U.S. History to 1877 — Course Evolution

Looking Ahead

Ideas I'm Considering

Planned — Fall 2026

Implementing Active Learning

After experimenting with active learning in my U.S. History Since 1877 course in Spring 2026, I plan to move further toward an active-learning environment in Fall 2026. This will correspond with ten years of teaching this course, so it is time for a complete rewrite anyway.

Considering

Further Globalizing the U.S. Survey

I have always included more international perspectives in my U.S. History survey courses, given my specialization in British history and my experience teaching U.S. surveys. I think there is room to continue pushing this idea. The challenge is to do so in a way that provides my students with an experience similar to that of students in other classes at VMI.

Experimenting

AI-Assisted Review Assignments

For Fall 2026, I am implementing a History Bowl competition to help students review information and play into their competitive spirit. I am going to ask students to use AI to generate questions, then fact-check and revise them against scholarly sources before submitting a small batch each week. This creates a student-built question bank for the competitions and forces close engagement with course content.

Course Timeline

U.S. History to 1877 is a required course for all VMI History and International Studies Majors, which means it evolves in response to institutional changes as much as historiographical ones.

Fall 2022

Refining U.S. History Assignments

Experimented with Eric Foner’s Voices of Freedom, vol. 1 document reader.
For the first time since 2017, I decided to assign a scaffolded research project once again.
Refined the course schedule for the first time since 2017.

Instructor's Reflection

My students enjoyed the research project, especially since I let them dive into a topic of their choosing. The document reader did not work as well. I missed the flexibility of choosing my own documents and readings.

Download Syllabus (PDF)

Fall 2021

My First Semester on Post at Virginia Military Institute (VMI)

This was a semester of change. It was my first semester driving to Lexington and learning what it truly meant to teach at a military college.
I chose to use the same approach I took with the World History surveys this first semester (two book-length primary sources, two essays).
I used Harriet Jacobs’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl and Thomas Wentworth Higginson’s Army Life in a Black Regiment and Other Writings, both of which my students really enjoyed reading.

Instructor's Reflection

Teaching at a military college comes with unique challenges, but by the end of the semester, I knew that VMI was where I wanted to be. I truly loved working with my students.

Fall 2020

Learning to Deal With Online Formats

After the emergency switch to online classes in Spring 2020, I spent the summer learning how to better handle online environments.
Chose to use an asynchronous approach given student connectivity issues in rural Appomattox.
I asked students to record responses to weekly prompts using FlipGrid. I also had students create a lesson plan on a specific topic related to U.S. History and then use Microsoft Sway to create a visual presentation.

Instructor's Reflection

This was an incredibly difficult semester, and to be honest, I am not sure how effective my approach was in this class. I missed seeing my students and having the personal engagement that I find so fulfilling as a professor. I did enjoy the FlipGrid assignments and found them much more engaging than a standard discussion board format.

Fall 2019

Refining the Early College Approach at CVCC

Moved from a 2 to a 3 exam format.
Adopted the 6 C’s of Primary Source Analysis to help students learn how to analyze primary sources.
Dropped the Book Review essay, instead spending more time on the Slave Voyages assignment.

Instructor's Reflection

I loved teaching early college students, but I came to realize that they needed a slightly different approach. The two-exam format put too much pressure on my students, so I separated the course into three units. This improved grades overall while giving me more frequent feedback on what they understood.

Fall 2018

First Experience Teaching Early College at CVCC

Abandoned the textbook, choosing to instead post specific primary and secondary sources on our LMS.
Experimented with three smaller writing assignments rather than one long essay.
Used the Transatlantic Slave Trade Database to make the slave trade come to life for my students.

Instructor's Reflection

This was my first time teaching the Early College program at CVCC, and I found I really enjoyed working with this student demographic. I chose not to censor the course material and asked them to complete assignments similar to those in any college class I had previously taught.

Fall 2017

First Time Teaching U.S. History Survey

Drew on my expertise in British and Latin American History to offer a more “globalized” U.S. History survey.
I was committed to centering race, class, and gender as integral themes.
Used a scaffolded approach to have students write a 2,000-word research paper on a topic of their choosing.

Instructor's Reflection

This was the first class I taught at Central Virginia Community College (CVCC), and it was a learning experience. I had never worked with such a diverse student body, and I learned really valuable lessons about how to pitch material to different types of students.