Microphone in bubbling beaker. Headphones in foreground.

NOTE ON ENROLLMENT: There has been a huge amount of interest in this class but we're going to cap enrollment at the people already approved. I'd love to open it up and have a wonderful, huge class but I don't think this would lead to a good learning experience for any one. I'm sorry to turn folks away! If the class sounds cool, let the department and the college know that you'd like to see more like it.

In this project-based class, you will work with a small team of students to create an narrative podcast series that explores aspects of the history of science that are relevant to a broader community. You will learn the skills needed to research, plan, record, and produce broadly accessible non-fiction audio stories. You will also learn how to transform scholarly observations into stories that are meaningful to a broad audience using techniques from museum interpretation, public history, and journalism.

This class is an updated version of HISTSCI 193cu (taught in Fall 2020). It overlaps significantly with HISTSCI 1932 (taught in Fall 2021), though the medium is different.

You can find the podcast episodes made in 2020 on the podcast website or on Apple Podcasts.

Take this class if...
Course activities
Individual Assignments
(Un)Grading
Core Commitments
About me

Take this class if...

You want to make a Podcast. Podcasting is a great medium for sharing ideas with a broad audience. Podcasts are wildly popular and attract listeners who are interested in diving deeply into unique topics. They are also relatively easy to make, requiring only simple tools and some basic technical knowledge. Podcasts are also a great way to learn skills that can be used to make other media products.

In this class, you will learn the skills needed to create a great sounding podcast. You will be able to take what you learn in this class and make your own thing.

No prior knowledge of audio recording or editing is required, but we'll make good use of any skills you bring to the class.

You want to engage a broader community. This class can help you think about how to be part of a larger conversation so that your ideas can make an impact beyond the walls of the university. Public engagement is not just a matter of broadcasting ideas to a wide audience. Authentic engagement means transforming the way that research is done and communicated. It means thinking differently about expertise and audience. It also means joining, fostering, or even creating a community of interest and action.

Learning to contribute to a diverse community is a key skill to creating a better world.

You want to work on a project with a team. Working with other people is hard, but it can also lead to creating something far better than any member could do on their own. In this class we'll talk about ways to foster the kind of group dynamic that allows a creative interplay of ideas and minimizes the frustrations.

Working with others is fundamental to work in almost any field in almost any setting and is well worth learning to do.

Course Activities

Before each class: Each week you'll have a combination of readings, tutorials, and activities.

The readings will be a foundation for our work by outlining core ideas and issues. We will be reading chapters and articles, so you don't need to buy any books. The tutorials will help you develop core technical knowledge in project planning, teamwork, design, and website creation. The activities will vary widely. You'll reflect on past experience, search for things on the web and in the libraries, try out techniques, talk to friends and family, and more. These activities are selected to help you connect what we're learning to the wider world and will give us good stuff to talk about in class.

Class meetings: Our weekly meeting will be part seminar, part studio-style class. We'll discuss readings, share insights from the past week's activity, problem solve projects, and work through questions about technical matters. We'll also spend class time making things and practicing the techniques we're learning. Throughout the semester we'll also have a few expert visitors share ideas and experiences from their work.

Audio snippets: Nearly every week you will create a short audio snippet as a way to practice the various steps in creating a podcast. You will create a voice memo explaining a concept to a classmate, tell a story with only sounds and music, interview a classmate, and more.

Podcast mini-series: This final group project is the center-piece of the class. The rest of the class is designed around giving you the tools to create a podcast you can be proud of. At the beginning of the semester you'll start working on a team with other students who have overlapping interests with you. Together, you'll figure out what you want to share and how you want to do it. Over the course of the semester you'll work through the project planning and implementation. You'll research your topic of interest and learn the technical skills you need to realize your idea. I'll meet with each team regularly to help you stay on track.

Individual Assignments

Learning goals: At the beginning of the semester you will write a short description of your goals for the class. What are you hoping to learn? What would you count as success in this class?

Mid-point check-in: Halfway through the semester you will check on your progress towards your goals and think about how things are going thus far. This will give you (and us) a chance to adjust course as needed.

Final reflection: At the end of the semester you will write a short reflection on your experience of the class and what you learned. This is also an opportunity to share thoughts about the group project process.

(Un)Grading

This class is designed to help you learn what you want to learn— to take as many steps from where you are to where you want to be. Each student has different goals, starts with different kinds of knowledge and skills, and will advance different amounts along their path. I believe (and studies confirm) that letter and number grades take more away from the learning experience than they contribute. For more on this, check out this post I wrote on the topic.

And so, this class will focus on qualitative, not quantitative, assessment. Throughout the semester you will set your own goals, and together we will reflect on your progress toward them. We will not grade individual assignments, instead the teaching staff and your fellow students will ask questions, make comments, and encourage development of your work. At the end, you will reflect on your experience during the semester and will collaborate with us (teaching staff) to determine a final grade. This approach is within the "ungrading" strategy of teaching and learning.

This is quite different from most classes, so if this is confusing, or you find yourself anxious or feeling a feedback vacuum, please talk to us. We’ll also talk about evaluation, feedback, and critique throughout the semester, as these are all vital skills in any creative practice.

Core commitments

This class is designed around a few working assumptions and commitments.

Scholarship is not neutral. Whether explicit, unconscious, or hidden, scholarship always occupies a political position and advances some interests and perspectives over others. This becomes especially important when venturing beyond the walls of the classroom to engage the broader world.

Because the society we live in is structured by systemic racism, colonialism, sexism, classism, ableism, and more, the sources we work with and the stories we try to tell will also be marked by these dynamics. Throughout the semester it will be important for us to examine the position of our work, identify and correct exclusions, and seek to create authentically inclusive work.

Project-based work is open-ended, complex, and unpredictable. In this class you will be working on real projects, with all of the excitement and frustration that that brings. We will undertake the projects essentially the same way they would be done in a real-world setting. This means that although there are general goals and known constraints, we don't know the outcome or even the process ahead of time. Instead, envisioning the product and designing a path is part of the work. Working on a project is risky, but project planning can help limit the risks. Also, unexpected turns can lead to exciting solutions.

Working with other people is great, but it's also challenging. I am a deep believer in the possibilities of collaboration. People with different perspectives can come together to create amazing things that no one person could imagine, let alone accomplish. But creating a team where everyone can shine is hard and involves skills that are rarely taught and are undervalued in too many settings. In this class, we'll practice egalitarian and inclusive style of working that, in my experience, is the best way to work with other people.

Learning should be essentially self-directed and self-motivated. Each person in this class (me included) is starting from a different position and has different goals and interests. My goal is to organize this class so that we can spend the semester helping each other move toward those goals, learn, and grow. This class is meant to be a collaborative project in which we work together, sharing with, challenging, and questioning each other. My role is as a facilitator and coach who creates the space and opportunity to learn. As learners, we are each responsible for engaging with the material and with each other with curiosity and generosity. I can't cajole you into learning. Instead, the more you put in, the more you'll get out of the class. There will also be a lot of flexibility in the class and opportunities for you to shape your own learning and to collaborate with me and your classmates in shaping the class.

About me

I'm Dave and I'm a historian of technology by training, a public historian by trade, and a tinkerer by inclination.

I've spent the past 15 years working in public history. Much of this time was spent designing, building, and installing museum exhibits. Lately, I've been working on the management/leadership side of museums. At one point, I managed a team of twenty folks and a budget of 1.5 million dollars. These days I teach in the history of science department and look after the administration of the Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments.

My research orbits around questions about work, skill, the poetics of technology, solidarity economics, and what it takes to create a humane life and society. I've shared what I've found in a wide variety of formats, including museum exhibits, videos, podcasts, elementary school programs, walking tours, and more. I write a newsletter about ideas for creating a just, joyful, and sustainable world called Notes for a Living World. You can see some of my other projects at restlessdevice.com.