I'm David and this is my blog. I teach history online and in "seated" classes. I successfully tricked my classmates into thinking that my master's thesis won an award, when I'm probably better able to claim I've hiked the whole C&O canal!

As far as a self-assessment of my current knowledge and skills around teaching, I think I have learned a great deal about teaching since I began, but that I have a long ways to go. I think a good teacher has perspective and tries to consider how students percieve a course and the sorts of activities they're asked to complete. I am confident that I learn something new about teaching each semester and I hope that continues.

I've actually blogged before, a few times at different points in my life but never for my classes. I think creating blogs could be an effective way of asking students to journal about readings and the experiences they've had in class. One thought that occurs to me is making blogging part of a class that would call on students to visit local historical sites, where they would then blog about their visits, including pictures and maps and other visuals they captured on the trip. I like that blogging involves writing, a skill we try to develop in the humanities, and it does it in a way that is different enough from an argument driven essay or discussion post that it might provide some variety for our students.

We have histories of how we write about history!