Teaching History Skills and the Use of History Teaching Resources on Historical Sites; An Action Research Project

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Teaching History Skills and the Use of History
Teaching Resources on Historical Sites An Action
Research Project

• Dr. Yosanne Vella
• University of Malta
• Faculty of Education

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Action Research

• This paper describes the various objectives
  behind an Action Research project which involves
  developing educational history teaching materials
  and activities with specific history skills and
  concepts as learning objectives.
  
• Action Research
• a self-reflective spiral of planning, acting,
  observing, reflecting and re-planning
• Jean McNiff 19887

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• Initial funding for this project was obtained
  from the Maltese National Commission for UNESCO
  together with collaboration from Heritage Malta.

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Objectives of Research Project

• Teamwork students working in a group may use
  their peers talk to support their own thinking.
• Vygotsky calls verbal thinking
• Constructivist Approach
• the belief of the necessity for every human
  being to put together thoughts, interpretations
  and explanations that are personal to themselves
  in making sense of his/her experiences and
  situations. (Gatt20032)

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• New History teaching methods.
  A method that lays less emphasis on content
  and more on the process of learning.
• A method which is now used in various
  European countries although its adoption is
  uneven and sporadic.

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The Activities

• workbooks/handouts
• problem solving tasks and open-ended problems for
  students to solve which require on site research
  work.
• on site drama and role play activities where
  students can re-enact history scenes.
• craft work activities include model building,
  artefact making and painting
• simulation games such as board games based on the
  general theme of the history site can be played
  on site.

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History Thinking Skills

• the skill of empathy
• the skill of interpreting a primary historical
  source in this case a pre-historic building

The Inquisitors Palace
Tarxien Temples
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Tarxien Temples
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The Inquisitors Palace Vittoriosa, Malta
an architectural gem, representative of the
checkered history and European heritage of the
islands (Gambin, 20033)
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Teachers Resource Book
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Activities on site

• Role Play
• Board Game
• Finding Patterns and Shapes
• Paintings of Figures
• Coats of Arms
• Worksheet

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Activities on site

• Role Play
• Board Game
• Finding Patterns and Shapes
• Paintings of Figures
• Coats of Arms
• Worksheet

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Activities on site

• Role Play
• Board Game
• Finding Patterns and Shapes
• Paintings of Figures
• Coats of Arms
• Worksheet

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Activities on site

• Role Play
• Board Game
• Finding Patterns and Shapes
• Paintings of Figures
• Coats of Arms
• Worksheet

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Activities on site

• Role Play
• Board Game
• Finding Patterns and Shapes
• Paintings of Figures
• Coats of Arms
• Worksheet

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The Inquisitors Palace/ The Skill of Empathy
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The Skill of Empathy

• One way of getting students to empathise with
  people who lived long ago is through role-play.

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Costumes and real historic settings create the
right atmosphere to be transported into the past.
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The Tarxien Temples

• At the time they were being built, beginning
  around 3500BC, no one else was raising
  free-standing buildings in stone anywhere else in
  the World (Trump 200269)

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Learning Objectives

• become familiar with the basic layout of the site
• a two-dimensional perspective - aerial
  impression of Temple from a
• jig-saw they have to construct

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• a three-dimensional perspective
• after experiencing the Temple first hand they
  also have to reconstruct it by putting together a
  model of the site.

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Interpreting a Primary Historical Source a
pre-historic building -Tarxien Temples

• Pupils are taken to different areas outside
  the Temple

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They are asked to imagine what it might have
looked like when it was brand new
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• The tasks of the workbook which students have to
  fill in as they go round are aimed at
• helping students to interpret what they are
  seeing, with strong emphasis on the possibility
  of various valid interpretrations.

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Conclusion

• This project in my opinion reconfirmed the
  effectiveness of the basic principles behind "New
  History" as a teaching approach.
• Work on the sites is not enough to produce the
  kind of intense history teaching advocated by
  Christine Counsell, children need as she says

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Counsell (2004)

• all kinds of structures to think at a high
  level text one minute, picture the next,
  activity one minute, listening the next,
  open-ended questioning then, and for how long?
  Revisit the Text? Introduce a new activity? What
  is the best way to do this? Teachers need time to
  learn to teach in ways that are challenging and
  pupils need careful training if they are to get
  used to the idea that the history lesson is a
  place where you learn to tolerate uncertainty.

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• The preparation and follow up activities are
  crucial to further create understanding, also as
  this on-going research project progresses it is
  becoming evident that it is a complex process
  that involves besides pedagogical concerns
  various other factors such as time management,
  sequence and chronology of activities as well as
  vocabulary usage.

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For more information

• a. Vella, Yosanne (2005) Creating on site
  history activities for school children an action
  research project Journal of Maltese Educational
  Research Vol3 N02 2005 1-x www.educ.um.edu.mt/jme
  r
• b. Vella, Yosanne (in print) Using History
  Skills and Concepts to teach Citizenship in
  Global Citizenship Challenges for Social and
  Economics Education to be published by
  International Association for Citizenship, Social
  Economics Association