By including the history faculty and university archivist in the pre-construction planning process of Kean’s ‘Liberty Hall Academic Center’, the archives incorporated instructional design into the creation of this space. Rethought in this way, the archives become a realm of experimentation and inquiry, where students can touch and fuse original primary materials into their research. In particular, students are able to conduct work in restoring voices previously lost to the narrative of America’s revolutionary era. Used in this way, students bridge applied and theoretical skills and strategies in their own scholarly process.
Furthermore, their research outcomes can take a variety of forms including K-12 unit plans, podcasts, websites, interactive maps, and graphic representations as well as more traditional research papers. As a result, students are better able to connect the skills they are developing to practical applications that will benefit in their graduate study and/or post-Kean careers.
The outcomes are exciting: student work over the last 4 years have included script-writing for a New York Emmy-nominated re-enactment of the 1774 marriage of Sarah Livingston to John Jay, the digital reconstruction and analysis of William Livingston’s personal library, timelines and analysis of William Livingston as a revolutionary war propagandist, podcasts on William Livingston and the institution of slavery, and award-winning student essays and conference presentations.
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