Teaching History and Social Studies: Resources and Inspiration
October 21, 2016
Course description
As a teacher you seek ways to enhance the experience students have in your classroom. This full day workshop includes four sessions to help you do that. Our keynote speaker, Dr. Peter Seixas, will speak about Teaching Historical Thinking in the New BC Social Studies Curriculum. You will be introduced to two resources for your classroom teaching: A City Goes to War and The Governor’s Letters and you will learn about using digital databases for teaching history. Following the sessions, you will have an opportunity to participate in a facilitated discussion with Dr. Seixas and UVic Department of History faculty on the challenges of the new curriculum.
This workshop will be of particular interest to grades 9-12 social studies and history teachers.
The workshop fee of $59 + tax includes coffee, tea and muffins in the morning and sandwiches, salad and juice for lunch.
Schedule for the Day
9:00-9:30 am Sign in and Welcome – Morning Refreshments
John Lutz, Chair, Department of History, UVic
9:30-10:15 am Using Digital Databases for Teaching History with Primary Sources
Rachel Cleves, Department of History, UVic
The rapid ongoing digitalization of primary sources by archives and universities throughout the world is creating outstanding opportunities for history teachers to introduce their students to primary source research, analysis, and writing. In this talk, you will learn about some of the open-access digital databases Prof. Rachel Hope Cleves has used in courses on American history and the history of sexuality and about the assignments she has designed for students to analyze those resources.
10:15-11:00 am A City Goes to War: Use Facebook to Teach Research Using Primary Sources
Jim Kempling, Department of History, UVic
In this session, you will be introduced to a web site that includes a teaching package for high school students. The web site www.acitygoestowar.ca provides an extensive database of primary source documents about the lived experience of Victoria during the Great War of 1914-1918. The site also introduces “Fakebook”, an online tool that allows students to construct a simulated Facebook page for historic characters. Students may either use one of several sets of primary source documents on the web site or follow their own leads to find material online from the Daily Colonist for the period of the records of Library and Archives Canada.
11:00-11:15 am Break
11:15 to 12:15 pmPutting Victoria into the History of Canadian Treaty Making: A Lesson and Assignment.
Carrie Ann Taylor, Mount Douglas Secondary School and John Lutz, Department of History, UVic
Is Victoria “unceded indigenous territory” or land fairly surrendered to the Crown by treaty? When we consider the history of treaties is it likely that any Canadian treaties were fairly negotiated? This session introduces a lesson plan created by UVic History for the Governor’s Letters website by the Critical Thinking Consortium based around Peter Seixas’ “Six Big ideas”. In this session, we will explore the primary documents on the site and one teacher’s experience using the website to teach about our local treaties.
12:15 to 1:00 pm Lunch
1:00 to 2:00 pm Teaching Historical Thinking in the New BC Social Studies Curriculum
Peter Seixas, Professor Emeritus, UBC, Director of The Historical Thinking Project
The new BC Social Studies curriculum is framed around “Big Ideas,” “Core Competencies” and “Content.” Experienced social studies teachers, let alone those new to the profession, face a challenge in designing courses, units, lessons and projects with this far more open-ended curriculum. Peter Seixas will explore how the six historical thinking concepts can help in making the transition to new approaches to social studies.
2:00-3:00 pm Facilitated Discussion
You will take part in a facilitated discussion on the challenges of the new curriculum with Peter Seixas and UVic History faculty.