A Guide for the Teaching and Learning of History in Australian Schools by Tony Taylor and Carmel Young
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A Guide for the Teaching and Learning of History in Australian Schools by Tony Taylor and Carmel Young The views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the Commonwealth Department of Education, Science and Training. © Commonwealth of Australia 2003 Making History: A Guide for the Teaching and Learning of History in Australian Schools Acknowledgements Produced by: Curriculum Corporation PO Box 177 Carlton South Vic 3053 Australia Tel: (03) 9207 9600 Fax: (03) 9639 1616 Email: [email protected] Website: http://www.curriculum.edu.au Authors Associate Professor Tony Taylor, Monash University Ms Carmel Young, University of Sydney With: Mr Terry Hastings Ms Patricia Hincks Mr David H Brown Other contributing writers Ms Fiona Hooton and Ms Marilyn Dooley at ScreenSound Australia Project team Senior Project Manager Mr David H Brown, Curriculum Corporation Project Manager Mr Terry Hastings, Curriculum Corporation Permissions Manager Ms Margaret Craddock, Curriculum Corporation Project advisers Curriculum Corporation gratefully acknowledges the advice of the following: • the members of the Project Advisory Committee • the nominees of the State and Territory education systems and Catholic and Independent education sectors who provided advice through the project Reference Group • the many teachers who provided responses and advice in the trialing of the draft materials and the initial online version of Making History Adapted for Microsoft® Word™ edition by Tony Taylor, 2004 Editor Ms Lan Wang, Woven Words Making History: A Guide for the Teaching and Learning of History in Australian Schools is an online resource was developed for the Commonwealth History Project, an initiative of the Commonwealth Department of Education, Science and Training. The views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the Commonwealth Department of Education, Science and Training. ii © Commonwealth of Australia 2003 Making History: A Guide for the Teaching and Learning of History in Australian Schools Legal notices Copyright © Commonwealth of Australia 2003 This work is copyright but you may download, display, print and reproduce this material in unaltered form only (retaining this notice) for your personal, non-commercial use or use within your organisation. All other rights are reserved. Requests and inquiries concerning reproduction and rights should be addressed to Commonwealth Copyright Administration, GPO Box 2154, Canberra ACT 2601 or email [email protected]. Copyright disclaimer Every effort has been made to trace and acknowledge copyright. If accidental infringement has occurred please contact the Permissions Manager at the publishers, Curriculum Corporation, and provide the necessary details. iii © Commonwealth of Australia 2003 Making History: A Guide for the Teaching and Learning of History in Australian Schools Contents Acknowledgements ii Legal notices iii Contents iv Introduction v Advice about using this edition of Making History vi Chapter One: Engaging the Past - 1 Chapter Two: The nature of historical learning - 12 Chapter Three: Historical literacy - 28 Chapter Four: Constructing learning and practice - 70 Chapter Five: History and civics education - 105 Chapter Seven: History education and information and communication technologies (ICT) - 131 Chapter Eight: The teacher of history at work - 156 Chapter Nine: The place of history in the school curriculum - 171 References - 179 iv © Commonwealth of Australia 2003 Making History: A Guide for the Teaching and Learning of History in Australian Schools Introduction Welcome to Making History: A Guide for the Teaching and Learning of History in Australian Schools. Background This online resource is one component of the Commonwealth History Project, an initiative of the Australian Government, funded by the Department of Education Science and Training. In 1999 the Australian Government commissioned an inquiry into the teaching and learning of history in Australian schools. In response to the inquiry report, The Future of the Past, it set up the National History Project (NHP), later the Commonwealth History project (CHP), to support and strengthen the study of history in Australian schools. Audience and purpose Making History is an innovative resource, the first of its kind in history education in Australia, developed specifically for the online environment to support teachers of history at all levels of schooling. The guide does not assume that users are trained in either history or in history education method. It has been designed to work with and complement other initiatives of the CHP, especially the work of the National Centre for History Education (NCHE). Specifically, Making History aims to: • provide an accessible, comprehensive and supportive professional development resource for all teachers of history in Australian schools • disseminate relevant Australian and international research findings on the teaching and learning of history • examine the implications of this research for teaching practice • provide a clearer focus on the relationship between school history and civics and citizenship education, especially through the Discovering Democracy program • foster an effective use of and engagement with information technologies in the teaching and learning of history • improve student engagement and learning outcomes in history for students in Australian school • encourage closer links and exchange between classroom teachers and academics, professional historians, teacher educators and the wide range of organisations and institutions committed to the conservation and understanding of our national heritage. Please note that this 2004 Microsoft® Word™ version may differ slightly in some respects from the 2003 online hypertext version. v © Commonwealth of Australia 2003 Making History: A Guide for the Teaching and Learning of History in Australian Schools Advice about using Making History Making History has been designed and developed as a professional development resource for all teachers of history at all levels of schooling. The resource assumes that users are teachers of history within SOSE or HSIE in a range of school contexts. The guide does not assume that users are trained in either history or in history education method. As a professional development resource, Making History is a guide, it is not a directory or prescriptive kit of teaching and learning resources for the history classroom. Although suggestions for classroom practice are provide at many points throughout, the guide’s principal purpose is to inform the pedagogical thinking, assumptions and understandings that underpin effective teacher practice in teaching history. Structure of the Making History There are eight chapters to the Microsoft® Word™ version of guide. Each chapter is segmented in an accessible way The chapters Each of the main chapters provides: • a focused theme discussion in segments • links to key references • suggestions for classroom activities • links to the NCHE curriculum units where relevant. Printing The chapters are arranged as separate PDF files and can be printed in selected pages or sections by using the printer icon on your PDF software program – most computer users work with Adobe® Acrobat Reader®) available from: http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readermain.html This system means that pages or chapters can be printed easily - or can be filed as documents on your computer hard drive. The whole guide is also available as a complete document via a downloadable PDF file but some computers and printers may find the total download option difficult so try downloading in stages if that is the case. vi © Commonwealth of Australia 2003 Making History: A Guide for the Teaching and Learning of History in Australian Schools CHAPTER ONE - ENGAGING THE PAST Overview The task of knowing the past Introduction Knowing history from different viewpoints Truth and history Objectivity ‘Truth’ and objectivity in the classroom Historical consciousness and history education Historical consciousness and historical literacy Constructing historical knowledge Introduction Viewpoints from Australian classrooms Cultural perspectives on historical significance Authentic learning experiences in history Suggestions for classroom practice History, objectivity and postmodernism Introduction Some brief responses to postmodernism Postmodernism and objectivity Suggestions for classroom practice 1 © Commonwealth of Australia 2003 Making History: A Guide for the Teaching and Learning of History in Australian Schools The task of knowing the past Introduction Many people think they know what history is. They might then assume that they know what historical knowledge is. History, they might say, is about people in the past. Historical knowledge is simply knowing about people in the past. But it is not that easy. Some of the levels of historical knowledge include: o what actually happened in the past; o what historians claim they know about the past (or ‘the five Ws’ – who did what, where, when and why?); o what teachers of history know about the past; o what students know about the past (gained both outside and inside the classroom). Furthermore, the following questions arise: o How did these people come by this knowledge? o Did they get it from books, from documents, from eyewitness accounts or from direct experience? o How reliable are these sources when stacked up against each other? o How complete is the