Being a historian is as much about being an educator as a researcher. And yet, most academic historians receive little to no training in pedagogy. Though there are many history education resources aimed k-12 teachers, there is substantially less for those interested in critically engaging with history education at the post-secondary level. During their tenure, THEN/HiER and the Historical Thinking… Read more »
https://activehistory.ca/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/History-Slam-Episode-99-Digital-History-Open-House.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadBy Sean Graham A new semester started for me yesterday as I’m teaching an introductory survey course this summer. Something was different when I walked into the room, though – there were no laptops or tablets. All the students had paper and pens and while some did use their phones to take photos of… Read more »
A CHA Proposal to History Department Chairs by Robert Talbot and the CHA Executive To many outside our profession, the connection between a degree in History and a non-academic job related to history can seem far from obvious. As instructors of History who benefit materially and intellectually from the thousands of students who attend and participate in our courses every… Read more »
Sean Kheraj For the past year, I’ve been thinking a lot about virtual reality and its potential applications for historians. Can we use virtual reality to better understand the past? Can the experience of virtual reality alter historical thinking? Can we now build time machines, teleporters, and holodecks using virtual reality? These questions may be overly optimistic or idealistic. I… Read more »
Andrea Eidinger Learning and teaching history is hard work. The physical, mental, and emotional toll can be high, for both educators and learners. This is especially the case when it comes to traumatic histories. For educators, it is difficult to balance the desire to make an emotional impact on your students without inflicting (further) trauma. For learners, it is difficult to… Read more »
Andrea Eidinger Anyone who has searched the internet for videos to use while teaching Canadian history has run into one big problem: the overwhelming dominance of American media online. Adding “Canadian” or “Canada” to your Google search doesn’t necessarily solve this problem. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t great Canadian videos, soundbites, and films available. You just have to know where… Read more »
By Sean Kheraj Digital history is coming to York University in Fall 2016. That is to say, I finally got around to organizing and preparing to teach digital history. As I get ready to teach this course, I am surveying the landscape of digital history teaching in Canada, looking for ideas. Readers of this article, I hope, will help by… Read more »
Active History is proud to present a video each week from New Directions in Active History. The conference took place at Huron University College on October 2-4, 2015 and brought together scholars, students, professionals and community members to discuss a wide range of topics pertaining to active history. In this week’s video, Neil Orford, a history teacher in the Upper… Read more »
Sometimes, when we lecture about things seemingly distant, we need a reminder that the past is closer at hand than we realize.
https://activehistory.ca/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Canadian-Mysteries.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadBy Sean Graham Embedded in the seemingly endless hand-wringing about why people are no longer interested in history or, at least, how historians can better disseminate the past in an increasingly digital world, is how history is taught to students in the 21st century. I once had a professor tell me that the most… Read more »
