Surviving, Learning, and Striving in the Times of Pandemic: Teaching With A Journal of the Plague Year: An Archive of COVID-19 (JOTPY)

With the onset of COVID-19, spring 2020 proved difficult for teachers and students everywhere. But amid the challenges of online and hybrid education, incorporating A Journal of the Plague Year: a COVID-19 Archive (JOTPY) into classrooms provided students a unique and impactful learning experience, while also helping them process the anxieties and uncertainties of the pandemic. In this article, Assistant Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire (UWEC) Cheryl Jiménez Frei shares insights and best practices for teaching with JOTPY, and a model incorporating the archive across multidisciplinary courses to address archival silences. Beyond the university, JOTPY can be a valuable pedagogical tool for elementary, middle, and high-school teachers during the pandemic. To examine this, in the article’s second half, UWEC public history graduate student and high-school teacher for the Eau Claire Area School District Shane Carlson shares his reflections on contributing to the archive as a student, strategies bringing JOTPY into his own teaching, and the results of elementary teachers also doing so in rural Wisconsin.

News from the Field

Pepperdine Libraries complete three-year NEH grant2020 ACRL Scholarly Communication RoadShow Hosts announcedUW-Eau Claire McIntyre Library named FDLP Library of the YearAMWA-EMWA-ISMPP Joint Position Statement on Predatory PublishingConsumer Reports archives come to DukeEBSCO releases PsychTHERAPY video database

The Forecasting Challenge for EC-Creamery

EC-Creamery is an Eau Claire, WI based dairy processor selling yogurt products throughout the Midwest region of the U.S. Inaccurate forecasts have wreaked havoc in the company, leading to frequent stockouts and creating operational challenges. Your task is to draw on the information you obtain from your colleagues to develop sales forecasts, document your choices and procedures and share your thoughts and insights on issues related to forecasting and sales & operations planning.