Mini-course: Teaching Themed History

Themes in History: An Organizational Approach

****Achieving Higher Level Thinking Since 2008!!****

Overview

History is usually taught in the time-order fashion. This approach views events by date and is continually transitioning from previous events, to the current event, and then onto the next event; just as a timeline flows. This linear structure is great for teaching factual information, cause and effect, and developments over time. Time-order is a linear structure which focus the study of history to these three main understandings. As teachers we want our students to have a good foundation in these understandings but also to achieve higher level thinking. This is the goal of many teachers, school districts, and state education departments. We are always encouraging our students to strive to these levels and guiding them in whatever ways we can. The majority of students have difficulty bridging the gap from concrete to abstract thinking and teachers see only an elite few students reach this level of understanding. The idea behind the Themed Approach which this mini-course is about is to start from an organizational perspective that will foster an easier leap to reach higher levels of historical thinking. By studying history from a perspective of collective themes, students should be able to see how events in different points of history link to each other. This approach is designed to help students achieve historical thinking skills such as identifying themes in history, making connections across areas of study, identifying and analyzing trends, evaluating historical decisions, and synthesizing their own alternatives; the latter of which is an important skill for using history to improve the future. You may think that this approach skips some levels of Bloom's Taxonomy. It does not skip the lower level skills, rather it sets up the students for success in the higher levels, while the lower levels of information falls into place as the student studies within the theme; just as in the time-order approach. However, because the students are studying events that are linked within the same theme at the same time, they are set up from the start for success in the higher level thinking skills and understandings. This alternative and/or supplemental approach of organizing history by themes holds much potential and value. As you learn more about this idea in this mini-course, apply it to your classroom. Could it be practically implemented? Try it out!

Purpose

This mini-course will offer teachers of any and all social studies subjects a new, more efficient and effective way of organizing units of content. By teaching multiple content within themed categories, teachers can set up their students for higher level thinking and understanding instead of hoping it is achieved.

Objectives

Students of this class will be able to (as teachers):

• organize parts of their course's curriculum into themed units by recognizing connections, similarities, and common historical understandings across the broad scope of history.

• guide students to higher level learning and historical understandings by setting up content into themes where basic information is used to jump to higher level understandings within the theme format.

• wisely use the theme approach in appropriate situations by weighing the application value of theme vs. time-order.