Course Objectives & Requirements

HIST/EDUC 600 Professional Development

Prairie Earth, Prairie Homes

Teachers wishing to obtain professional development credits enroll for 4 credit hours. The required activities for professional development credit focus almost exclusively on the experiential phase of the course, which meets 12-19 July 2009. Teachers will be asked to do some preparation for the experiential phase, and will have access to and the option to participate in any of the activities associated with the other course options. Further details are given in table below.

Here are the objectives of the course. On completion, students should be able to

1. Articulate the role and rationale for earth buildings in the historical culture of the Great Plains

2. Identify and describe the five types of earth building traditions on the plains

3. Demonstrate mastery of techniques for restoration of earth buildings

Activity	Time Period	Products	Evaluation
View and discuss DVD, Children of the Steppe, Children of the Prairie	1-11 July	Online contributions to Facebook discussion board	Reflective review by Kelley
Full participation in study tour, with accompanying lectures, of historic earth building sites across western North Dakota	12-19 July	Field journal, to be maintained in hard copy and submitted to Kelley at end of experiential phase	Reflective review by Kelley
Full participation in restoration activities at Hutmacher farmstead	12-19 July
Post-assessment	19-30 July	Completion of online form assessing instruction & learning in the course	Not graded – participation only

Prairie Earth, Prairie Homes