Course content

The Early-Modern State: history lesson

Client: Cégep du Vieux-Montréal (Montreal, Quebec)

Date: Fall 2015

Challenge:

• Present a synthesis of historical interpretations of a major historical development: the emergence of modern states.
• Compare the emergence of the state apparatus in two parallel contexts – the kingdoms of France and England – for a period ranging from the fifteenth to the eighteenth century.

Concepts and Methods:

• Content research and writing: Compilation of historiographical sources in bibliography and mediagraphy format. Comparative study of college-level history textbooks. Creation of a glossary for relevant historical concepts. Narrative synthesis of historical sources, following the format of a history lesson in lecture teaching mode.
• Instructional planning and design: Adaptation of a content plan for a 2h30 lesson, according to the content and evaluation rules and standards established in the syllabus. Writing course notes following a content plan. Design of educational activities to incorporate into the lesson. Creation of PowerPoints, adapted and enhanced in Prezi multimedia format.

Outcomes:

Lesson plan, with classroom activities. Teaching course content, with commented PREZI presentation. Interactive lecture delivered on November 13, 2015 at Cégep du Vieux-Montréal, in front of 20 college students.

N.B. Sample materials in French only.

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Seventeenth-Century Colonial America: history lesson

Client: Collège Bois de Boulogne (Montreal, Quebec)

Date: Spring 2017

Challenge:

• Teach the history of 17th-century English colonies of the North American Eastern seaboard to college-level students.
• Help students contextualize 17th-century lived experience and Colonial-Era proto-American cultural and institutional developments.

Concepts and Methods:

• Lesson planning : Analysis of three college-level history manuals, for relevant course content and structure. Drafting of a minuted lesson outline, including classroom breaks and group activity periods. Creation of an annotated bibliography related to lesson content. Drafting of course notes, with reference to lesson outline. 
• Teaching tools : Drafting of lesson PowerPoint. Identification of audio-visual teaching aids, to integrate into lesson PowerPoint. Story examples prepared to help students situate 17th-century lived experience. Preparation of a lesson glossary handout for students.
• Classroom activity : adaptation of Business Model Canvas to the history classroom, to help students role-play “17th-century entrepreneurs” : chartered colonial companies.

Outcomes:

• Delivery of course content to two college-level groups. Revision of lesson PowerPoint for greater clarity an concision for the second group taught.
• Exam questions pertaining to the lesson integrated into the mid-term exam. Grading of mid-term exam for both groups.
• Creation of a classroom activity prototype (see slide presentation, below): “The chartered colonial company as 17th-century startup”.