CZEC 361/HIST 361: Czech History and Culture

The Benchmark Portfolio traces the process of rethinking my interdisciplinary course CZEC 361/HIST 361 “CZECH HISTORY AND CULTURE” taught for the first time in Spring 2021. The primary goal of the course was to provide students with understanding of the cultural history of the Czech(oslovak) and Central European region of the last two centuries. It explores the question of creating cultural history as a narrative to understand how the modern Czech national identity has been constructed since the times of national awakening, via the formation of Czechoslovakia, and in the course of the turbulent 20th century. In addition to main course objectives, my teaching goal was to reveaute the intellectual work of teaching, rethink the methods and processes of effective students’ learning. In this course portfolio, I discuss my teaching methods and practices, employ qualitative and structured analysis to revisit class assignments and assessment tools. I document how the one year of peer review work on the course helped me to improve the course, and how it reinforced the match between course objectives and class practices. Finally, in the course analysis, I merge qualitative data and structured analysis, discuss advantages of employing summative assessment that has proved to be effective teaching practice, and it enabled me to suggest future improvements of the course