California State University, Dominguez Hills (CSUDH) is the latest campus to contribute to the California State University (CSU) system’s growing collection of informative and educational videos posted on NBC Learn’s Campus Perspectives collection.
Produced by the College of Extended and International Education’s Mediated Instruction and Distance Learning division, CSUDH’s video, “Dig It: Anthropology Students Search for History in the Soil,” features Professor of Anthropology Jerry Moore and his students conducting archaeological field research at the nearby historic Dominguez Rancho Adobe in order to better understand daily life at the rancho during the 1800s and to search for evidence of military encampments during the Mexican-American War.
NBC Learn is the educational arm of NBC News. Using historic images, documents and stories from the NBC archives, NBC Learn seeks to be an educational resources for K-12 and higher education instructors and students. In 2013 they launched the Campus Perspectives platform to “showcase the innovative, inspiring and mission-driven stories that are happening on and off campuses.” To date, NBC Learn Campus Perspectives features over 250 colleges and universities reaching more than 3 million students.
The CSU entered into a partnership with NBC Learn earlier this year and campuses began submitting their videos to Campus Perspectives in August. The partnership also provides CSU instructors with full access to NBC Learn’s digital archives for classroom use.
Emily Magruder, a lecturer in the humanities program, started using NBC Learn this past summer in her online course, Success and Values in the United States. As a supplement to reading Henry David Thoreau’s Walden Pond, her students watched two videos posted on NBC Learn: “Walden Pond and Author Henry David Thoreau” and “New Educational Institute to Study Henry David Thoreau and Preserving Walden Woods.”
“Students found it challenging to read a 19th century voice, but it is our job to show them how the past is relevant for the future. I can use these videos to build their historical sense and show how interpretations of a figure or event have changed over time,” explained Magruder in a spotlight profile posted on the NBC Learn in the Classroom blog.
