The Beginnings of Civilization: Humanitites 30

About the Textbook

Smarthistory

Description: 

Smarthistory explains itself, "We understand the history of humanity through art. From prehistoric depictions of woolly mammoths to contemporary abstraction, artists have addressed their time and place in history and have expressed universal human truths for tens of thousands of years. Learn what made Rome great, how Islamic tile work evolved, why the Renaissance happened, and about the brilliant art being produced today around the globe. Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker of Smarthistory together with leading art historians, and our museum partners have created hundreds of short engaging conversational videos and articles, making Khan Academy one of the most accessible and extensive resources for the study of the history of art."

Authors:

• Dr. Steven Zucker - Smarthistory
• Dr. Beth Harris - Smarthistory
  

Formats:  

Smarthistory is part of the Khan Academy. Students access the site online through links in the class website.

Supplemental resources:  

Most Smarthistory videos and articles have links to materials available on the web; some have quizzes. There is no search page dedicated to Smarthistory; one has to search the entire Kahn Academy.

Peer reviews: 

The book has been reviewed by a CCC faculty member, a CSU faculty member and one from UC within the California higher education systems.

Cost savings:  

In the case of Humanities 30, this free resource does not reduce the cost of the textbook but enriches student experience of architecture.  

Accessibility and diversity statement: 

The videos are closed captioned. 

License: 

Smarthistory is licensed by a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license. This means you can copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format and remix, transform, and build upon the material. You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use. You may not use the material for commercial purposes.

About the Course

Humanities 30: The Beginnings of Civilization

Description:  

This survey of the cultural heritage of Western civilization, from ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia and Greece to the Early Renaissance, presents a history of culture and values with emphasis on artistic, literary, musical, religious and philosophical traditions. A wide variety of audio/visual materials is used. 

Prerequisites: None

GE credit: 3 semester units, IGETC

Learning outcomes:

• Identify personal reactions to works of art and literature from the ancient Near East, Egypt, classical Greece and Rome, and the middle ages, and relate those reactions to the specific work and to the culture that created it.
• Categorize representative Egyptian, ancient Near Eastern, classical Greek and Roman, and medieval worlds in terms of date, genre or medium, and cultural origin.
  

Curricular changes:

I substituted two SmartHistory videos, one on the Parthenon and one on the Pantheon, for my usual text-and-still-photography online modules on these buildings. I hoped that being able to focus on the visuals while listening to the presentation might help my students better engage with architecture--always a difficult topic. 

This required only minor curricular changes: swapping out my modules on the Parthenon and the Pantheon for Smarthistory videos and revising discussions to correspond.  I added a discussion focusing on the Parthenon, and adjusted one of the choices of topics in Roman Hellenism to include the Pantheon. 

I did not change my objective quizzes, which allows me to compare student results on material that only occurred in our print textbook to material that was also covered in the videos.

Teaching and learning impacts:  

Collaboration with others: No       
Use of additional materials: No
Student learning improved: Yes
Student retention improved: Unsure
Any unexpected results: Yes 

I expected the videos to improve student writing about architecture.  Although I did not see a marked improvement in the quality of the observations or analysis, many more students elected to write about architecture when given a choice of topics.  I did see improvement in the objective quizzes that deal with material reinforced in the videos.

Sample assignment and syllabus:

Sample Assignment
This is an assignment on the Parthenon for student discussion.

Rubric
This is the rubric I used for the discussion postings.

Syllabus
This is the syllabus I used for Fall 2015.

Textbook Adoption

OER Adoption Process

Students often seem to struggle to understand architecture through the written word. One challenge is that readers need to refer to images; students have been taught to value text and often ignore the images that are integral to a presentation of architecture. Videos in Smarthistory help them experience movement through space and highlight visual features.

Student access: 

It is simple to embed Smarthistory videos in an online course management system, as the code is included.  Students did not report any problems accessing the videos on their various devices, including tablets and smart phones.

Smarthistory is now robust enough to substitute for a traditional print textbook in an art history class covering prehistoric through medieval art in Europe, like C-ID ArtH 110. In a humanities class, it is necessary to provide other material on literature, philosophy and music, so we used a traditional print textbook as well.

Alice Taylor, Ph.D.

I am an art historian and a professor of humanities at West Los Angeles College. I teach surveys of western culture in art history and humanities, and a survey of medieval cultures.

My primary goal is that students truly engage with the artifacts of culture so that they can formulate and express their own educated opinions of them.  Photographs and videos stand in for art and architecture, and translations into accessible English stand in for literary, religious and philosophical texts.  I rely on asking open-ended questions to lead students to study the photographs, videos and texts.  There is never a single correct answer; students need to use their own direct observations to form their responses.