Assessment

The student learning goals for this project included making connections among evidence and contextualizing that evidence to construct themes and narratives within the course.  The qualitative methodologies used were surveys and analytical reflective exercises embedded in the course.  Findings suggest that the tool supported students’ visualizations of connecting evidence and seeing themes across history.  Also, the tool expanded their understanding of the nature of historical knowledge, one student wrote, “Connections that were surprising to me helped to change the way I formulate new knowledge and work with what I already knew or expected. It will also work to generate new ideas and topics for the paper.”  The tool supports students in generating new claims about history while altering what students thought prior to seeing the course.