Frequently
Asked Questions Regarding
the Community Action Website Project
2. Does the project really help students without increasing my work load?
7. How do I learn more about Public Anthropology's Community Action Website project?
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1. How does the project work?
Each semester the Project involves thousands of students from a range of schools across North America. Beyond doubt, it has offered a valuable educational experience for students. Participating in the Community Action Project helps them improve both their critical thinking and writing skills. By actively addressing important ethical concerns, it provides students with a sense of engagement involving the broader world. It also offers practice in active citizenship. The Project encourages interested students to send their views to elected officials and members of the media.
(1) Each semester (quarter or term) teachers select, from three options, a two and a half week time-period (termed an Action Period) for participating in the Community Action Website. The project is done outside class on a student's own time. During the two and a half week period of the project, students spend a total of approximately two to three hours on it.
(2) Students register for the project on-line at www.publicanthropology.net. In registering, a student pays a ten dollar registration fee which allows the student to participate in the project, use the project's software, and receive a free on-line copy of WHY A PUBLIC ANTHROPOLOGY? (This spring, the book will be selling on-line for $9.95 -- so students have the advantage of obtaining the book plus participate in the project for the same price as the book itself.) This book constitutes the project's main reading and is used as a lens for exploring ethical issues within the discipline. Students focus mostly on the 43 page first chapter which places the ethical topic they will be addressing within a broader context. The reading is generally done the week prior to the website project and takes roughly an hour. No books need be ordered from the bookstore. Students can read the book on-line or print it out.
(3) Students write professional-style Op-Ed pieces that are then, if they desire, published on the web. Students then email various local, state, and/or national legislators, newspapers, relations or simply noteworthy individuals with a link to the published Op-Ed. The goal is to give students the experience of writing for a larger audience, beyond the classroom, beyond their school, in a way that attracts attention and serious consideration. It allows them to not only understand how democracy works through discussions in the public sphere but effectively participate in the process.
(4) The website provides students, TAs and teachers with the needed background information to facilitate this Op-Ed writing process.
(5) After completing their own Op-Eds, students anonymously evaluate four Op-Ed pieces by other students without knowing who wrote them or which schools they are from. During this peer review process, students are drawn into reflecting not only on the perspectives presented in other students' Op-Eds but on how they, themselves, performed in respect to the grading criteria. At the end of the evaluation process, students receive feedback on how other students viewed their Op-Eds.
(6) Students whose Op-Eds are ranked in the top 5% across North America get personalized certificates of recognition from the Center for a Public Anthropology.
Note: The project works best when it is a stipulated class assignment and constitutes perhaps 10% of the final grade. When students do the project on an optional basis, many do not complete it -- thereby affecting the peer review process of other students. Making the project an optional assignment is only allowed in exceptional circumstances with formal permission from the project's webmaster.
2. Does the project really help students without increasing my work load?
The focus of the project is on students engaging directly with critical anthropological issues and thinking through, for themselves, where they stand on them. A key part of the process involves students reading other students' Op-Ed pieces and seeing how these students address the same issue. The Op-Eds are graded through a peer review process involving students reading four Op-Eds and ranking them on the degree to which they meet five writing criteria. As with Calibrated Peer Review -- an evaluation system used by over 140,000 students -- neither teachers nor TAs are required to grade the Op-Eds.
Students who are upset with their grades have the option of requesting their teachers re-grade their letters. But to take advantage of this option, students must write a 100 word explanation of why they feel their letters deserve a different grade. Less than 2% of a class every choose this option.
The web pages are designed so TAs, especially in large classes, are able to oversee the project with limited guidance from the teacher. Because students are instructed on what to do when through emails, little direct supervision is required. All technical problems are handled by the webmaster.
3. As I understand it, I can select from one of three periods when my class will participate, with other classes across the United States and Canada, in the project. When are these three time periods?
Each of the three periods is termed an Action Period -- because, it is when the "action" takes place. For SPRING 2013, the Action Periods are: (1) FEBRUARY 11 - FEBRUARY 27, (2) MARCH 11 - MARCH 27, and (3) APRIL 8 - APRIL 24.
4. What schools have participated in the project to date and what do some of the teachers who have participated say about it?
Schools
That Have Recently Used the Community Action Website
in Their Introductory Courses
|
University
of Georgia |
A
Sample of Quotes from Teachers
Who Have Participated in the Project
The
students in my introductory cultural anthropology course became far more
engaged with issues of ethics and global citizenship. It helped
them think
more broadly about the role of the social sciences in analyzing cultural
and ethical conflicts occurring in the world
today.
-- Julie
Skurski, City University of New York
The
project challenges students to think beyond the traditional confines
of a large introductory class and to critically examine ethical
issues relating to the practice of anthropology and global citizenship.
Many found it to be a deeply empowering experience.
-- Yin Lam, University of Victoria
For
a large introductory course (with an enrollment in the hundreds), it
is difficult to find projects that provoke students to actively engage
with the fundamental ideas and ideals of anthropology. The Community
Action Website did that for my classes this year. The project encouraged
students to recognize the anthropological perspective as a morally-positive
way of thinking and acting in the world. My students appreciated the
opportunity to present their opinions on important ethical issues. They
came to see anthropology as focused on subjects and ideas of relevance
to their lives.
-- J. Dwight Hines, University of California-Santa Barbara
My
freshman and sophomore students, mostly pioneer-college-goers, have really
benefitted from participating in the Public Anthropology Website Project.
The Project encouraged and empowered them to apply new-found critical
reasoning and writing skills to real world problems, both globally and
in their home communities.
-- Christina von Mayrhauser, California State University, Northridge
The
Community Action Website Project allowed my students to exchan ge ideas
with students from across North America on ethical issues and research
relationships.
Students appreciated the opportunity to see how peers craft their own
informed perspectives. Students came to appreciate the power of anthropology
to "make a
difference" in today's world.
-- Karl Schmid, York University
Public
Anthropology’s Community Action Website engaged my students with
the potential of anthropology as an activist discipline. They loved it.
-- Carolyn Nordstrom, University of Notre Dame
5. If I have a large class, can the TAs basically run the project with limited supervision from myself? What is the value of the Project for TAs?
In large classes, TAs usually supervise the project. The value for TA's assisting with the project is that they help foster an online intellectual student community that critically considers ethical issues central to the discipline. It offers them a skill they can highlight on their CVs when they apply for teaching positions after they receive their PhDs. It should be stressed the TAs do not have major, time-consuming responsibilities. Their main responsibilities are (a) discussing the issue, when appropriate, with students, (b) encouraging students to read the directions provided and follow the specified deadlines stipulated in emails that students receive from the webmaster, and (c) requesting a student email the webmaster if the student encounters a technical problem.
6. You refer to WHY A PUBLIC ANTHROPOLOGY? What is the book about and why is it being used?
WHY A PUBLIC ANTHROPOLOGY? emphasizes the power of anthropology to change the world and, in doing so, acts as a foundation for Public Anthropology’s Community Action Website. In analyzing anthropology – as a discipline, as a social structure, and as a body of knowledge – the book emphasizes anthropology needs to grow beyond its present dynamics and styles. The book offers a strategy for moving anthropology from the treadmill of publications that few read to playing a major role in addressing public problems. It offers a means for revitalizing the discipline and realizing anthropology’s vision for improving the human condition through the understanding of human differences.
Chapter 1: Cultural Anthropology's Challenge
Chapter 2: The Power of Cultural Anthropology to Address the World's Problems
Chapter 3: How Has Cultural Anthropology Progressed as a Field?
Chapter 4: Is a Public Anthropology Possible?
7. How do I learn more about the Public Anthropology's Community Action Website project?
If you would like to have your introductory class participate in Public Anthropology's Community Action Website or if you have questions regarding the project, please email the webmaster at: borofsky@publicanthropology.org. To avoid last minute rushes (for you as well as the webmaster), it is best to email the webmaster as soon as you have questions or decide to participate.