GENERAL EDUCATION ASSESSMENT AND REVIEW FORM
SOCIAL SCIENCE 5/15
Please attach/ submit additional documents as needed to fully complete each section of the form.
I. COURSE INFORMATION
Department: Anthropology
Course Number: ANTY 250S
Course Title: Introduction to Archaeology
Type of Request:
Rationale:
New
One-time Only
Renew*
Change
Remove
*If course has not changed since the last review and is taught by the same tenure-track faculty member, you may skip sections III-V.
JUSTIFICATION FOR COURSE LEVEL
Normally, general education courses will not carry pre-requisites, will carry at least 3 credits, and will be numbered at the 100-200
level. If the course has more than one pre-requisite, carries fewer than three credits, or is upper division (numbered at the 300 level
or above), provide rationale for exception(s).
II. ENDORSEMENT / APPROVALS
* Instructor:
Signature _
_______ Date__2/15/16_____
Phone / Email: x4246, john.douglas@umontana.edu
Program Chair:
Signature _______________________ Date____________
Dean:
Signature _______________________ Date____________
*Form must be completed by the instructor who will be teaching the course. If the instructor of the course changes before the next
review, the new instructor must be provided with a copy of the form prior to teaching the course.
III. DESCRIPTION AND PURPOSE
General Education courses must be introductory and foundational within the offering department or within the General Education
Group. They must emphasize breadth, context, and connectedness; and relate course content to students’ future lives: See
Preamble
Course has not changed since the last review and is taught by the same tenure-track faculty member.
IV. CRITERIA
BRIEFLY EXPLAIN HOW THIS COURSE MEETS THE CRITERIA FOR THE GROUP.
Course has not changed since the last review and is taught by the same tenure-track faculty member.
V. STUDENT LEARNING GOALS
BRIEFLY EXPLAIN HOW THIS COURSE WILL MEET THE APPLICABLE LEARNING GOALS.
Course has not changed since the last review and is taught by the same tenure-track faculty member.
VI. ASSESSMENT
A. HOW ARE THE LEARNING GOALS ABOVE MEASURED? Describe the measurement(s) used, such as a rubric or specific test
questions that directly measure the General Education learning goals. Please attach or provide a web link to the rubric, test
questions, or other measurements used.
The main assessment of this large class is multiple choice and true-false exam questions (400 out of 450 points). I would argue that
archaeology fully is a “social science” and that its scientific methods and indirect measures of the human behavior and material
traces of human beliefs—from radiocarbon dating to the study of animal bone to get at diet and human-animal relationships to
evaluating symbolic content of images—fits the teaching of social science methods and fulfills #3 on the criteria for a social science
class.
That said, there are three topical areas that would be most recognizable as “general social science” in the class, each corresponding
to a chapter in the text book:
A. Social systems, looking at the social/political systems as they are identified by archaeologists (Chapter 5);
B. History of the discipline, with a focus on changing views of human society from the late 18th through the 21st centuries
(Chapter 1— however, I teach this late in the semester, after students have a working knowledge of the discipline);
C. Archaeological explanations, reviewing the scientific method and looking at how archaeologists explain how societies
functioned and why they changed (Chapter 10).
I change my test questions substantially each semester, because I think it is simply too easy in a large classroom for groups of
students to build their own “test banks” for future students if this is not the practice. Therefore, I a do not want to imbed static
questions in my class to be answered over and over again for the next four years. Instead, I propose that on Test 2 and 4, which
covers the three topics above, I will identify the questions that cover the three topical areas so that the TA can determine the
percentage correct by these subareas. We will monitor this percentage each time I teach the class Obviously, because questions will
fluctuate somewhat in difficulty, this might seem less precise than using the same questions over and over, but because questions
will be fresher, I argue that it will be more accurate, and with ~30 questions a year in these three areas, differences in test difficulty
will largely cancel out.
I have attached a list of questions used last year that would qualify. I plan to begin tabulating this information this semester.
A General Education Assessment Report will be due on a four-year rotating cycle. You will be notified in advance of the due date.
This will serve to fulfill the University’s accreditation requirements to assess general education and will provide an opportunity to
connect with your colleagues across campus and share teaching strategies. Items VI.B- D will be helpful in compiling the report.
B. ACHIEVEMENT TARGETS
[This section is optional. Achievement targets can be reported if they have been established.]
Describe the desirable level of performance for your students, and the percentage of students you expected to achieve this:
I’ll take this step after getting data back this semester.
C. ASSESSMENT FINDINGS
[This section is optional. Assessment findings can be reported if they are available.]
What were the results/findings, and what is your interpretation/analysis of the data? (Please be detailed, using specific
numbers/percentages when possible. Qualitative discussion of themes provided in student feedback can also be reported. Do NOT
use course grades or overall scores on a test/essay. The most useful data indicates where students’ performance was stronger and
where it was weaker. Feel free to attach charts/tables if desired.)
N/A
D. ASSESSMENT FEEDBACK
[This section is optional. Assessment feedback can be reported if it is available.]
Given your students’ performance the last time the course was offered, how will you modify the course to enhance learning? You
can also address how the course could be improved, and what changes in the course content or pedagogy you plan to make, based
upon on the findings. Please include a timeframe for the changes.
N/A
VII. SYLLABUS AND SUBMISSION
Please submit syllabus in a separate file with the completed and signed form to the Faculty Senate Office, UH 221. The learning
goals for the Social Science Group must be included on the syllabus. An electronic copy of the original signed form is acceptable.
EXAMPLE TEST QUESTIONS TO BE MONITORED TO ASSESS COURSE EFFECTIVENESS IN SOCIAL SCIENCE
Area A:
1. The Elman Service Typology discussed in your textbook and the lectures, outlines:
a. Four general categories of social structure
b. Various stages of brain development among bipeds
c. Stages of social evolution all societies pass through
d. None of the above
2. According to the video The Hearth, wealthy households in ancient Rome incorporated slaves as members.
a. True
b. False
3. Chiefdoms, perhaps the hardest to identify social organization category, are similar to segmentary societies
in rely on _____ as a general organizing social principle and states in incorporating ______.
a. shamans, taxes collectors
b. written laws, urbanism
c. seasonal movement, war leaders
d. kinship, social ranking
4. What did James Hill try to learn from ceramic microstyles at the Broken K Pueblo?
a. Seriation of household development
b. Post-marriage residential rules for women
c. Reconstruct population size by calculating the number of potters
d. The geographical variation between regional centers and villages
5. In the 1970s, Greg Johnson worked in Mesopotamia trying to define state level societies. The characteristics
he prescribes for identification are signs of:
a. Written King’s list
b. Three levels of settlement indicating power and control levels
c. Evidence of an elite
d. Statues with a muscular right arm, the sign of kings
6. Moundville, Alabama demonstrates ranking most clearly in
a. Village houses
b. Craft production
c. Grave goods
d. Painted murals
7. Considering the ancient past in terms of agency includes:
a. looking at the individual and their decisions based on gender, occupation, class, etc.
b. looking at how institutions grow in state level societies
c. looking at how climate dictates the choices an individual can make
d. ignoring cooperation in human society
8. Joan Gero produced seminal works resulting from her excavations in Peru that take ______
into archaeological consideration.
a. women
b. migratory paths of prey
c. paleoclimate studies
d. men’s socially dominant roles
e. all of the above
9. Todd Whitelaw's analysis of San dry season camps indicated:
a. Mobile hunting and gathering was probably not the original human social organization
b. Highly ranked San individuals had increased access to food and other material wealth than lower
ranking individuals
c. That kinship was a critical factor in San life, including the spatial arrangement of San camps
d. All of the above
10. Research at Tell Abu Hureyra shows that early farmers:
a. Invented pottery making, domesticated grazing animals, and developed the early state simultaneously
b. Utilized a reduced number of plants compared with the earlier hunter-gatherers
c. Were practically immune to food shortages compared with earlier hunter-gatherers
d. Gathered shell fish along the Mediterranean
11. Social structure and societal scale are generally not connected; there is, therefore, no reasonable ways to
generalize about the types of social roles individuals have from the size of a society.
a. True
b. False
12. In ancient pottery production, the pottery wheel was an indicator of larger-than-household scale production.
a. True
b. False
13. As seen in "The Hearth" video, compounds at Teotihuacan were occupied by:
a. Lineages with membership from the male line
b. Religious cults
c. Lineages with membership from the female line
d. Single households
14. What kind of geographical model is illustrated to the right?
a. Catchment Analysis
b. Central Place Theorem
c. Rank Size Rule
d. Thiessen Polygons
Area B:
15. Some of the weaknesses of processual archaeology is that it:
a. is overly optimistic about science’s ability to solve everything
b. isn’t very interested in the researchers’ biases
c. encourages an overreliance on diffusion as an explanation
d. all of the above
e. A and B only
16. Traditional archaeology focused on understanding how
a. Conflict and power relations shaped change
b. Individual agency results in societies
c. Technology was developed in the ancient past
d. Cultures and ethnicity can be found in the variability of material culture
17. Evolutionary theory in archaeology rely on Karl Marx’s theories on conflict as an agent of change.
a. true
b. false
18. Agency, individual thoughts and decisions, are taken into the greatest consideration by:
a. Processual archaeology
c. Evolutionary archaeology
b. Post-processual archaeology
d. Traditional Archaeology
19. This quote: “Relevant archeological data consist of anything observable which pertains to the solving of
the investigator’s particular problem. In order to determine which data to collect, the investigator must
formulate hypotheses and deduce test implications from them.” is from ___ and represents ___ archaeology.
a. Walter Taylor, conjunctive
c. Patty Jo Watson et al., processual
b. Ian Hodder, post-processual
d. William C. McKern, culture history
20. The lesson from past archaeological research and speculations concerning Great Zimbabwe is that
a. Traditional archaeology lacked a scientific basis
b. The study of stone wall construction techniques is often the best way to determine ethnicity
c. Colonial biases could shape the the narrow interpretive framework of traditional archaeology
d. Post-processual archaeology focuses on multi-vocality
21. In a seminal paper, Lewis Binford explained the origin of “near eastern” farming as beginning with
population increase triggered by environmental changes affecting group mobility.
a. True
b. False
22. Which of these is/are true of post-processual archaeologists?
a. They are always antagonistic towards the scientific method and never use it
b. They accept the ambiguities of the archaeological record and the presence of multiple narratives
c. They include archaeological greats such as Gustaf Kossinna
d. All of the above
e. None of the above
23. Mark Leone’s hypothesis of William Paca’s garden can be summarized briefly as: By using slaves to build
something frivolous, Paca publicly demonstrated his power over people in lower social stations.
a. True
b. False
24. Using your knowledge of the development of archaeology, who wrote this?
“Any adequate understanding of social change must take into account the knowledgeability of
human actors, that is, their monitoring and observation of the intended and unintended
consequences of their actions.”
a. Lewis Binford
c. Ian Hodder
b. V. Gordon Childe
d. Kathleen Kenyon
Area C:
25. A hypothesis:
a. Should always be developed by a leader in the field
b. Can come from any source, as long as it is testable
c. Must be developed from careful pattern searches from existing data
d. Requires the use of statistical procedures to propose it
26. Pseudo-archaeology can be identified by:
a. Lack of a Ph.D. by the researcher
b. Lack of scientific basis
c. The “cool” factor
d. all of the above
27. The scientific method:
a. Promises that over the long run bad hypotheses can be ruled out
b. Allows us to prove that well-stated scientific models are absolutely correct
c. Validates the work of Erich von Däniken
d. Tells us that the scale and level of explanation are unimportant
28. An example of “pseudo-archaeology” is:
a. The Classic Maya lowland collapse
b. Mark Leone’s Paca garden interpretation
c. The Kensington Rune Stone
d. PACE project
29. The core of the scientific method is
a. The use of materialistic social explanations
b. Observing the world
c. Moving between hypotheses and testing
d. Accepting without question theories in textbooks
30. Acceptable explanations in archaeology
a. Must be materialistic
c. Apply to all people at all times
b. Need to model cognitive processes
d. Work on various scales and frameworks
31. Explanations in processual archaeology often
a. Rely on inductive reasoning
b. Consider population pressure & environment
c. Concern the roles of individuals
d. Rely on migration as a causal mechanism