Secondary History Classrooms Research Articles

The application of experiential learning in history teaching in high school

The aim of this study is to analyze and examine the current situation and shortcomings of the application of experiential learning in high school history teaching and the possible improvement measures. In fact, promoting the implementation of experiential learning in high school history teaching is of great significance in eliminating students' unfamiliarity with history, developing historical skills, and improving the practicality of history learning. Despite the fact that experiential learning has been the subject of extensive research, it has been rarely applied in the traditional course syllabus, especially in the classroom teaching of the subject. This paper provides an in-depth look at how experiential learning can be further utilized effectively in the high school history classroom from both the teacher and student perspectives. The introduction part explains the background of research related to experiential learning and the significance of the research. In the first main body part, I explore the definition of experiential learning in high schools, the current status of its application, and the specific disciplines in which it is applied. The second main body part analyzes the shortcomings of experiential learning in its current application. The third part then analyzes possible solutions to the above flaws and dilemmas. Overall, this study will inform how experiential learning can be further applied in the 21st-century secondary history classroom and provide teachers with a reference for evaluating experiential learning. Each section is explained and accordingly, possible improvements are listed based on the effectiveness of the measures discussed.

The ABC of history education: a comparison of Australian, British and Canadian approaches to teaching national and First Nations histories

PurposeThis essay engages with scholarship on history as a discipline, curriculum documents and academic and public commentary on the teaching of history in Australian, British and Canadian secondary contexts to better understand the influence of the tension between political pressure and disciplinary practice that drives the history wars in settler-colonial nations, how this plays out in secondary history classrooms and the ramifications this may have on students' democratic dispositions.Design/methodology/approachThis article aims to compare secondary history curricula and pedagogies in Australia, Britain and Canada to better articulate and conceptualise the influence of the “history wars” over the teaching of national histories upon the intended and enacted curriculum and how this contributes to the formation of democratic dispositions within students. A conceptual model, drawing on the curriculum assessment of Porter (2006) and Gross and Terra's definition of “difficult pasts” has been developed and used as the basis for this comparison. This model highlights the competing influences of political pressure upon curriculum creation and disciplinary change shaping pedagogy, and the impact these forces may have upon students' experience.FindingsThe debate around what content students learn, and why, is fraught because it is a conversation about what each nation values and how they construct their own national identity(ies). This is particularly timely when the democratic self-identification of many nations is being challenged. The seditious conspiracy to storm the US Capitol on 6 January 2021, Orban's “illiberal democracy” in Hungary and the neo-Nazis in Melbourne, Australia are examples of the rise of anti-democratic sentiment globally. Thus, new consideration of how we teach national histories and the impact this has on the formation of democratic dispositions and skills is pressing.Originality/valueThe new articulation of a conceptual model for the impact of the history wars on education is an innovative synthesis of wide-ranging research on: the impacts of neoliberalism and cultural restorationism upon the development of intended curriculum; discipline-informed inquiry pedagogies used to enact the curriculum; and the teaching of national narratives as a political act. This comprehensive comparison of the ways in which history education in settler-colonial nations has developed over time provides new insight into the common elements of national history education, and the role this education can play in developing democratic dispositions.

Engaging students in learning and creating different translanguaging sub-spaces in Hong Kong English Medium Instruction history classrooms

A key pedagogical goal in any classroom is to engage students in learning. This study examines how an English-Medium-Instruction (EMI) teacher employs available resources to engage his students in the classroom for promoting participation, keeping the lesson moving forward and meeting the pedagogical goals. The data for this study is based on a intensive fieldwork in an EMI secondary history classroom in Hong Kong. Multimodal Conversation Analysis is deployed to analyse the classroom interactional data. The classroom analysis is triangulated with the video-stimulated-recall-interviews that are analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. The study’s crucial theoretical contribution is that it broadens our comprehension of an EMI classroom as an integrated translanguaging space, which may involve various fluid and mobile translanguaging sub-spaces. This paper aims to illustrate the process of engaging students affords the teacher to create different translanguaging sub-spaces at a whole-class level and at an individual level. It is argued that creating these translanguaging sub-spaces requires the teacher to mobilise available resources for catering for the different needs of all students, which promotes interaction and inclusion in the classrooms.

Shaping student responses into academic expressions: analysing an English medium instruction history classroom from a translanguaging perspective

ABSTRACT Prior research on classroom interaction has investigated how the teacher’s feedback turn following students’ responses can be used to transform students’ turns into academic expressions during whole class discussions. Nevertheless, more empirical studies are needed to explore how teachers’ translanguaging practices can play a role in shaping students’ contributions into pedagogical opportunities for introducing academic terminologies in English-Medium-Instruction (EMI) classrooms. Adopting translanguaging as an analytical perspective, this study explores how an EMI history teacher deploys available linguistic and multimodal resources to connect students’ responses with academic concepts and terminologies. The study draws its data from a larger linguistic ethnographic project that took place in an EMI secondary history classroom in Hong Kong. The classroom interaction data is examined using Multimodal Conversation Analysis, and this analysis is further triangulated with video-stimulated-recall-interviews that are analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. This paper argues that the EMI teacher’s translanguaging practices facilitate the process of transforming student contributions into academic terminology and concepts. The process of deploying translanguaging for transforming student contributions highlights translanguaging as an important component of the teacher’s classroom interactional competence for constructing new configurations of language practices and achieving specific pedagogical purposes.

Learning history through project-based learning

In a 21st century classroom, project-based learning (PBL) can be the key strategy in helping students become independent learners and thinkers. PBL provides a pedagogical approach that is appealing and can be used not only in the subject of history but also across different disciplines. This study examines the impact of project-based learning on students’ understandings of Upper Secondary Brunei history lessons. Data was collected from a Year 10 Upper Secondary history classroom in one secondary school in Brunei through an action research method. The instruments used were lesson observations, semi-structured interviews and pre- and post-tests. The interview was conducted with eight students while classroom teaching of the subject teacher was observed. The pre- and post-tests were given to students before and after the intervention of PBL. The findings in this study showed that the students were still underperforming after the PBL intervention but had shown potential for further improvements with more exposure to project-based learning.

A Translanguaging Perspective on Teacher Contingency in Hong Kong English Medium Instruction History Classrooms

Abstract A growing number of studies have explored the ways how teachers contingently respond to students’ unexpected responses or a lack of student responses in second language classrooms. From a sociocultural perspective, teacher contingency involves a departure from the lesson plan in local response to the unexpected or unforeseeable actions in the classroom interactions (van Lier, 2001). This study adopts translanguaging as an analytical perspective in order to examine how a teacher employs various resources to contingently respond to students’ initiatives and reformulate his utterances in order to prompt student participation. The data are based on a larger linguistic ethnographic project in a Hong Kong English-Medium-Instruction secondary history classroom. This paper reconceptualizes the notion of teacher contingency and argues that the process of how the teacher contingently responds to the unexpected outcomes that arise in real-time interactions is a process of translanguaging. Such a process requires the teacher in orchestrating the available linguistic and multimodal resources to construct pedagogical actions on the spot, instead of being planned in advance.

The case for leveraging multiple resource pedagogies: Teaching about racism in a secondary history classroom

This qualitative case study analyzes how one secondary history teacher enacted three resource pedagogies to teach about systemic racism and encourage his students to explore the topic. Drawing on observations, meetings, and interviews, the paper illustrates the affordances of culturally responsive, culturally relevant, and culturally sustaining practice, especially when leveraged together. The author argues that this synergistic approach is necessary when teachers are addressing challenging topics. The case study highlights how the teacher embodied unique aspects of each pedagogy, offers loving critiques of how resource pedagogies are interpreted and implemented, and discusses implications for kindergarten to grade 12 (K-12) research, teaching, and teacher education.

History in Motion

The subject of this paper is the use of broadcast media content – newsreels, news reportage and non-fiction documentaries – in the history classroom. Used educationally as sources of evidence, such moving images offer students a valuable learning experience. Drawing on findings from a study involving students analysing media content in a Maltese secondary history classroom, I report how students preferred the documentary-type of broadcast content. Students demonstrated an awareness of disciplinary knowledge when analysing moving images and highlighted certain limitations. Teacher questions were key to driving the analysis forward. I place these findings within the general goal of helping students become visually literate. It is hoped that the reflections offered will help educators maximise the use of broadcast media content to promote effective learning in history and increase awareness among researchers and practitioners of television history and culture about educationally-relevant content.

When discussions sputter or take flight: Comparing productive disciplinary engagement in two history classes

ABSTRACT Background Despite its numerous benefits, dialogic discussion seldom occurs in secondary history classrooms. To examine ways to promote it, this study compared two ninth-grade classes’ productive disciplinary engagement (PDE) in a whole-class discussion on the Gulf of Tonkin incident. Methods The two class sections were comparable academically but had experienced slightly different implementations of the curriculum. Analytic codes tracked discursive moves within each discussion (e.g., authentic questioning), as well as shifts in discursive style (e.g., from monologic to dialogic). Findings Analysis suggests that both classes employed sound historical reasoning throughout, but that the third-period class grew more productively engaged. The disparity traces back to the days spent preparing students for discussion, which in third period served to construct a more compelling problem to explore, and to position students as more knowledgeable authorities. Yet even in that class, student dialogue emerged late in the discussion, after segments devoted to establishing textual evidence and answering student questions. Contribution Based on these findings, a model is presented for promoting PDE in historical discussions that emphasizes the distribution of intellectual authority and the provision of sufficient time and resources.

Critical thinking and use of film in Norwegian lower secondary history classrooms

This article examines how Norwegian social studies teachers from lower secondary schools enhance critical thinking when using film in the history classroom. We utilized empirical data from semi-structured interviews with 20 teachers from the same regional area in Norway. The article addresses several questions: What are the teachers' impressions of their students' and their own abilities to be critical towards films? Do they use film to meet competence aims in the curriculum for eighth to tenth grade? Do they use film to enhance students' critical thinking abilities? If so, how? The teachers' answers seem paradoxical. Although they mostly consider critical thinking abilities towards film to be crucial for eighth- to tenth-grade students, who usually lack them, most of the teachers did not clearly link their frequent use of film in the classroom to the development of critical historical thinking skills and dispositions, neither in their alleged goals nor in their actual practices. Although they partly recognized the empathetic value of history films and their worth for debate, the teachers generally overlooked a whole part of their potential. These results are consistent with those of other international studies. They probably bear witness to the predominance of a scientific conception of the use of history in school, rooted in epistemological beliefs that would need to be studied more closely in order to sustain perennial practice changes in the future.

The global citizen and religious position statements on climate change

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to discuss opportunities to analyze religious position statements calling climate change action a moral imperative.Design/methodology/approachIn a lesson suited for the secondary history classroom, students will analyze how religious leaders, theologians and ecological and religious academics use passages from sacred texts to establish a moral urgency to mitigate climate change.FindingsAfter analyzing these interpretations of sacred writings from five global faiths (Hinduism, Judaism, Catholicism, Islam and Anglicanism), the lesson centers on a dialogical question, “How might climate change action be influenced by religious texts?”Originality/valueImplications emphasize why social studies teachers should not teach climate change as a controversial issue.

Emergence and Development of a Dialogic Whole-class Discussion Genre

Prior research across disciplines has established the value of dialogic, whole-class discussions. Previous studies have often defined discussions in opposition to the notorious triadic pattern called recitation, or IRE/F, focusing on variations to the teacher’s initiating question or evaluative follow-up on students’ responses. Recent scholarship has also identified variations on recitations and dialogic discussions that suggest these categories might be flexible, containing types of interaction associated with particular contexts. However, research remains to be done on how such types, or genres, of dialogic, whole-class discussion emerge and develop over time. In this article, I take up this line of inquiry, analyzing the classroom discourse of five lesson excerpts generated by a prospective teacher and his students in a US secondary History classroom between October and March. I illustrate how, over time, teacher and students repeatedly renegotiated the nature of a recitation-style textbook review activity using similar patterns of language that suggested an emergent discourse genre. These five interactions did not all lead to dialogic, whole-class discussions; I explain their relative success or failure in terms of how they constructed participants’ relationships to historical and classroom events. I argue that even failed attempts at generating dialogic discourse may be part of a developing genre.

Students' expressive engagement with historical film's moving images in a Maltese secondary history classroom

This paper arises from research into using historical film in a Maltese secondary history classroom vis-à-vis its impact on student motivation, engagement and historical understanding. The paper outlines and discusses indicators of students' affective and cognitive engagement when responding to and analysing historical film's moving images – that is, extracts from footage of twentieth- and twenty-first century historical events captured live on camera as shown on newsreels, broadcast on television or forming part of a historical documentary. Using a single-site study, data was collected from two cohorts of Year 11 students following the history option programme. Each cohort was taught for an academic year and moving images were used as sources in history lessons. Analysing students' discourse in whole-class dialogues to obtain evidence for student engagement, findings showed different indicators of students' expressive verbal engagement with moving images: asking questions, making spontaneous observations, inserting oneself, establishing associations, and peer interaction. Findings suggest that underlying students' expressive engagement were the visual and auditory appeal of moving images, and classroom talk. Features of classroom talk in which moving images were used were consistent with views of dialogic teaching. Based on this evidence, it is argued that moving images can be used as a tool for engaging students, through classroom talk in a dialogic context, in developing historical understanding. It is also suggested that there is potential for using students' verbal utterances when analysing moving images for assessing learning.

A Portrait of Rhizomatic Teaching in Philippine Secondary History Classrooms: An Interpretative Study

Felix Guattari and Gilles Deleuze introduced the rhizome as a metaphor in curriculum theorizing. It is a philosophical lens that subjects curriculum and knowledge to multimodal ways of making meaning devoid of any arborescent or linear source. The study applied this framework to plot the teaching episodes in History classes in Philippine secondary schools against the six principles of the rhizome theory as a shift in teaching History from factual knowledge to domain-based skills. This research is novel, as there, is currently a dearth of literature on the subject in the Philippines. Ten secondary History teachers were purposively chosen to participate in classroom observations and semi-structured interviews. Using narrative inquiry this study afforded an eidetic description of actual teaching practices that typify traces of rhizomatic principles. Key results of this study include a finding, that: (1) History, as a discipline, is taught from different lenses and perspectives; (2) History teaching is a multiplicity; (3) new ways of teaching History are developed when teachers problematize what limits students' achievements; and (4) historical discourse is open to interpretations, connections, and parallelisms to contemporary context. Teachers and school administrators may find value in this study by exploring the use of rhizomatic teaching as an innovative teaching practice, which can eventually become a criterion for teaching effectiveness.

Letting Students Control Their Own Learning: Using Games, Role-Plays, and Simulations in Middle School U.S. History Classrooms

ABSTRACTThe purpose of this article is to synthesize research on the benefits and use of games, role-plays, and simulations, whilst providing examples practicing teachers may wish to use in their classroom. Therefore, the article presents a discussion of key previous research on the use of games, role-plays, and simulations in secondary history classrooms. It also presents a discussion of the benefits games, role-plays, and simulations can have on student learning. This includes discussion of how such student-centered teaching and learning opportunities can improve students' critical thinking, problem-solving, and collaborative skills. Finally, it presents examples of these types of student-centered, inquiry-based, hands-on learning experiences, drawn from the author's previous 16 years of secondary classroom experiences.

ReQuest in the Secondary History Classroom: How does the Introduction of a Purposeful Reading Technique Effect Comprehension of Text?

This quantitative, action research study sought to explore the effects of introducing the ReQuest reading comprehension technique to students who are accustomed to using a world history textbook and the initiate-respond-evaluate questioning pattern to acquire basic historical information. Data collected from a series of paired sample quiz scores indicates that the ReQuest method shows promise as part of a purposeful, reciprocal teaching method when reading comprehension of expository text is the explicit goal of the classroom teacher. The results of this exploratory study support the literature on the use of explicitly taught reading strategies and suggests that further investigation of the ReQuest technique in the social studies classroom is warranted.

The Burden of Historical Representation: Race, Freedom, and "Educational" Hollywood Film

The Burden of Historical Representation:Race, Freedom, and “Educational” Hollywood Film Stoddard Jeremy D. (bio) and Marcus Alan S. (bio) When asked to describe a recent use of Hollywood film in her U.S. history class, one teacher responded, "I use Glory every year to reinforce the role of African Americans in American history." Depending on this teacher's specific classroom practices, this statement is both promising and problematic. On the promising side is the indication that the teacher is including the stories and roles of African Americans in her class. The teacher's use of Glory (1989) also needs to be problematized, however, and forces us to ask several key questions. What else is being reinforced when films portray stories of groups traditionally marginalized in history? What are students learning about the history of African Americans and their role within U.S. history when films like Glory are used as part of the curriculum—and how does this align with one of the core goals of social studies—to develop citizens for a pluralistic democracy? The teacher's statement quoted above was representative of the responses collected as part of a recent survey of eighty-four Wisconsin and Connecticut U.S. history teachers.1 In addition to the open-ended descriptions of classroom practice with film, we also asked the teachers to report which films they were using in their classes overall, how they were using the films as part of their instruction, and why they chose those films and methods. The two films identified as being used most often were the aforementioned Glory, a film about the all Black Massachusetts 54th regiment that fought during the U.S. Civil War, and Amistad (1997), a film about a group of African slaves who revolted against their captors aboard ship en route to a slave market and ended up fighting for freedom in the U.S. Court system during the 1830s. Both films were created by large studios with big name actors during the late 1980s through the 1990s, a period that saw a cultural and economic demand for stories and films about and for African-Americans.2 As the number of days of school is extremely limited, and the time it takes to view a feature length film significant, there is a large burden placed on these films and the manner in which they represent Africans and African Americans and their roles in the history of the United States. Of particular importance is how Glory and Amistad characterize the concept of freedom in relation to Africans and African Americans given freedom's importance in the films' narratives, its prominence in national and state U.S. history curriculum standards, and its status as a fundamental theme in the development of democracy and our nation. Here we consider what students can learn about Africans and African Americans in U.S. history from viewing Glory and Amistad, with a particular focus on the themes of race, racism, and freedom.3 Building off of the survey data, literature from history and film studies, and a new look at the films, this analysis will examine how effectively these two films help to fill the gaps that traditionally exist in the U.S. history curriculum and challenge the dominant historical narrative through including the stories and perspectives of Africans and African Americans and their complex role in the history of the U.S. As part of our analysis we also address the larger issue of what role feature films should have in history classrooms, within the larger goals of social studies education, and explore specific pedagogical practices with film that might help teachers to better fulfill the standards of the burden of historical representation. Glory and Amistad have already undergone significant analysis and critique by historians, film critics, and others. Given the frequent use of these films in the classroom, we seek to draw from and build on this previous work and reflect on the films in the context of the secondary history classroom. [End Page 26] Click for larger view View full resolution Table 1. Purpose for Classroom Use of Glory and Amistad Teacher Practices, the Burden of Historical Representation, and Freedom Fifty...

Intensive Document-Based Instruction in a Social Studies Methods Course and Student Teachers' Attitudes and Practice in Subsequent Field Experiences

This article examines the socialization of student teachers in secondary history classrooms. Specifically, the article examines student teachers' responses to a history-intensive social studies methods course and their subsequent uses of document-based instruction. The analysis, grounded in data collected from interviews, lesson plans, and written reflections, supported previous research regarding student teachers' active participation in their socialization process. The findings also provide further insights into the complex relationship between teacher education and student teachers' beliefs and practices. The article ends with a discussion of ways in which methods coursework might be designed to better enable student teachers to introduce document-based instruction into existing secondary history classrooms.

Secondary Social Education in the Peoples Republic of China: A Quantitative Study of Classroom Environments in the Guangdong Province

This article reports the results of the first phase of a research project on social education in the People's Republic of China. This phase of the project replicated a quantitative research design used for looking at the environment of social education classrooms and related student attitudes toward social studies. The study involved 38 secondary history classrooms selected from 12 schools in the Guangdong Province. The data presented in the results produce a picture of a �typical� classroom environment, and this description is compared to findings using the same instruments in secondary social studies classrooms in the United States. The findings suggest that while there may be considerable cultural, economic, and political differences between the two educational systems, there are common elements in the teaching of social studies that appear to transcend those differences and produce comparable results.