Observing history teaching:Historical thinking and reasoning in the upper secondary classroom
In this dissertation we examined the teaching of historical thinking and reasoning (HTR), prominent in discussions on history teaching for the past decades. HTR belongs under the umbrella of higher order thinking skills and deeper learning. Among the main strategic skills required of students of HTR...
| Summary: | In this dissertation we examined the teaching of historical thinking and reasoning (HTR), prominent in discussions on history teaching for the past decades. HTR belongs under the umbrella of higher order thinking skills and deeper learning. Among the main strategic skills required of students of HTR are usually considered to be being capable of establishing historical significance, undertaking the critical use of historical sources and more. Despite conceptualizations of HTR in the literature, the teaching of HTR is quite a challenge for teaching. Therefore, our aim was to operationalize the elements of teaching HTR in terms of teacher behaviour. For this purpose, we designed the observation instrument Teach-HTR. Subsequently, it was used to find out to what extent Icelandic history teachers taught HTR at the upper secondary level. Furthermore, we investigated which beliefs about goals and strategies of teaching history played a role in Icelandic teachers' inclinations towards teaching HTR. Finally, we used the instrument to enhance the professional growth of history student teachers in the Netherlands and experienced history teachers in Iceland in the teaching of HTR. The key categories of the instrument are demonstrating HTR, using sources to support HTR, explicit instruction about HTR strategies and engaging students in HTR by assignments and whole-class discussions. It complements the extant literature on historical thinking and provides an entrance for teachers and student teachers to the literature on HTR components. This makes the use of observation results useful for professionalization as well as initial training of history teachers. |
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