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Building Milestone Docs with the Help of our Adopting Professors
10/02/13
Here at Milestone Documents, we work closely with our community of educators to continually hone the format, content, and features of our service. A unique digital resource that costs students just $19.95/semester, Milestone Documents combines 1,400 key historical documents with expert analysis from a global network of scholars. It also includes a peer-reviewed textbook layer for the big survey courses in U.S. history, world history, and Western Civ, plus pedagogical support developed by the Editors in Chief of our various subject areas.
Through our deep connection to adopting professors, we’ve been able to continually iterate to an ever better resource—one that’s designed to work equally well for educators and students alike. We’ve also gained insights into the wide variety of ways your colleagues are putting Milestone Documents to work in the classroom. We’re actively documenting classroom methods and formats in a series of case studies that we invite you to explore.
Among the cases is the use of Milestone Documents by Eric Cunningham, associate professor of history at Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington, and Editor in Chief of our World History II and Western Civ II subject areas. Cunningham is a champion of education in its purest form and fights the increasing pressure for students to think about their university education solely in terms of career and job. “Without an environment of lively debate driven by a passion for knowledge, students ‘seem like they’re sleepwalking,’” he says.
You can read about how Cunningham’s classroom strategy and materials choices work to counteract listless minds and to provide a payoff in sheer intellectual exercise in Eric Cunningham Inspires Critical Thinking at Gonzaga University. In this concise case, you will learn about:
• Cunningham’s combination of lecture, document readings, and a no-frills textbook (soon to be replaced by our own textbook layer, edited by Eric himself) that sets the stage for meaningful discussion in class.
• Cunningham’s creation of his own custom reader, built from only the documents he wants to teach in any given semester.
• The Milestone Documents’ analyses that changed the dynamic of the classroom discussion
• Cunningham’s belief in the power of educators to reshape an archaic publishing model
Eric Cunningham Inspires Critical Thinking at Gonzaga University is available on the Milestone Documents website along with a variety of other case studies. To learn more about Milestone Documents, visit www.milestonedocuments.com.