Collaboratively Reforming General Education History Teaching and Learning: A Roadmap for the Twenty-First Century

Abstract

This article focuses on the most challenging history courses taught at institutions of higher education in the United States: introductory world history courses, required of undergraduates as part of comprehensive liberal arts degrees. It summarizes conclusions made by recent scholars of teaching and learning and identifies significant gaps between their recommendations and the realities facing faculty assigned to teach these classes. The authors present a vision for a collaborative faculty-led project that aims to ameliorate some of these challenges by centering student engagement and meaning making in their learning experiences. The article also offers evidence drawn from student feedback on educational materials used in the authors’ own introductory world history courses, which reveals that student ownership of learning increased when they could see themselves reflected in the topics they studied and when they had opportunities to better understand and recognize the views and experiences of other people related to those same topics.