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The Beacon of Knowledge The picture at the top of the page shows the UAA/APU Consortium Library on the University of Alaska Anchorage campus on a cold December morning (meaning about 10:00am). I took the picture my first year at UAA, and it is one of my favorite photographs. The green-lit structure at the top is the "Beacon of Knowledge"--an apt metaphor for a liberal arts education.
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Teaching Philosophy
Coming from a liberal arts background, I am a firm believer that collegiate-level teaching should focus both on the specifics of the discipline and the general skills necessary for any intellectual activity. I can best summarize my teaching efforts in and outside the classroom as students “getting their hands dirty.” For me, engagement with history means writing history, using primary and secondary sources to develop an argument about why an event or process happened. Students coming into my courses can expect to learn not only the content of the class, but also a skill-set centered on critical analysis, engaging discussion, broad research, and argumentative writing—the combination of knowledge and practice that lie at the heart of active, democratic citizenship. Such activities are what attracted me to history, and those I most enjoyed doing as an undergraduate at Oglethorpe University, a small liberal arts college in Atlanta. I have attempted to recreate those experiences for my own students. Guiding students through a project that allows them to develop their own historical explanations allows me not only to help impart the specific knowledge of the discipline, but also the techniques of learning and writing that are the foundation of a liberal arts education. Statement of Teaching Philosophy (November 2016) - pdf file Courses Taught
Great Basin College University of Alaska Anchorage University of Georgia Emory University |
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Scott A. Gavorsky (775) 753-2122 |
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