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| The Unessay Experiment: Moving Beyond the Traditional Paper Photo: Faculty Focus |
While some papers rehashed my
lectures, others read as if they were amended from a Wikipedia site.Overall, I was frustrated by the (lack of) effort and the redundancy.
And, I wasn’t necessarily inspired to grade them either, as I felt the
research paper was becoming a rather stale component of final history
class examinations.
That summer, I attended a conference on becoming a chair in a history department. I was surrounded by like-minded historians discussing academic leadership. However, in casual conversation, I heard of an evaluative measure called The Unessay. The word unessay immediately caught my attention, as I was desperately thinking of new ways to evaluate beyond the writing scope.
Upon some research, I found that the unessay moved beyond traditional papers. It was a form of self-expression and a way to demonstrate learning in a hands-on and visual way. It catered to students of different learning styles and expressions...
The final Unessay projects were amazing. One student, who had a large collection of dolls, created ‘Roman costumes’ to demonstrate the various classes of women. Another student, who was interested in the Punic Wars, created a monopoly game based on the event. Another student created a game of ancient empires, based on the game Risk. Several other students, who had a background in online gaming, recreated battle scenes, such as the Battle of Teutoburg Forest, and showed their craft to other students. Other variations included an Egyptian burial complete with a mummy and canopic jars, a booklet of Greek architecture, a children’s book of the Roman Emperor Nero, and a Sim’s online game that resembled a home for the Greek Gods.
Read more...
Source: Faculty Focus
