Engage the Maze....
A Teaching American History Newsletter from Dr. Christine Johnson
Hello fellow teachers! Welcome to the second installment of Engage the Maze. It was great to meet the TAH 2 teachers from Fairfield and Northwest at the recent seminar and I look forward to returning to Ohio to visit during the summer. Christine Johnson, Editor
Images of a time
Wouldn't it be grand to be able to have a time machine that would whisk you and your students to far away times so that they can actually be in the midst of things? Such learning, of course, is not possible but it is this kind of reality that teaches best.Taking a field trip very often offers the element that makes a reality of a different time and space a teaching source. But what do we do with history when no time machine is available? Educational researcher Edgar Dale (1969) portrays what he calls a "cone of experience" that follows from real to abstract information and learning.
Fig. 1. Dale's Cone of Experience
At the top of the cone is real experience and one category down is simulation followed by video, photos/audio, then text (strange we use textbooks so often, isn't it?)
Simulations are things like role-play re-enactments and these days, video games (Civilization, Where in the world is Carmen Santiago, for example.)
The job for history educators is to make our lessons the least abstract as possible, to make it closest to the real as possible. That means increased use of simulation, video and primary source photos. Whether it be simple
simulations/dramas by our students or videos and pictures, we add to students' understanding.*Be sure to check the Teaching Resources section of this Web site for other additions
for your classroom. The guide to the use of music to teach history is new—check it out!
This month’s Maze Busters!
When you encounter an event in history that needs your students to truly understand the times and minds in question try this:
Have your students act the part of peoples of the time.
Here's an example: Imagine your class are studying Paul Revere's ride. Have half of your class stand next to their desk. The other students are each assigned one of the standing students to observe. Have the first half, (the enactors) mime what they were doing when they heard "one if by land, two if by sea." (Remember, no words this first time).
The other students (the observers) check the accuracy of the enactors' actions. Reverse the roles so that the enactor becomes the observer and repeat.
Repeat the whole process several times, each time the enactor miming a different person reacting in a different way to the news. (For example, how would their reaction be different if they were loyalists? Or someone who supported the revolution?)
End the exercise with a class discussion. Encourage the students to talk about the kind of actions they were doing while giving as much historical detail as possible. This exercise helps students imagine multiple perspectives as well as reinforcing history content.
This works with other topics too. If your class is studying the start of WWII, have students act out different perspectives of the event (citizens of Poland, citizens of Germany or Britain, the military personnel, etc.)
This activity makes for better understanding of personal reactions to events and will help students be comfortable with expressing multi-perspectives as required by the history standards.
CAUTION: I mentioned to start with student enactors acting WITHOUT words. Adding words add complexity and it’s best to build your students' and your ability to deal with that gradually.
Remember, if you would like some help with drama in your classroom, contact Liz Miller at millerea@muohio.edu or Bekka at eatonrl@muohio.edu to arrange a visit by the Miami University TAH drama team. The springtime after testing is a perfect time to try this instructional strategy in your history classroom.
Technology these days has advanced so that it can help us provide these experiences. Historical museums around the world have made images available from the Web. Now video collections afford us ready access to videos. Video
game simulations are being created by teachers to address different disciplines.Don't forget to check out my other teaching suggestions on the Teaching Resources page of this Web site!
