Category Archives: Beyond The Lecture

How and When to Invite Indigenous Speakers to the Classroom

By Skylee-Storm Hogan and Krista McCracken, with Andrea Eidinger In recent years, particularly since the publication of the TRC Calls to Action, there has been an increasing push to integrate Indigenous content into elementary and secondary classrooms across the country. While we believe that this work is essential, recent news reports have given us cause for concern. From the ongoing… Read more »

From Learning to Cite To Learning To Write: Using Zotero in the Classroom

This post by Andrea Davis originally appeared on The American Historical Association’s Perspectives On History.   Learning Management Systems (LMSs) have become ubiquitous in higher education. In online and traditional courses, instructors regularly use LMSs to post syllabi, house readings, facilitate student engagement, and provide feedback and grades. As these practices have become routine, digital pedagogues Sean Michael Morris and George Veletsianos remind us to… Read more »

Teaching Environmental History through Field Trips

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Heather Green One of my greatest pleasures in studying environmental history is the ability to get outside of the office and connect with the landscapes that I study. This connection with place is essential in researching environmental history, and at the University of Alberta, myself, Dr. Liza Piper, and PhD Candidate Hereward Longley wanted to provide this opportunity for students… Read more »

Reconciliation in the Classroom: The #150 Acts as a Pedagogical Tool

This post originally appeared in French on Histoire Engagée on June 7, 2018.  Many thanks to Andrea Eidinger for her work translating this post. Catherine Larochelle In the winter of 2018, I had the opportunity to teach HST2444, Autochtones, État et société au Canada at the Université de Montréal. Over the course of the entire semester, I relied extensively on… Read more »

Curious about Learning: Teaching Postcolonial Theory to First-Year History Students

Curious George sitting on a chair and trying on clothing.

Susan Joudrey I like theory, but I know not everyone feels this way. Undergraduate students, in particular, expect theory to be dry or difficult even if they’ve never actually encountered it. In order to ease students into theoretical practice, I’ve relied on active learning strategies to teach postcolonial theory in a first-year Canadian History course. Through a number of iterations… Read more »

Teaching the Work Process and “Deskilling” with the Paper Airplane Game

Mark Leier Understanding that the division of labour as a function of class and power rather than technology and efficiency is crucial to understanding historical and contemporary capitalism.  Because the division of labour is fundamental to capitalism, practically everyone who works has some familiarity with it. We can use the ‘Paper Airplane Game’ as a way to draw on that… Read more »

Lessons from High School: Assessing Differently in the University Classroom

Janis Thiessen I taught high school students for a decade and a half before my current university career. I obtained my B.Ed. in the early 1990s, at the height of K-12 educators’ interest in constructivism and alternative assessment. The phrase “alternative assessment” was eventually replaced by “authentic assessment” and finally the term became simply “assessment” (at least at the K-12… Read more »

“History Teaching at its Best:” Some Thoughts on History Teaching, Passion, and the University Classroom

Adam Chapnick When I read Andrew Nurse’s first post for the Beyond the Lecture series, I was both delighted and frustrated.  Delighted because I continue to believe that, as academic historians, we have an obligation to think more seriously about the craft of teaching; frustrated because how far behind we Canadians are in this reflective process.  This is one reason… Read more »

Reflecting on Critical Making in Digital History: The #hist3812 Experience, Part Two

Editors Note: This is the second post in a two-part post exploring a digital history course taught at Carleton University in Winter 2018. Part one explains the premise behind #hist3812. Anderson, E., Bitar, M., Burgstaller, M., Ellerington, S., Grunksy, K., Lee, J., Mawko, A., Petrie, E., Rashid, A., Saravia, K. A., Weymann, R., and Graham, S. In part one, Graham explained… Read more »

Reflecting on Critical Making in Digital History: The #hist3812 Experience, Part One

Editors Note: This is the first post in a two-part post exploring a digital history course taught at Carleton University in Winter 2018.   Anderson, E., Bitar, M., Burgstaller, M., Ellerington, S., Grunksy, K., Lee, J., Mawko, A., Petrie, E., Rashid, A., Saravia, K. A., Weymann, R., and Graham, S. What happens to history as it gets digitized? That is, what… Read more »