AE 1100. Archaeology: Introductory course. 30 points (hp), equivalent to 20 weeks of full- time work.

This is a distance-course running at half speed, i. e. over one year instead of one semester. The course starts with an introductory weekend in Gothenburg were the course is presented. It also includes a full day excursion to the nearby island of Hisingen. In the middle of the course, in January, there is another meeting in Gothenburg, with museums visits and practical exercises to classify archaeological material.

The aim of the course is to give a general orientation of the main outlines of world prehistory as well as a brief knowledge of archaeological material (mostly Scandinavian), theory and methods.

The course is divided in 4 sub-courses:

Autumn semester: 1. Field course and introduction (3 hp) 2. World pre-history (9 hp)

Spring semester: 3. Scandinavian pre-history (10,5 hp) 4. Theory and method (7,5 hp)

The course, now given for the fifth time, runs from 2 September 2006 to 7 June 2007.

For every sub-course there are 1-4 assignments. In all there is 12 coursework to finish during the year, 3 of them individually (the 2 evaluations and 1 reflection as a part of the introduction). Typically, a group answer on a single assignment will consist of 10-20 pages of written text (during the course the demands on the texts academic craftsmanship will increase). The bases of the assignments are generally broad research based problems without any demands on final solutions, and the students will have them all at their first day in class (in the study guidance). As seen, this is far from “testing” the student’s capabilities of memorising text.

One assignment is, for example: “In this assignment the collaborative group shall present and discuss the most prominent theories around the transition from the Mesolithic to the Neolithic – from a hunter gatherer society to farming - and make your own reflections and commentaries. The question is a classic one in archaeology - there is no final solution for you to detect. On the other hand, it is important that the work group really discusses the problem from your own point of views. Remember: Facts are sacral – but comments are free “ (no 3).

Another example: “In this assignment the collaborative group shall discuss and reflect upon the burial traditions of the Scandinavian Bronze Age, with special attention to the regional, interregional and chronological differences. Other points to highlight are also the problems of the burial as a reflection of the surrounding society and as an indicator of interregional contacts” (no 8).

Within this context, the students receives constant feedback from each other (from individuals and groups) as well as from the teachers at the same time as they interacted, collaborated and co-produced the solutions to the research based problems that the groups had to discuss and solve.

The course is entirely based in PPBL pedagogy and research based problems (se above) that the students had to solve in collaborative groups of 4-6 persons. The platform used is First Class, a commonly used conference platform in Sweden, witch enables the students and teachers to meet in the group conferences, to chat and create links. It is not, however, a wiki technology. The lectures are filmed ones that combine with and interconnect to, voice-text, as well as text-illustrations etc. The lectures are on CDs and are also presented as texts documents (often asked for by the students).

At the 29 of January 2007 there was 31 active students (18 female and 13 male), 29 of them from different parts of Sweden, 1 working from Ireland and 1 from USA (New York). Generally, the students are somewhat older than at the ordinary, campus-based course. A typical age is about 30-32 years; the oldest is 69, the youngest 20.

In Gothenburg we have, so far, only worked with qualitative evaluations in form of short essays from the students. No questionnaires have been used. In fact these evaluations are a part of the curriculum of the course (obligatory assignment 6 and 12, which makes their answers good from a representative point of view). The evaluations from the students is structured in a very free way, broadly aiming at their general expectations, comments on the literature, and, of course, how they feel that the technical solutions have functioned. In general the students wrote ca 1-2 pages on each evaluation. Halfway through this course some general conclusions and “big pictures” can be drawn, for example:

• Many students express scepticism at first when they realize that they will work in collaborative groups and, not at least, for the technical solutions. But it is also very striking that these worries seems to vanish after 1-2 months (at least for most of the students). Many of them seem to have bad experiences from their high-school years, especially when it comes to work in collaborative groups.

• The initially scepticism also very often focused the more general, reflexive character of the assignments. “How can we have opinions on these complicated matters when we just started to learn about them?” is a quite common comment. But also these doubts usually disappear during the course, but not as fast as the ones stated above. This is a crucial point, and as a teacher one has to spend a lot of effort to explain and argue for the pedagogical advantages of the chosen approach. One conclusion to be drawn from this is that the next time the course is given; one should put in a reflexive moment, focusing different learning techniques.

• The single most apparent positive judgement in the evaluations is the statements of the portable digital media used: the CD with lectures is generally a real hit. In fact, some of the student prefer these kinds of lectures instead of live ones! One remark: “The lecturers on the screen (maybe a square inch, our comment) seemed to be more alive than the ones I have encountered in my ordinary classroom (a science student). The reasons for the positive experiences of portable media hasn’t been analyzed in depth yet, but in some statements from the students point at the positive aspects of the ability to freely navigate the materials, go back and fourth, stop the lecture for a moment etc, as well as the advantages of that you can watch it everywhere. Hence, the learning at ones own pace, own conditions and possibilities is in focus. Learning is never linear, so why should a lecture be? Another aspect of this is that you can escape what maybe called “the risks of cognitive overloads” i.e. that many students – especially from milieus with lacking experience of higher education - in an ordinary classroom tends to lose focus on learning. Fellow students, the teacher’s behaviour, and the milieu in general etc. can in this sense be quite disturbing.

• The students seems to present more sophisticated results compared with the results from the students in more traditional classrooms; they show an enhanced range of expression and critical understanding. This is the direct result of working in groups in order to solve problems.

• Students are more eager to work in an interdisciplinary way, to collect and examine critically information from other subjects and sources. It seems as if they develop much faster into critically minded individuals capable of better self-expression than students involved in more traditional learning environments.

• And, quite surprising, it seems as if the students have more social contacts with fellow students and their teacher/s; they feel obligated to fulfil particular roles within their workgroups.

• A number of students who have difficulties with or in traditional learning environments (due to e.g. geographical distance, disabilities etc.) have performed in these experimental and collaborative courses in a very positive way.

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