THATClass
The Humanities And Technology (THAT) Class is a 501(c)(3) non-profit educational outreach organization based in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. THATClass started with partnerships among teachers, students, local archives and experts, and a question:
"What if we replaced the textbook curriculum with archival materials?"
THAT led to authentic historical work, with high school students framing questions about stories forgotten, researching in archives, and using new digital tools to share their findings at a professional historical studies conference.
"What if we replaced the textbook curriculum with archival materials?"
THAT led to authentic historical work, with high school students framing questions about stories forgotten, researching in archives, and using new digital tools to share their findings at a professional historical studies conference.
Biographies of Directors
Patrick Cronin has over a decade of experience teaching in high schools and now teaches undergraduate courses about discovering archives in Washington, D.C. His use of primary sources in classrooms began with his participation in two Teaching American History federal grant programs, each lasting three years. He was a humanities teacher at the first high school in New Mexico built specifically for project-based learning (PBL) during its inaugural year. He has worked as a developer of PBL curriculum for the New Tech Network , as an evaluator for the Smithsonian Institution’s Community of Gardens Project, and as an educational technology consultant for PBS. Patrick is a proud father of four children.
As Co-Founder/Director of THATClass and a classroom teacher, most recently at the American School of Paris, Thomas Neville facilitates student-driven projects pairing archives and technology. He grew interested in local and public history at West Chester University and as a research fellow at Temple University’s Urban Archives. After teaching in the DC area he pursued an Ed.M at Harvard where he cofounded Hack the Dissertation, an attempt to reimagine the form and purpose of academic work. His subsequent teaching experimented with archives-based curriculum as a substitute for a textbook and testing model. His students presented at the 2013 DC Historical Studies Conference. Neville has consulted on Ford's Theater's Remembering Lincoln project and the Smithsonian's Community Gardens curriculum. His work at ASP was recently featured in Mind/Shift & Edutopia. He has received fellowships in archival research and digital mapping and made conference presentations about education, technology, and history, including a presentation/performance charting the evolution of banjo and fiddle music in America at the inaugural Old Time and Bluegrass festival in Paris, France.
Our Driving Question:
"How can we as humanities educators enable hands-on, project-based learning within archives, so that learners uncover knowledge and develop skills for life?"
Background
INSPIRATION
After a visit to NuVu, a budding studio-based school for STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) projects, we wondered what the humanities equivalent would look like. NuVu grew out of MIT’s Architectural Design program and offers a radical departure from established norms of education: no courses, no subjects, no classrooms, no one hour schedule, no grades. This creates a paragon where students from local schools spend an entire trimester or several weeks in the summer in a private studio engaging in full-time, hands-on projects facilitated by trained educators and experts in the disciplines most relevant to the students’ respective projects.
After a visit to NuVu, a budding studio-based school for STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) projects, we wondered what the humanities equivalent would look like. NuVu grew out of MIT’s Architectural Design program and offers a radical departure from established norms of education: no courses, no subjects, no classrooms, no one hour schedule, no grades. This creates a paragon where students from local schools spend an entire trimester or several weeks in the summer in a private studio engaging in full-time, hands-on projects facilitated by trained educators and experts in the disciplines most relevant to the students’ respective projects.
From there we looked at similarly sustained and immersive experiences. A little known fact about the “Top High School in the Nation” for three years running, the Gatton Academy of Mathematics and Sciences in Kentucky, is that its roots are in a summer academic enrichment program begun in 1983 called VAMPY (Verbally and Mathematically Precocious Youth). There, student campers spend three weeks, six-hours per day, engaged in the exploration of a chosen seminar topic.
EXPLORATION
We took our ideas to THATCamp Prime (The Humanities and Technology Camp, a digital humanities unconference at George Mason University begun, in part, by the founder of the Digital Public Library of America), where we sought guidance from academic experts in the digital humanities on how to implement what we then called THAT Class. After further refinement we made a similar presentation at the American Antiquarian Society’s annual conference at the Center for Historic American Visual Culture. There we sought critique of our work with high school students in archives. The clear takeaway from both experiences was that no sufficient model of this intensive digital humanities exploration exists. The closest approximation might be found in the Brooklyn Historical Society's Teacharchives.org project. Their efforts, which are archive- and exercise-based, introduce college students to archives by guiding their interaction with a single document, the principal goal of which is to build information literacy skills for early undergraduates.
That's THAT!
EXPLORATION
We took our ideas to THATCamp Prime (The Humanities and Technology Camp, a digital humanities unconference at George Mason University begun, in part, by the founder of the Digital Public Library of America), where we sought guidance from academic experts in the digital humanities on how to implement what we then called THAT Class. After further refinement we made a similar presentation at the American Antiquarian Society’s annual conference at the Center for Historic American Visual Culture. There we sought critique of our work with high school students in archives. The clear takeaway from both experiences was that no sufficient model of this intensive digital humanities exploration exists. The closest approximation might be found in the Brooklyn Historical Society's Teacharchives.org project. Their efforts, which are archive- and exercise-based, introduce college students to archives by guiding their interaction with a single document, the principal goal of which is to build information literacy skills for early undergraduates.
That's THAT!
Conference Presentations
2018
April
Annual Organization for American Historians Conference, Sacramento, CA
"Forming Student Historians: Primary Sources and Historical Research at all Levels"
April
Annual Organization for American Historians Conference, Sacramento, CA
"Forming Student Historians: Primary Sources and Historical Research at all Levels"
2017
March
22nd Annual National Council for History Education Annual Conference, Atlanta, GA
"Uncovering History at the National Archives: When High School Students Engage in Graduate-Level Research"
March
22nd Annual National Council for History Education Annual Conference, Atlanta, GA
"Uncovering History at the National Archives: When High School Students Engage in Graduate-Level Research"
July
Annual Library of Congress 'Collections As Data' Symposium, Washington, D.C.
"Toward a Secondary Humanities Fellowship Semester"
Annual Library of Congress 'Collections As Data' Symposium, Washington, D.C.
"Toward a Secondary Humanities Fellowship Semester"
September
The Great War Over Here: Stories From the Home Front, Symposium at the National Archives Atlanta
"The Monuments Project: Researching WW I Georgians Through Student Crowdsourcing"
The Great War Over Here: Stories From the Home Front, Symposium at the National Archives Atlanta
"The Monuments Project: Researching WW I Georgians Through Student Crowdsourcing"
2015
November
42nd Annual Conference on D.C. Historical Studies
"Charting the Course of the 1968 Riots" see p. 17 of program.
November
42nd Annual Conference on D.C. Historical Studies
"Charting the Course of the 1968 Riots" see p. 17 of program.
2013
June
THATCamp Prime, Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media, George Mason University
"Imagining THATClass: Move over STEM, Make Room for THAT!"
November
Center for Historic American Visual Culture (CHAViC), American Antiquarian Society Annual
Conference
"Pedagogical Pollination: Crowdsourcing DC History Through Partnership and Collaboration"
June
THATCamp Prime, Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media, George Mason University
"Imagining THATClass: Move over STEM, Make Room for THAT!"
November
Center for Historic American Visual Culture (CHAViC), American Antiquarian Society Annual
Conference
"Pedagogical Pollination: Crowdsourcing DC History Through Partnership and Collaboration"
40th Annual Conference on D.C. Historical Studies
"Life In The Alley: Revitalizing Historical Narratives"