To think historically can be challenging. It conflicts with how we think naturally, yet is important in understanding the past. Learning about the past is important because it provides us with a sense of structure and place. It gives us roots.
Thinking historically involves several key concepts. First, we must learn about and understand the content of people and events that occurred in the past. The content of history is the information that we acquire from reading books, watching movies, and listening to lectures. It is the foundation of historical thinking. Typically, historical content has already been determined by others, created by academics and historians and shared as a narrative.
The next key point in learning how to think historically is that we must place the events of the past within the time and place that they occurred. When we can see the past within the context of time and place, we encounter another key point in historical thinking. Historical empathy is the ability to imagine a world in which we have no experience, but requires imagination in order to see the world through the lives of those who lived during that time. We must be careful not to judge how people acted and reacted in the past according to our current cultural framework, but instead become familiar with how others used to live.
Three questions about teaching history that I hope to answer in this class over the summer are related to using digital tools and the historical thinking process.
How can we employ digital tools in order to share historical content with students and the general public? How can we make the content interesting, in order to spark a desire for the audience to want to learn more? We can use blogs and websites to write appealing introductory narratives about an event or person in the past that is short enough to spark initial interest, yet not too long that the audience will lose focus. Keep it brief, but leave them with wanting to learn more.
What kinds of digital tools can we use to put the historical content into the proper time and place? How can we use digital tools in order to help students and the audience understand and learn about the greater context of when and where the events took place? Teachers can learn how to use digital timeline features in order to place the events or people into the era of when they lived. We can use digitized maps in order to show the location of where the events took place.
How can we use digital tools to encourage further inquiry? How can we use digital tools to engage in constructive dialogue and conversation with students and a public audience, in order to ensure that they grasp the historical thinking we are trying to teach? We can use ask appropriate, thought provoking questions for students and a public audience to think about, and provide them with carefully selected primary sources for them to read or watch in order to look for tentative answers. They can share their thoughts through written responses or the creation of a brief video.