|
Aims
The overall aim of the history strand of the project was to examine the ways in which
new technologies can be used in the secondary history classroom to enhance learning and
teaching in the subject.
Particular Aims were:
- for teachers, in partnership with researchers, to develop history design initiatives
which focus on identified learning objectives in key stages 3 and 4 of the history
curriculum, using appropriate technologies to support these;
- to investigate the processes involved in learning and teaching history. In particular,
focusing on knowledge, skills and understanding and the links between these;
- to investigate ways in which ICT can be used to support both the learner and the teacher
in their quest to explore the past and communicate this understanding to others;
- to establish a body of research which can be used to evaluate the impact of new
technologies on learning in history;
- to develop ways in which different technologies can be used to support collaborative
working in the history classroom.
Subject Design Initiatives
Multimedia in History:
At Sir Bernard Lovell School, Nigel Varley explored ways in which ICT can be used in
an ICT-rich setting to teach one unit of work. He used the school's intranet system as
a vehicle for information to support pupils' collaborative research into the Renaissance
city, and PowerPoint technology to encourage pupils to present information to each other.
The entire unit was taught using ICT. The outcomes were assessed by
focusing on pupils' research skills, their understanding of a range of sources, and their
collaborative working skills.
Exploring Interpretations using the Internet:
At Fairfield School, Andrew Rome explored ways in which Key Element 3 (historical
interpretations) can be rendered more accessible and meaningful by using the Internet to
explore contemporary writings on American Plains Indians.
Bringing Local History into the Classroom:
Ben Houghton at Filton High School developed a set of electronic images of Bristol City Docks to
support his teaching of the local history component of the school's GCSE history course.
The images were also used to enhance the pupils'
understanding of the world around them. The pupils' research skills were emphasised,
and in particular their ability to select and use sources. They were given the
opportunity to interrogate the images during lesson time, and were asked to select key images to be added to an existing set on a web site.
Using Datahandling to understand the 'big picture' in history:
Andrew Harman trialled a database of castles and used this to encourage pupils to
gain an overview of change and continuity over time. He focussed in particular on
pupils' abilities to ask and answer questions of the database, and their developing
understanding of the 'big picture' in the period studied.
Research on Teaching and Learning
Many key issues were raised through our work, in particular the thorny and largely
unresolved issue of what is learning in history. The difficulties of defining and then
measuring this were fundamental to our design initiatives. Whilst the National Curriculum
levels provide one framework for expressing the progress that children make in history,
they are broad in scope, and were never intended as a tool for measuring the achievement
that pupils make in individual pieces of work. Various attempts have been made to identify
and categorise the skills that are central to history (eg Coltham and Fines, 1971;
Schemilt, 1987), whilst others have attempted systematic ways of measuring progress in
history (The CHATA Project, 1991-5). Counsell (Bristol University, unpublished, 1996)
showed how teachers of history have embedded, if unarticulated views of what it means to
progress in history, which underpin much of their planning and teaching. In order to
inform our thinking, we drew on this theoretical base, and also encouraged the
teacher-researchers to clarify their own conceptions of learning in history.
Acknowledging, however, that learning in history is rarely a linear, predictable event, we
were keen to observe learning in action in order to enhance our understanding of the
process.
Relatively little has been written in recent years concerning the use of ICT within
history classrooms, and arguably, little progress has been made in the field since the
publication of BECTa's support materials in 1997 (John and Prior, 2000). Equally, at the start of the project, no
significant body of research existed affirming the value of computers in promoting
children's learning in history (Haydn, 2000).
|
