Dr. Dan Sandweiss
Name: Dr. Dan Sandweiss
Title: Libra Professor of Anthropology and Climate Studies, Member, U.S. National Academy of Sciences, Professor in the Anthropology Department and the Climate Change Institute, Cooperating Professor of Earth and Climate Sciences and Global Policy
Department (Primary): Anthropology Department
How long have you been teaching? Since 1987
How long have you been at UMaine? Since 1993
SEATLE Award for: “The Thoughtful Excavator”
Meet Dan
Courses you Teach
Intro to Anthropology – Human Origins and Prehistory, Popular Archaeology, Hollywood Archaeology, Peoples and Cultures of South America, Environmental Archaeology, South American Prehistory, Peopling of the Americas, Archaeology of Complex Societies, Current Issues in Geoarchaeology, Central Andean Prehistory, Archaeology of Peru, Paleoenvironmental Archaeology of the Peruvian Coast, Equity and Archaeology Practice, Seminar in Quaternary Studies.
Tell us a bit about you
What’s the most surprising thing a student has ever taught you?
I am constantly learning from my students and mentees. Among many good memories, early in my time at UMaine, a student asked me where a Peruvian mollusk species lived; I thought I knew the answer but decided to look it up and found I was wrong about part of their range. This led to one of my team’s most significant discoveries. What I learned from the student is to never trust memory, always double check key facts.
What historical figure would you most like to co-teach a course with?
It would be great to co-teach a course with a fisherman from the 500 year old site I dug on the Peruvian coast for my dissertation. I could learn how correct or wrong I was in what I thought I learned from the site.
What’s something you’d walk across campus in a snowstorm for?
Hot coffee.
Tell us a bit about your approach to teaching
How would you describe the changes to your course design or approaches to teaching?
My whole course changed when I put it online. Everything has to be carefully planned and done well in advance. I learned the importance of breaking up the modules in digestible segments. What I kept from the live class is my attempts at humor (visual and verbal puns in lecture segments and in test questions). I also still teach a live section.
How would you describe the impact of these changes on the students in your classes?
This could be anything from learning, to engagement to retention.
Live class students can watch the video versions when they miss class and/or to reinforce learning. Online students can review classes as often as they wish. All students can download the transcripts of the video lecture segments, so they don’t have to take detailed notes while I’m speaking.
What would be a piece of advice you might give a new instructor at UMaine?
Teach online as well as live, you reach more students and you can help students who have to miss the live class to keep up and not lose out on missed classes.