Course Description

Jump to Summary of Course Learning Objectives  Latin America

What's this Course About?

    Why study Latin America?

    Great food and fun Awesome sites and cultures Historical Ties
    NAFTA Increasing US investment and trade Growing Hispanic population in the US
    Geographic Proximity Great Music: salsa, reggae, bossa nova, tejano Great food and fun (yes, it's worth repeating)


    You'll be fascinated with the diversity and vibrancy of the region. Latin America is gyrating music and dance, chili peppers, chocolate, revolutions, towering mountains, rain forests, beautiful beaches, cowboys, and much much more. Was a Brazilian actually first in flight, ahead of the Wright Brothers??

  • Oh, and one more thing. . . demography: from the Raleigh News and Observer, Thursday, June 19, 2003: "In a historic shift, Hispanics have surpassed blacks to become the nation's largest minority group, the Census Bureau reported Wednesday, because the Hispanic population grew at nearly four times the rate of the U.S. population during the past two years. Hispanics numbered 38.8 million as of July 2002, an increase of nearly 10 percent or 3.5 million since April 2000, census estimates show. The national population rose 2.5 percent during the same period to more than 288 million.

    In North Carolina, blacks still outnumber Latinos. The 2000 Census reported that about 5 percent of North Carolina's population was Latino, or about 380,000 people -- a population that nearly quadrupled in a decade. In comparison, about 22 percent of the state's population, or about 1.8 million people, identified themselves as black -- alone or in combination with other races. Nearly 2 percent of the state was Asian and nearly 2 percent was American Indian.    "

    Official Course Catalog Description

    "HI 216 Latin America Since 1826: Social, political, economic, and intellectual life in the 19th and 20th centuries in Central and South America. The social structure of the new nations; 19th century liberalism; the force of tradition; relations with Europe and the United States; economic change; caudillo rule; 20th century upheavals; revolutions; political conflict." This course fulfills the Humanities and Social Sciences GER for a non-English speaking culture.
    • Iguacu Falls [Photo at right: Along the border between Argentina and Brazil, the Iguacu River empties into the Parana. Near the junction of the two rivers, 275 waterfalls form the spectacular Iguacu Falls.]

    More on course content:

    History 216 Online surveys the historical development of this fascinating region on the US's southern border. We examine events, people, trends, conflicts, and more since most of the nations of Latin America became independent (about 1810 to 1826). An introductory course like this is necessarily selective. We don't overwhelm with a cascade of names, dates, battles and the like. Instead we focus on a few significant themes, people, issues, and events: elite political and economic domination, problems in rural society, political conflict and revolution, contemporary Inter-American problems. HI 216 requires no prerequisite courses, although knowledge of Spanish or Portuguese is helpful. Andale! Come on along! Historical Research Process

    What happens in this course

    is quite different from courses that you have taken in a classroom. Yes, we still use a variety of primary and secondary sources (see diagram) to construct our understanding of the past. The differences stem from my teaching philosophy.

  • As a major course theme, we track human rights issues across five centuries of history. How have elites mistreated the Latin American masss and why?
  • Take time to review the Distance Learner Profile. You must take much greater individual responsibility to budget your time and to complete tasks well and on time. For this course you do not have to be in a classroom at a given time; however, you do have many assignments due at specific times. But I know that you're up to the task! And thanks to the vast resources of the Internet, you have access to a great quantity of quality learning resources.
  • You'll do a great deal of reading, often reading primary sources, not just textbook summaries. Remember, that by learning online, we are replacing all the contact hours that we do NOT have in the classroom. During a regular semester, that's 150 minutes per week for about 15 weeks. During summer school, that's 450 minutes per week for five weeks. Yes, you'll read more than in an average classroom course. So learn to read smart! "In college 90 percent of our reading is about accessing information. In this context, reading is simply a means to get at information. It is not who we are and does not hold the key to our identities or our intelligence. Getting information, not the process of reading, holds the key to grades" [and learning]. [Learning Outside the Lines by Jonathan Mooney and David Cole (2000, pp. 131-32]. Remember that you can "interrogate" or search electronic documents. Use your browser's edit/find in page function to do keyword searches of long documents.

    Instructor's beliefs about learning and teaching:

    Some students are satisfied to take a course at face value and to perform the tasks required. Other students wish to know more about the "why" of a course. Why do we do what we do? What value is it to you? Read the Course Approach Page for details.
    1. Together we all constitute a learning community. We each bring different Experiences, Learning Styles, Interests, Ideas, Goals, Commitment, and Information Resources to the course. Together we engage in a process of discovery and problem-solving. Under old pedagogical assumptions, faculty transmitted Knowledge ("WISDOM") to students. In our learning community, Knowledge is jointly constructed by students and faculty. Interaction rules. Instead of playing the role of passive learners or empty vessels, you are are active learners and intellectual partners.
    2. As members of a learning community, you accept responsibility for your own learning and for helping to teach others. You will often collaborate with one another. Thus, rather than an instructor, syllabus, content centered-course, I've tried to make this one Student, learning, and process centered.
    3. Many of the assignments invite you to hone your Critical Thinking skills. Our goal is for you to function as an intellectual inquirer, someone equipped to evaluate and analyze evidence. First, Critical Thinking is not
      • the mere acquisition and retention of information alone
      • the mere possession of a set of skills
      • the mere use of those skills (as a plug and chug exercise)
      • about training seals -- but about encouraging creative thinking.
    4. Critical thinking can be seen as having two components: a set of skills to process and generate information and beliefs, and the practice or habit, based on intellectual commitment, of using those skills to guide behavior. Critical thinking is an intellectually disciplined process in which you actively and skillfully
      • find and evaluate evidence [locate data; determine whether it is reliable and valid]
      • conceptualize [put data together with ideas so that it all makes sense]
      • analyze [think critically about the concepts and data; break it all into meaningful pieces]
      • synthesize [shape the pieces into a logical, consistent whole]
      • apply your analysis and interpretation as a guide to belief and action.
    5. I suggest thinking about the knowledge or facts that you accumulate in college as bricks. They can just sit there in a heap-- unused and largely useless. It takes someone to put them into action-- to build something-- before the bricks have any real value. In similar fashion, what you read, hear, and absorb in college has little value until you mobilize that knowledge-- by putting it into oral and written arguments. Not surprisingly, the more often you discuss and write critically, the better you become at it. And who knows, you might even get to enjoy it. Obviously for our online courses, "discussions" are written, not spoken, but the same principle holds.
    6. For more information, check out my Links for Learners and Teachers Page. You'll find definitions of Critical Thinking, Bloom's Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, an Online Learning Style Analysis, "The Elements of Style" by William Strunk, Jr. (first published in 1918), and more. The more you know about your own learning and the expectations and assumptions of a course, the better you'll do. To read more about how your brain works and how thinking takes place, see the Neurodevelopmental Systems, developed by Dr. Mel Levine and Learning Issues and Differences.

    Computer NerdCourse Learning Objectives

    Course GER Learning Objectives

  • This course fulfills the NCSU History GER (General Education Requirement) for a non-English speaking culture. "Each course in the history category of the GER will provide instruction and guidance that help students to:
    1. understand and engage in the human experience through the interpretation of evidence from the past situated in geotemporal context; and "
      Objectives: analyze and explain the impact of major historical forces and events that shaped the region, with special attention to human right abuses and issues. Means of Evaluation: 1. Discussions and evaluations of other student discussions where in students evaluate, critique, and interpret primary and secondary historical sources. Means of evaluation: Discussions of 400-500 words, each based on a small set of historical documents.
    2. become aware of the act of historical interpretation itself, through which historians use varieties of evidence to offer perspectives on the meaning of the past, and"
      Objectives: Evaluate, critique, and interpret primary and secondary historical sources, including those on the Internet. Means of evaluation: 400-500 word commentaries (discussions) on a small set of historical documents.
      Organize and write logical historical arguments, phrased in clear, active-voice prose, and supported by specific, appropriate evidence. Means of evaluation: discussions and discussion evaluations, as noted in 1 above.
      Evidence growth in critical thinking (the higher levels of Bloom's taxonomy) and in cognitive level (based on William G. Perry's model). [See descriptions of Bloom and Perry in the syllabus below]. Means of evaluation: 1. Participation in online discussions 2. Mid-semester student self-assessment.
    3. make academic arguments about history using reasons and evidence for supporting those reason that are appropriate o the field of study."
      Objectives: Organize and write logical historical arguments, phrased in clear, active-voice prose, and supported by specific, appropriate evidence. Means of evaluation: Discussions as noted in 1 above.
      Evidence growth in critical thinking (the higher levels of Bloom's taxonomy) and in cognitive level (based on William G. Perry's model). [See descriptions of Bloom and Perry in the syllabus below]. Means of evaluation: 1. Participation in online discussions 2. Mid-semester student self-assessment.
  • Some students erroneously think of many tasks assigned in college as unrelated to the "real world." College-- even history courses -- should provide expectations and assignments that prepare students for the "real world." Think of this course as a "real world" job. You have responsibilities, just as you would on a paying job. I have designed these responsibilities to reflect how employers rate desirable job candidate qualities and skills.
  • Are you a good candidate to succeed in such a course? Do the self-evaluation for potential distance learners to gauge the match between you and the demands of this course.

  • Why study online?



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