How do we DO the Twentieth Century? Reshaping CHC2D with Thinking, Passion and Tolerance in Mind

Have you ever felt like this?

Coverage Orientation September ___________________________June

What’s the alternative?

Activity Orientation

Or this idea…

Inquiry Model of Teaching Fact Based Teaching – Fact Test Inquiry Model – Big idea/question Fact – Big idea/answer Through authentic evaluation

Why Change? Motivation

Backwards Design Decide what you want the student to understand/answer at the end of the unit. Create a question that motivates, engages and inspires the student. – E.g. Did the Twenties really Roar? Students must understand the events of the 1920s to answer this question Students must also be able to evaluate, based on those facts, whether the 1920s did Roar.

Some questions for identifying truly “big ideas” – Does it have many layers and nuances? – Can it yield great depth and breadth of insight into the subject? – Do you have to dig deep to really understand, even if anyone can have a surface grasp of it? – Is it (therefore) prone to misunderstanding as well as disagreement? – Are you likely to change your mind about its meaning and importance over a lifetime? – Does it reflect the core ideas as judged by experts (Wiggins and McTighe 2004)

Essential Questions What questions – – are arguable - and important to argue about? – are at the heart of the subject? – recur - and should recur - in professional work, adult life, as well as in classroom inquiry? – raise more questions – provoking and sustaining engaged inquiry? – often raise important conceptual or philosophical issues? – can provide organizing purpose for meaningful & connected learning? (Wiggins and McTighe 2004)

Authentic Evaluation The evaluation at the end of the unit must ask students to answer the big question AND have a purpose and an audience. For example: – Radio show exploring the question of whether the 1920s roared. – Writing in role – grandparent to grandchild – Bulletin board display

Assessment Reliability: Photo Album Approach We need patterns that overcome inherent measurement error – Sound assessment requires multiple evidence over time - a photo album vs. a single snapshot

Why Study Historiography? The case for a new Introductory Unit for CHC2D “What is History and why should I learn it?” Impossibility of reviewing Canada’s history to WWI Prior assumptions affect learning Development of critical thinking and lifelong learning Establishing the “big idea” of History so that we can come back to it at the end in an authentic summative task

Big Ideas of the First Unit IDEA  Collingwood vs. Ginzburg  Understanding Evidence  The Concept Map of History  What is important and who decides STUDENT ACTIVITY  Why Study History?  The First Day of School  Historians at Work  Determining Significance part I&II

Idea 1: Collingwood vs. Ginzburg Robin Collingwood espouses the classic historicist stance: the historian must put him or herself in Julius Caesar’s mind “envisioning … the situation in which Caesar stood and thinking for himself what Caesar thought about the situation and the possible ways of dealing with it” We can “know Caesar” because human ways of thought transcend time and space (Wineburg, 2001)

Idea 1: Collingwood vs. Ginzburg Carlo Ginzburg stated: The historian’s task is just the opposite […]. He must destroy our false sense of proximity to people of the past because they come from societies very different from our own. The more we discover about these people’s mental universes, the more we should be shocked by the cultural distance that separates us from them. (Wineburg, 2001)

Activity 1: What is History? To make Collingwood vs. Ginzburg real, we have to problematize students’ understanding of history. (not just boring facts) – Ask students Why Study History? Record responses. – Present the two positions and ask students to decide which of their ideas follow Collingwood or Ginzburg. Ask, which they agree with. – Read Marco Polo’s description of the rhinoceros. Ask again, which they agree with.

Unicorn or Rhinoceros? Marco Polo encountered an animal on his journeys which he had never seen before: the rhinoceros. “unicorns, which are scarcely smaller than elephants. They have the hair of a buffalo and a single large, black horn in the middle of the forehead. … They are very ugly brutes to look at … not at all as we describe them when they let themselves be captured by virgins.” (Wineburg 2001)

First Lesson To truly understand history, we must see the rhinoceros, not create unicorns – History is not just a bunch of boring facts to memorize, but the process of examining our own assumptions so that we can understand the past on its own terms

Idea 2: Understanding Evidence How do we know the past? The job of the historian is to select, analyze and organize available evidence Students must understand the problems of primary sources

Activity 2: First Day of School Students are asked to write an account of their first day of the semester (yesterday). Students then compare the accounts, and ask – is this what really happened? Students can readily see the problems of first hand accounts

Idea 3: The Concept Map of History (Bain, 2000) UnseenSeen Evidence The Historian Selects, analyzes, organizes Constructs or creates H (ac) History as Account Reads, learns, retells Acts to create H(ev) History as Event Evidence H (ev) History as past event To be known in present, H(ev) must leave Evidence The Public

Activity 3: Historians at Work Working in small groups, students prepare an account that is representative of their group’s point of view, using the evidence (their own accounts). Students locate their activities on the Concept Map – H(ev) = First day of school – Evidence = Their individual accounts – Historians = Them – H(ac) = Their collective account

Idea 4: What is Important, Who Decides? Student understandings of what is important can be classified as follows: – Objective View – significant history is received from school/authorities – Subjective View – significant history is personal, directly related to self – Narrative View – History tells a complex story from a particular point of view (a thesis)

Idea 4: What is Important, Who Decides? Some “Guidelines for Determining Significance”: – Rare, first time or last time events – Impact on many people in many places – Impact on many areas of human life – Effects last across time. (Bain 344).

Activity 4: Determining Significance Part I Students are given a blank paper and asked to draw a diagram that represents Canadian history (see handout) Students sort themselves into “similar diagrams” groups The teacher labels and defines the subjective, objective, narrative groups.

Activity 4: Determining Significance Part II Students are given a list of events in Canadian History (see handout) Questions ask which events are significant or not, whether there are omissions and what events could be omitted. Students are directed to think about how they made their choices Students generate their “Guidelines for determining Significance”

Final Activity: A Short History of Me The summative evaluation of the first unit Student evaluation for this unit asks them to practice the process of History, using familiar material. Students present a display about themselves, selecting 4 artifacts which present a point of view. The assignment mirrors the summative assignment, providing an anchor for students’ understanding of the process.

The End