Reacting to the Past Conference: March 1-3, 2013; Miller Learning Center

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announcementThis announcement brought to you by the COE Innovation in Teaching and Technology initiative…

Have you heard about “Reacting to the Past” courses and wondered how they might impact your own teaching? If so, you can find out all about this award-winning pedagogy by attending this year’s conference at UGA on March 1-3, 2013 in the MLC. “Reacting to the Past” consists of elaborate games (that last from 1-3 weeks), set at critical moments in human history, in which students are assigned roles informed by classic texts in the history of ideas. There are 19 Reacting games and 15 more in development. Perhaps one is in your area of expertise or interest. For an overview of the pedagogy and descriptions of the various games, go to http://www.barnard.edu/reacting .

To introduce more UGA faculty to Reacting we are holding our seventh Reacting Training Conference this year on March 1-3, 2013 and invite you to participate. Attending the conference is the best way to determine whether this pedagogy has something to offer you and your students. The conference begins Friday at 5 pm, continues all day Saturday and ends on Sunday in the early afternoon. Participants (20-25 per game) will have pre-assigned roles to play either Title IX: Gender and Athletics at an American University or Honolulu, 1892: A Kingdom in Crisis.

All registration information can be found at https://ugeorgia.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_3JcD2dY2FsLYEaV. Included on the registration page is a full description of the games. The cost is only $50 per person for UGA faculty but we will waive all conference fees for the first 20 UGA faculty and doctoral students who register for the conference. Please encourage your Ph.D. students to register and attend as experience with this pedagogy has set more than one job applicant apart from the pack. In addition, if you attend this conference or attended last year’s conference and haven’t yet adopted the pedagogy, you may apply for a $1000 support account to help you plan and prepare to introduce a Reacting game into one of your classes next year. The program will give out two such grants as a way to encourage conference participants to take the plunge and include Reacting in their courses.

“Reacting” is not just for history classes. The pedagogy has been used to great enthusiasm in courses in Greek, classical culture, Latin, French, Theater and Drama, Speech Communication, English, Comparative Literature, Physics & Astronomy, Political Science, Religion, Art and Women’s Studies at UGA and elsewhere.
We hope you join us for the conference. If you have questions, feel free to contact me personally (nnorman@uga.edu).

Naomi Norman
Director of the UGA Reacting to the Past Program
Department Head, Department of Classics
Josiah Meigs Distinguished Teaching Professor
Editor-in-Chief, American Journal of Archaeology
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This announcement brought to you by the COE Innovation in Teaching and Technology initiative…