The Department of History is encouraging proposals for the 2024 Mini-Course Program (MCP) at Carleton and U Ottawa. This program attracts High School students from the Ottawa region in grades 8-11 to Carleton’s campus. It is an important way that we are able to have an impact on local students and highlight the incredible work being done in History. The Mini-Course program attracts passionate, keen students, who might go on to become History students at Carleton.

The Mini-course program offers high school students a week-long experience on campus to explore an area of their interest and usually involves a mixture of didactic learning (short lectures, discussions), hands-on activities and campus exploration.

We are hoping to support instructors in two ways:

  • First, potential instructors are encouraged to get in touch with Marc Saurette (marc.saurette@carleton.ca) to discuss their proposals, get advice and proposal writing help. Equally, talk to your supervisor (if you are a graduate student) to discuss potential topics. We can also help you think about what resources on (or of) campus you might wish to make use of. e deadline to apply for May 2024 MCPs is December 1st, 2023.
  • Secondly, in the Winter term we will run a workshop and distribute teaching materials to make the process of teaching your course more straightforward. e short but intense schedule of the MCP means instructors need to have their lectures and activities prepared in advance with careful thought to the audience (14-17 year olds). We will distribute examples of potential schedules, activities, and discuss potential delivery methods. For future years, we want to develop a resource library of materials that instructors will be able to consult online.

The MCP can be a great way for graduate students to get an initial experience in teaching, or to try out innovative pedagogy they may wish to incorporate into future teaching. A key theme we want to underlie our offerings is Hands-on History – we want students to “touch” history. Whether they are creating art projects, building a board game, working with archival documents, putting together an exhibition, or getting experience with digital tools, we want the students to have a chance to do history.

Overview: https://carleton.ca/mcp/
Description of application process: https://carleton.ca/mcp/apply-to-teach/
Details: https://carleton.ca/mcp/wp-content/uploads/Instructor-Responsibility-2024.pdf Application form: https://carleton.ca/mcp/apply-to-teach/emcp-course-proposal-application/

Important Details

The mini-course program happens the week of April 29 to May 3, 2024, 9am-3pm Instructors must attend an orientation on Sunday April 28th, 2024
Mandatory instructor training is on March 19th, 2024

Remuneration: Course Instructors will be compensated a total of $1,250 and will be reimbursed up to $125 per course for in-class expenses. Both compensation and reimbursement are issued as a one payment at the end of the week. If a course is co-taught (which is common), this amount is split equally.

Title of mini course

The course title is extremely important! Students are given over 160 courses to choose from each year, your title needs to be captivating and relevant for students to click on your course description. Courses should be designed to give students a glimpse of what they can study within your department. Craft a title that appeals to students interested in history, but also more generally in the arts, cultural studies, the humanities and social sciences.

Course description: Maximum 500 words (3,000 characters). is course description will be used as part of the MCP selection process (handled by the Undergraduate Recruitment Office) and, if successful, will be included in the catalogue of mini-courses that will be distributed to high-school students. is dual-purpose means that your proposal should be catchy, jargon-free and targeted to secondary students (e.g. more selling than explaining).

  • You may wish to think about how to draw on the faculty members of the History; professors may be willing to participate in your course – supervising an activity or delivering a short lecture. Some departments run courses which are essentially a sampler of their faculty members’ teaching areas.
  • In putting together your proposal you may wish to consider where you want to offer your MCP. Instructors can request specific classrooms* to fit the needs of their course. We can advise which might be best suited to your course.
  • Consider the ideal number of students. The minimum enrollment is 15, but if your project is resource heavy or has specialist requirements, you may want to indicate the maximum number of students your planned activities can accommodate.

*Such as the VR lab, Book Arts lab in MacOdrum, Archives and Special Collections, other library classrooms ….