In his recent book Why Learn History (When It’s Already on Your Phone), Stanford University professor Sam Wineburg challenges history teachers to develop new assessments of student learning to see if the study of history really does teach the skills we...
Lendol Calder
Rethinking the History Survey Course
Steven Mintz of the University of Texas has some good ideas to get more students engaged in the study of the history through the required survey course. Here are some of them: Thematically Organized Surveys: One striking example at the...
“The Mechanics of Class Participation”
Yesterday we did a post on Lendol Calder’s use of “Point Paragraphs” in the history classroom. Calder’s piece was a part of larger Perspectives on History forum titled “How to Get Students to Think, Talk, Share, Collaborate, Learn and Come Back...
Should Howard Zinn Be Banned in Public Schools?
Kim Hendren, an Arkansas state legislator, wants to ban Howard Zinn‘s books from Arkansas public schools. Here is a taste of a news story from “Common Dreams” website: A Republican Arkansas lawmaker has introduced legislation to ban the works of...
Historians: How Does Research In Pedagogy Inform Your Teaching?
Ben Wright, a historian at the University of Texas at Dallas, challenges his fellow history professors to start reading scholarship related to pedagogy. He even uses the label “anti-intellectual” to describe those professors who are unwilling to engage with such...
Teaching the U.S. History Survey Course Backwards
Caleb McDaniel I admire Caleb McDaniel’s courage in the classroom. McDaniel teaches his United States Survey backwards. He starts in the present and ends in 1848. McDaniel’s approach is yet another attempt to apply Lendol Calder’s “uncoverage” model to the...
Watch History Pedagogy Guru Lendol Calder Do 100 Pushups…
and discuss how the Augustana College History Department trains history teachers. [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJvsohITowI]...
Lendol Calder on “Flipping the Classroom”
Like Lendol Calder, the phrase “flipping the classroom” is new to me. It is an approach to teaching in which content is delivered outside of the classroom, allowing class time to be used as a “workshop where students can explore...
Are You an Educator or Historian?
Mark Schwehn begins his masterful Exiles from Eden: Religion and the Academic Vocation in America with a story from his days teaching at the University of Chicago. While waiting for a meeting to start, one of the scholars at the...