AC Course and Assignment Support (Summer 2020)

We hope that everyone is safe and well! The waves of change keep breaking across our teaching plans, and as the largest curriculum at UC Berkeley (16,000 students enrolled across 49 departments each year) we know that the 'lift' in an AC course is heavy. The innovation of the AC community, centered on equity and social justice, has supported the challenges and opportunities of this unique curriculum, and we wanted to reflect some of that back at you. Here are a few ideas that might be useful this semester as you consider how to face the online learning environment. Please send your ideas as you continue to develop your classes across the semester so that we can sharethem with others to americancultures@berkeley.edu.

RACE—The Power of an Illusion

In 2019, the AC Center, California Newsreel, and the Haas Institute for a Fair and Inclusive Society (HIFIS)—now the Othering and Belong Institute—created a new website for RACE—The Power of an Illusion. The site reflects the "power" of the original film, with new film segments for use in the classroom, and also new interviews with UC Berkeley faculty who share their current interpretations of the film's seminal content.

Wikipedia

The AC Center at UC Berkeley was the first university in the US to host a 'Wikipedian-in-Residence', and since then, many faculty have created assignments to edit or create new Wikipedia sites. Many of these sites have had millions of 'hits'. There is still time to consider Wikipedia assignments for the next leg of the semester. As an educational tool, developing Wikipedia articles allows students to create collaborative work with a visible impact on a global audience. Whether adding new sources to existing Wikipedia pages or creating new pages on notable topics, students gain deeper insight into their course material and learn to evaluate critically the reliability of sources.

Lumière

The Media Resources Center and the Berkeley Language Center Lumière platform has created a vast repertoire of media clips that can be used in powerpoints. They can be annotated with questions to prompt conversation in the classroom. Lumière, the successor to the Library of Foreign Language Film Clips (LFLFC), is now available for instructor use. Sporting an improved interface with more browsing and searching options, the ability to create your own ‘private’ clips, a glossary of film terms with short video examples, and the ability of students to comment on clips/films, Lumière provides faculty with many tools for using film as a resource to teach language, culture, and analysis of filmic texts.

Creative Discovery Student Hub

The Creative Discovery Student Hub is a student-facing bCourses site with the full breadth of support options available to students undertaking a creative project. We highly encourage you to use this site as a bank of resources for acquiring software, teaching technical skills, and giving and receiving feedback on a conceptual project. In addition to existing guides and tutorials, students can request individual project help by making an appointment for peer consultation with a student designer. For questions, technical advice, or any other concerns, students can reach out to the team by emailing cd-fellows@berkeley.edu.

Creative Discovery Fellows Hub

The Creative Discovery Fellows Hub is a faculty-facing bCourses site with assignment development guides, as well as instructional materials for utilizing software such as Adobe Spark or Adobe Premiere Rush to teach a creative project. You can also find information on how to incorporate an in-class Zoom workshop by the Creative Discovery Team on a particular software or a project you may be interested in assigning, such as a video, podcast, or web page.

Creative Discovery Fellows Workshops

Some example workshops that the Creative Discovery team has led include using Premiere Rush to capture and edit video footage, drafting and recording a podcast or interview, how to replace a traditional term paper or essay with a Spark Page, or properly citing creative media using Copyright and Fair Use Law. Depending on availability, these workshops can be scheduled by request - email cd-fellows@berkeley.edu for more information.

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