Teaching Big History

"Under Mojgan Behmandand#8217;s inspired leadership this large cohort of Dominican teachers have been at the forefront of designing and teaching innovative Big History courses for younger undergraduate university students.and#160; I know of no other Big History teachers who have thought about pedagogy and assessment in this field as systematically and rigorously as Behmand, et al."and#151;Craig Benjamin, author of Big History: Between Nothing and Everything

"This book offers a great many illuminating insights into the practice of big history teaching and is an excellent, indispensable resource for all teachers of the thresholds' approach to big history."and#151;Fred Spier, author of Big History and the Future of Humanity

"Rich, diverse and engaging, this is THE book for teachers new to Big History.and#160; Teachers at Dominican University tell what they learnt over four years as they collaborated to develop the worldand#8217;s first foundation program in Big History." and#151;David Christian, author of Maps of Time: An Introduction to Big History, and Director of the Big History Institute, Macquarie University, Sydney

"In the twenty-second century, when Big History is taught in every university around our planet, future scholars of intellectual history detailing the rise of this new vision will begin their story with the faculty at Dominican University. Teaching Big History is both the story of their pedagogical creativity and a how-to handbook filled with their distilled wisdom. For anyone interested in joining this major revolution in education, there is no better guide than their carefully crafted and deeply inspiring book."and#151;Brian Thomas Swimme, coauthor ofThe Journey of the Universe

Big History is a new field on a grand scale: it tells the story of the universe over time through a diverse range of disciplines that spans cosmology, physics, chemistry, astronomy, geology, evolutionary biology, anthropology, and archaeology, thereby reconciling traditional human history with environmental geography and natural history.

Weaving the myriad threads of evidence-based human knowledge into a master narrative that stretches from the beginning of the universe to the present, the Big History framework helps students make sense of their studies in all disciplines by illuminating the structures that underlie the universe and the connections among them.

Teaching Big History is a powerful analytic and pedagogical resource, and serves as a comprehensive guide for teaching Big History, as well for sharing ideas about the subject and planning a curriculum around it. Readers are also given helpful advice about the administrative and organizational challenges of instituting a general education program constructed around Big History. The book includes teaching materials, examples, and detailed sample exercises.

This book is also an engaging first-hand account of how a group of professors built an entire Big History general education curriculum for first-year students, demonstrating how this thoughtful integration of disciplines exemplifies liberal education at its best and illustrating how teaching and learning this incredible story can be transformative for professors and students alike.

Richard B. Simon is Adjunct Professor of English at Dominican University of California, instructor of English at City College of San Francisco, and Contributing Editor at Relix magazine.

Mojgan Behmand is Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs at Dominican University of California. She is also Associate Professor of English and former Director of General Education and First Year Experience.

Thomas Burke isand#160;Assistant Professor of English and Cultural Studies at Dominican University of California.

List of Illustrations

List of Tables

Acknowledgments

Introduction

PART ONE: THE CASE FOR BIG HISTORY

1. What Is Big History?and#151;Richard B. Simon

2. Big History and the Goals of Liberal Educationand#151;Mojgan Behmand

3. Summer Institutes: Collective Learning as Meta-Educationand#151;Thomas Burke

4. Assessing Big History Outcomes: Or, How to Make Assessment Inspiringand#151;Mojgan Behmand

5. Big History at Other Institutionsand#151;Mojgan Behmand, Esther Quaedackers, and Seohyung Kim

PART TWO: A PRACTICAL PEDAGOGY FOR TEACHING BIG HISTORY

6. Teaching Complexity in a Big History Contextand#151;Richard B. Simon

7. Teaching Threshold 1: The Big Bangand#151;Richard B. Simon

8. Teaching Threshold 2: The Formation of Stars and Galaxiesand#151;Kiowa Bower

9. Teaching Threshold 3: Heavier Chemical Elements and the Life Cycle of Starsand#151;Richard B. Simon

10. Teaching Threshold 4: The Formation of Our Solar System and Earthand#151;Neal Wolfe

11. Teaching Threshold 5: The Evolution of Life on Earthand#151;James Cunningham

12. Teaching Threshold 6: The Rise of Homo sapiensand#151;Cynthia Taylor

13. Teaching Threshold 7: The Agrarian Revolutionand#151;Martin Anderson

14. Teaching Threshold 8: Modernity and Industrializationand#151;Richard B. Simon

15. Threshold 9? Teaching Possible Futuresand#151;Martin Anderson, J. Daniel May, Richard B. Simon, Neal Wolfe, Kiowa Bower, Philip Novak, and Debbie Daunt

16. Reflective Writing in the Big History Courseand#151;Jaime Castner

17. Activities for Multiple Thresholds

18. Igniting Critical Curiosity: Fostering Information Literacy through Big Historyand#151;Ethan Annis, Amy Gilbert, Anne Reid, Suzanne Roybal, and Alan Schut

19. A Little Big History of Big Historyand#151;Cynthia Stokes Brown

PART THREE: BIG HISTORY AND ITS IMPLICATIONS

20. Big History at Dominican: An Origin Storyand#151;Philip Novak

21. Teaching Big History or Teaching about Big History? Big History and Religionand#151;Harlan Stelmach

22. The Case for Aweand#151;Neal Wolfe

Conclusion

Annotated Bibliography of Big History Texts and Resources

List of Contributors

Index