HIS110
US History: Learn from the Past, Prepare for the Future

Over the next 11 weeks, you’ll analyze the past to learn the skills you can use to make decisions right now and prepare for your personal and professional future.

This week, you’ll grow your problem solving and agility skills by exploring the challenges of our past with the information we have today and by considering how we might adapt in the future. One thing is for certain: in order to solve problems and make sound decisions, economic or otherwise, looking to the past to gather the most reliable and complete information possible is the first step towards success!

This week, you’ll explore how your problem solving skill can help you evaluate the sources of historical information that make up the world. Discovering how to evaluate the credibility and validity of the information around you will help you more successfully navigate today’s world of misinformation and fake news. You’ll be able to draw accurate conclusions about what’s real…or not real. Knowing the truth will also help you make stronger arguments and decisions—not only in this course but throughout your life and career. You’ll also practice your agility skill to learn how you can use the info you do discover to pivot, or change direction, in the present while you prepare for your future.

This week, you’ll develop your problem solving skill by learning how critical thinking can help you better understand civil rights in America. You’ll also explore how the fight for rights in our past continues to have a powerful impact on our present and future.

This week, you’ll continue your investigation of civil rights in the USA by focusing on the struggle for equality by African Americans. As you explore the past, present, and future of this fight, you’ll also delve into the inequality of sources. By learning how to corroborate or support sources that give conflicting information, you can think critically about how racial injustice continues to shape our nation. Thinking critically is key to practicing your problem solving skill and will help you decide how to approach injustices in your own personal and professional life.

This week, you’ll continue sharpening your critical thinking by delving into the notion of historical context—the idea that moments in history should be considered from the reference point of that time, not from our current perspective. By learning how to see an event as people at the time would have seen it, you can better understand their point of view.

This week, you’ll learn about technology’s impact on American life and how it can help empower you in your own life. In Chapter 7, you’ll discover how your technology skill can help you enhance your communication skill and allow you to stay agile in the face of change. Then, using what you’ve learned about critical thinking and problem solving over the last seven weeks, you’ll apply your communication, technology, and agility skills to share your argument with the world.

This week, you’ll explore the effect of technology on American health care as you continue to consider how you can leverage your technology skill to improve your own life. And you’ll further hone your communication skill as you work on sharing your historical conclusions with the class. By practicing both of these skills together, you’re also enhancing your agility skill so you can adapt to a technological future, free from aches and pains!

This week, you’ll continue your examination of technology’s impact on American life as we consider the information revolution. From Gutenberg’s printing press to our current Information Age, you’ll look at how technology has transformed communication throughout time. You’ll also continue sharpening your own technology and communication skills by articulating your historical argument. By practicing both of these skills together, you’re also enhancing your agility skill so you’ll be ready to adapt when technology changes the ways you communicate at home, work, or school!

This week, we’ll continue to look at the ways technology has affected American life, specifically how it has changed our relationship to politics and the news. You’ll see how politicians, primarily presidents, have used different techniques and technologies to convey their messages to the masses. And you’ll use your communication, technology, and agility skills to adapt and deliver a message of your own.

Over the past 11 weeks, you’ve practiced four skills that will help you think critically about your past and analyze information so you can solve problems, communicate your ideas to others, use technology to stay on the cusp of change, and remain agile as those changes occur. This week, we’ll take a look at how far you’ve come and discuss how you can continue using these same skills to define the future you want and to contribute meaningfully to the world around you.