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I
still can remember my first year teaching World History. I spent every evening
with four or five college textbooks spread open on my dining room table, trying
to create tomorrow's lesson. I was trained as a European historian and I knew
nothing about Asian, African, Latin American, and arguably North American
history if it didn't relate directly to a European event. Although I had been
teaching for 15 years at that point, I was back to being a rookie teacher with
no mentor, no background, no curriculum, and classes five days a week for
thirty weeks.
In
the intervening ten years, I have learned a lot of World History, and I have
thoroughly enjoyed it, although for that first year, maybe not so much. Almost
all veteran World History teachers tell a version of the first-year horror
story, and therefore many of us had dedicated part of our professional lives to
trying to help the next generation of teachers ease into World History a little
less abruptly than we did.
This
very journal was conceived by teachers as a vehicle to provide high quality
information about teaching and learning World History at no cost over the
internet. The current Forum for New Teachers is designed to be a
Workshop-in-a-Box for those who cannot attend a weekend or summer workshop, and
for any teacher who need a bit of help and inspiration in the daunting daily
task of teaching a thorough World History class. The WHC editors plan to
continue to add to this Forum over time, creating a rich repository for
teachers.
All
of the contributors to this Forum are experienced teachers, stalwart AP exam
readers, and veteran summer workshop facilitators. Bill Strickland and Monty
Armstrong have contributed priceless pearls of wisdom and expertise. Bill's
essay and accompanying appendices are worth their weight in gold for any new
teacher of World History, and more experienced teachers should find
inspiration, validation, and more than one pièces-de-résistance in his
thorough examples and explanations of the basics of a World History course.
Monty's "Nuts and Bolts" essay complements Bill's very nicely, with his
explanation of how to plan a year and the myriad of learning devices one can
employ to great benefit in order to make both the teaching and learning of
World History a bit more manageable.
The
Forum includes three essays on creating assessments. Curt Greeley has
researched ways to streamline the grading of essays which also has the marked
benefit of focusing student learning on content and skill acquisitions.
Laurie Mannino and I tackle the writing of multiple-choice questions in much
the same vein, encouraging the teaching and learning of themes and skills as
well as content. I discuss how to evaluate historical thinking skills through
multiple-choice assessments, while Laurie's contribution is directed at
teaching students to write the same kind of assessments. Laurie's emphasis on
fostering students' active learning is nicely complemented by Wendy Eagan's
essay on Socratic Seminars. Wendy fosters independent, active learning among
her students by asking them to take on the research, the organization, and the
presentation of course information, with their subsequent accomplishments
assessed through seminars rather than written exercises. These three essays
provide teachers with ways to improve their own skills in creating content- and
skills-rich courses, as well as creating better assessment vehicles for their
students.
Sharon
Cohen and Jay Harmon present articles and thoughtful assignments that address
the teaching and learning of two particularly difficult historical thinking
skills: Sharon addresses the concept of change and continuity over time and
Jay's work addresses the issues of wrestling with philosophy. Sharon's article
documents the difficulties students have with comprehending the big concepts
involved with analyzing changes and continuities over time and place in World
History. She offers, as she calls it, an "intervention" in the form of an
annotated timeline as a solution to some of the students' dilemmas. Jay
Harmon's essay explains the virtues of using the novel Sophie's World as a summer reading assignment for high school
students entering an AP World History course. Historians often use novels or
excerpts from novels to give more dimension, voice, or point-of-view to a
particular period of time, and Jay has developed an exemplary lesson to guide
less-experienced students thoughtfully through a rich philosophical novel.
Certainly, new and experienced teachers can use his lesson as a template for
creating one's own set of lessons based on a novel.
I
hope that you will be inspired by the wealth of knowledge and information that
is presented here, and I hope you will share these resources with your friends
and colleagues. Be sure to check back on the WHC site frequently as other
talented teachers' work will add to the wealth of this collection. I would
like to thank my friends and colleagues and co-editors for their contributions
to this Forum. I can be reached at alintvedt@mcdonogh.org. |
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