, a high school and a summer program in Washington. Those who experienced more instances of discrimination over the two weeks also showed more symptoms of short-term depression, the study found, such as difficulty sleeping, loneliness and anxiety.
“Part of why these types of microaggressions are so insidious is that a lot of times, white people can see them as not real, or not a big deal,’‘ said Devin English, a psychologist at Rutgers University who led the study. “But this is showing us the magnitude of the discrimination faced by black adolescents. It’s happening all the time. And it’s affecting how they feel.’’
The article also discusses instances of racial teasing:
Racial teasing is common among adolescents and often it is seen as harmless. But previous studies have shown that it can lead to increases in anxiety symptoms for black adolescents.
In the research team’s interviews with black teens, Dr. English said, being teased about hair and skin tone was cited as a frequent way that they were treated differently because of their race.
One black teenager gave an example of being asked by a white friend, “Why don’t you like chocolate cake? Is it because it is the same color as you?”
Ms. Harmon looks at what the study found out about the role and effect of microaggressions:
In recent years, social scientists have debated the impact of commonplace, sometimes unintentional expressions of bias known as microaggressions, with some arguing that they represent largely harmless behavior misinterpreted as hurtful.
The study suggests that microaggressions occur an average of several times a week for adolescents, and are linked to an increase in depressive symptoms. One teenager told the researchers that white students expected him to be good at basketball because he was black and tall. Another recalled a teacher telling his predominantly black class “get educated or go to the penitentiary.’’
As you completed the quiz, how did your responses compare with the study average? How does that make you feel? What does it make you think about? At the bottom of the article, there is a list of all 58 questions that the 101 black teenagers who participated in the study were asked. Are you surprised by the average number of times in two weeks that they experienced racism? Why or why not?
When was the first moment that you remember being aware of your race? Was it a conversation or interaction you had with someone else? Did it happen when you became aware of how someone else was being treated?
Have your parents or family members ever talked to you about your racial identity? Are people at your school or in your community comfortable talking about race?
Have you ever been teased or discriminated against because of your race? Have you ever witnessed or been part of teasing or making fun of someone else because of their race? In your experience, is racial teasing common at your school? How do peers, teachers and administrators view racial incidents?
Being white in America has long been treated, at least by white people, as too familiar to be of much interest. It’s been the default identity, the cultural wallpaper — something described, when described at all, using bland metaphors like milk and vanilla and codes like “cornfed” and “all-American.” Grass is green, the sky is blue and, until very recently, a product described as “nude” or “flesh-colored” probably looked like white people’s skin.
How often do white people talk about being white? Not often! So long as we aren’t hanging out with white nationalists, marrying into a family of color or chuckling over jokes about our dancing, we have endless opportunities to avoid thinking much about our own race. We generally prefer to frame identity in ethnic terms instead: Identifying as Italian or Irish or Jewish seems to come with zest, pathos and a chance to take pride in some shared history.
What do you think? Is it easy not to think about one’s own whiteness? Are you comfortable talking about your whiteness and how it potentially affects and interacts with other people’s identities? As you reflect on how you scored on the quiz, how does your whiteness relate to the scores you received?
Stephanie Parisi, Associate Director of Instructional Design
Emory University
@snparisi
Rebecca G. Williams, Research Program Manager
Johns Hopkins University
@rebecca_gwen
Our world is evolving rapidly and the need to understand complex societal issues and engage in productive and civil discourse has never been higher. Today’s issues may be different than those in the past, but one thing is certain, we need more ways to facilitate connections, share information and narrative, and build skills and tools to take action.
What is a Teach-Out?
Teach-Outs bring learners together from around the world to learn about and discuss salient social topics and consider actions to take within their own contexts (more at TeachOut.org). In a Teach-Out:
How, and how much, to participate is up to you
There aren’t quizzes or checkpoints
Experts come together to engage with the world in a broad discussion around key social issues central to our every day lives and relationships
JHU has been a long-time proponent of web-based learning, launching 91 total courses and enrolling more than 7 million learners across 195 countries since 2012. In the wake of the tragic 2017 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas highschool in Parkland, Florida, the surge of youth activism and rise of the gun violence prevention advocacy movement compelled researchers at the Center for Gun Policy and Research to create the first massive open online course (MOOC) on gun violence prevention.
Rebecca G. Williams interviewing Baltimore City residents in the East Baltimore neighborhood to learn their perspectives on gun violence and how it impacts them and their communities.
Our goal was to provide youth with the best available science and insights on gun violence as well as the skills to understand which interventions are the most effective. We invited experts outside of JHU and intentionally curated our content to reach a broader audience than that typical of other JHU online courses.
After the success of our online course Reducing Gun Violence in America: Evidence for Change, which incorporates the contributions of more than 20 experts representing organizations and institutions across the country and was promoted to national networks of youth advocates on behalf of March For Our Lives shortly after launching in May 2019, we saw an opportunity to further address learners’ interest in this subject in a Teach-Out.
Stephanie Parisi, Associate Director of Instructional Design
Emory University
In April 2019, Emory launched their first Teach-Out titled “Making” Progress(read more about that project in this blog). The Teach-Out was integrated with an on-campus course and its development involved several members of the Emory and Atlanta community. The collaboration and creation of the Teach-Out was so powerful and impactful that even almost a year later, the connections made during the teach-out have generated more collaborations and conversations. Looking back at that experience, we knew we could take it to the next level the second time around.
This year, we chose to base our Teach-Out on themes from Emory’s Common Read, Educated by Tara Westover. The Journeys to Education Teach-Out collects perspectives from faculty, students, staff, administrators, and community members, including Richard Blanco, fifth presidential inaugural poet. Our hope is that participants will reflect upon their own unique educational journeys and consider sharing them as part of a larger conversation about the many ways individuals experience education in different stages of their lives. With the Teach-Outs, Emory’s motivation has been to facilitate conversations around difficult topics and promote the respectful sharing of perspectives. We care deeply about and are committed to community engagement and social impact.
Sonya Owens with Dr. Jan Barton. Videographer Raymond McCrea Jones and assistant, Dave.
Benjamin Morse, Design Manager
University of Michigan
Since March 2017, the University of Michigan has launched 29 Teach-Outs on four platforms, collaborated with more than 250 experts, and engaged with more than 88,000 learners from around the world using this model. On January 29, 2020, we launched our 30th Teach-Out, the Why Iowa? A Primer on Primaries and Caucuses Teach-Out, on Coursera. This Teach-Out will delve into the history and processes of the U.S. presidential primary elections and will provide learners resources and strategies to get involved in their own contexts.
This Teach-Out serves as a springboard into the 2020 election year in the U.S. and kicks-off our Center’s efforts to create a range of open online learning experiences focused on U.S. politics and civic engagement. On October 15, 2020, the University of Michigan will host a presidential debate just prior to the November general election. This is a tremendous opportunity for the university community to engage in shaping democracy and this initial Teach-Out is one way that we will connect University of Michigan scholars with engaged citizens.
We hope that you join us, both as a learner and a teacher, in these Teach-Outs to help reimagine how we connect with one another in the digital age and what we can do as a society to solve our most pressing issues. In our collective experience, fostering these connections requires commitment to the core tenants of the Teach-Out model: bringing diverse perspectives together to learn about, discuss, and consider action, all built on a strong foundation of shared values and trust.
Stephanie supports faculty as they prepare to design and teach online, hybrid, and blended courses at Emory University. She collaborates with faculty to envision massive open online courses (MOOCs) for the Coursera platform and also serves as an advisor for instructional design and eLearning development. She has been at the forefront of several innovative teaching projects, most recently the Teach-Out initiative. Formerly with the Center for Faculty Development and Excellence, Stephanie now serves as the Associate Director of Instructional Design with Goizueta Business School at Emory.
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Benjamin Morse, Design Manager
Benjamin facilitates the work of the Center for Academic Innovation by managing the scoping, design, and development of Teach-Outs (more at teachout.org) and other learning initiatives at the Center to deliver high-quality online learning experiences with an emphasis on public engagement and actionable outcomes. (Full Bio Here)
