Introduction to the A-level history section
AS/A2 history teaching and learning
>>ADDED November 2010 Lesson Idea:
Edward IV was more successful as a king in his second reign than his
first’. How far do you agree with this view?’ (subscribers only)
>>ADDED October 2010 downloadable file 10 commandments for successful source work
(subscribers only)
This is a NEW SECTION OF THE SITE, launched in August
2010. At present just A SELECTION OF 5 TOPICS FROM the 12 planned modules are being offered.
The rest will appear at stages throughout the
year. If you would like to know something about the future structure of this
section click here. I am more than happy to release content files prior to
final editing and publication on the keystagehistory website.
1. Learning history at A level: Ways of ensuring that students think
harder in history lessons.
This section offers about 20 different
practical strategies to make sure that students make the most of the
lessons and the time between them. The idea of a course planner, written
for students which identifies what they have to do before, during and
after each session has proved to have a significant impact on results. All these tried-and-tested ideas, seen during OFSTED inspections and LA
advisory work are brought together on one document for you. You will,
I’m sure, be doing some of them already. Some you will be doing, but in
a different way; but I can guarantee that within 5 minutes you will pick
up ideas that will significantly affect the way you plan your sequence
of lessons. You can download this file (provided for subscribers only). From time to time additional ideas will be added as more best practice
is seen.
2. Imaginative and effective teaching strategies
Finding high-quality
advice on teaching A2 and AS history is a difficult and time-consuming job. With so much post-16 work dominated by exam boards and textbooks, there is
precious little available on methodology. Diana Laffin’s Better
Lessons in A Level History first published by Hodder Education in 2009 is an honourable exception and
needs to be required reading. What this site offers is a collection of the
best strategies used not by one teacher in one college but by the hundreds
of A level teachers whose lessons have been visited during OFSTED inspection
and LA advisory work. This is not just a pot pourri of bright ideas. I have
carefully designed the final selection - because of course there are far more
than the 30 included here - around a set of five principles. If they don’t
reflect your teaching then this site might not be for you. There are 5
principles that underpin this section:
a. Lessons being reserved for application not acquisition
b. There is a
high level of student to student interaction, less mediated through the
teacher
c. Students have to think about the criteria that make for good
history
d. Students make and sustain historical claims
e. Students are
involved in assessing each others’ work using criteria they become familiar
with
These five principles are exemplified in the 12 top teaching
strategies, provided as an illustrated PowerPoint presentation:
Teaching AS and A2 history for subscribers so that you
can use it at departmental meetings and can add your own to it. A companion
file offering another 18 new innovative ideas will be uploaded shortly,
again for subscribers only.
3. Matching strategies to exam questions
This section addresses the
requirements of typical examination questions. The first to be added looks
at how to answer judgement questions. As well as de-coding the exam
questions this section shows typical student errors and offers practical
solutions.
How to help students to answer judgement questions.
a. Significance
Problem: Students often simplify the concept of
significance into ‘importance’
Strategy : Ask students to take an event from
British history and ask people 9 probably family members to rank them in
terms of relative significance. Then compare the answers with each other and
with views of the event/people at the time. Using sources discover whether
contemporaries had the same view of significance to that of later
generations. Discuss possible reasons with reference to Christine Counsell’s
5 Rs
- REMARKABLE : The event was remarked on by people at the time or since
- REMEMBERED: The event/development was important at some stage within the
collective memory of a group or groups
- RESONANT: People like to make analogies with it; it is possible to connect with experiences, beliefs or
attitudes across time and place
- RESULTING in CHANGE: It had consequences for
the future
- REVEALING : of some other aspects of the past.
Counsell,C (2004) ‘Looking through a Josephine-Butler-shaped window: focusing on pupil’s
thinking on historical significance.' Teaching History 114
b. Source analysis and evaluation
Strategy 1: Slowly reveal part of a
source which has been projected on the screen (simply using the format-crop
tool on PowerPoint). Students speculate as to what the complete
picture/source will show. Not only will this prove an intriguing start to a
lesson it helps students to focus on all aspects of a source which can be
released in a controlled way, with the more complex part first building
towards more revealing clues at the end.
Strategy 2: Tone tester; Students discuss the tone of the written source they have been given. Is it
uplifting, rallying, hectoring, tentative, assertive? They are asked to
‘hear’ the source in their heads. They discuss their views and then are
played a tape recording - which you have mocked up and compare their findings. Works well if you have perhaps 5 groups working on different sources. Having
listened to the tape the students can feed back to the other groups on what
their source said, reading parts aloud in the appropriate tone.
Strategy 3:
Source auction; As part of a mock trial or debate, ask teams of lawyers to
bid for evidence, such as eyewitnesses, expert witnesses or visual sources,
that they will use to make their case. A simple argumentative exam question
works best. The sources have to come up for auction. The asking price
depends on their usefulness, typicality, value etc and the teams of lawyers
can offer for them. Alternatively you can set up a market and open it for a
period while the lawyers select the best evidence for their case. During the
hearing / case the sources can be cross examined by the opponents. This idea
comes from Diana Laffin.
Strategy 4: Continuum/washing line; Students are
given 6 sources. In groups of 2 or 3, students have to decide where they
would place each source in terms of agreeing and disagreeing with a
proposition. They physically place the source with the group’s name on it
along the line at the most appropriate place between strongly supports and
strongly disagrees with the assertion. You can then ask a few students to
pinpoint areas of disagreement between the groups and ask students to
explain their viewpoint.
c. Diversity of views
To answer questions such as “
How far do you agree that Italian fascism did more to unite than divide
Italian society in the years 1929-39" students need to look at a wide
variety of perspectives. To do this, set the class up to be characters from
1929. They are given a role and a few clues and some references to go away
and work out what their character would have thought about Mussolini’s Italy
from a 1929 perspective and a 1939. With this understanding secure, start
the main task. Using their role cards as prompts if they need them, students
walk around the room interviewing other students in role as characters from
the time and learn from them about the diversity of views. When these
‘conversations’ have finished, it is time to draw conclusions. Which of the
characters thought that Italy was more united than divided in 1929? Do the
same for 1939 and 1934 as well if you like. Place people’s views on a
continuum for each of the 3 years using separate line for each. Have
people’s ideas changed over time?
Summarise in diagrammatic form. Diana Laffin suggests a concentric circle format with a picture of a heart in the
middle and 2 concentric circles representing inner and outer zones. In the
innermost ‘heart’ are those characters who felt they were at the heart of Italian
society ( I didn’t say it wasn’t cheesy!). In the next zone are those who
‘mostly feel' like a valued part of Italian society, with the outer zone for
characters who sometimes feel valued.
10 commandments for successful sourcework
Although it grieves me to say it, these strategies
may not have
much to do with better teaching or understanding of the period being
studied. They are, lamentably, the product of the over-mechanistic
way the exam boards mark students’ answers. If you don’t follow
these 10 pointers your students will be disadvantaged. Of that I am
absolutely convinced. We can’t play fast and loose with these facts
of life, however unpalatable. If your students don’t play by the
very strict rules, their grades will suffer. This is partly why
there has been such a disparity between grades on the different
papers.
4. Maximising students’ Coursework marks at A2
Few will mourn the passing of the AS coursework essay, but there would have been considerable
opposition to the removal of the Personal Study, not least among the
University history departments.
The Personal study -as we were? Not quite.
So
what are the changes?
1. Students will no longer be at liberty to choose
whatever they wish to study. For AQA it is now a taught option, and all
candidates will have to choose something from within the century or so
framework of the module they have been taught. Whereas before, all students
could at least choose between, say, their British and European or World
option, now it will be one or the other. Nor can the period overlap with the
units studied at AS level.
2. Students in the past usually focused on a
comparatively narrow or specific historical question. It now has to show
knowledge of a broader context spanning a century or so. There is a danger
lurking here for the unsuspecting. You can well imagine conscientious
students setting the scene at length writing a detailed narrative and not
getting to the heart of the question
Top tips for coursework
- 1. Look for themes. e.g. Britain 1851-1951 might
be Ireland, why the Tories were so dominant (1886-1906, 1919-39), why the
role of the State grew 1906-14 and post 45. If you were looking at the 16th
century European period you might look at how effective religious
persecution was, why religious toleration grew in the 17C, why did 17C rulers
have such trouble with their parliaments? Look for patterns. Similarity and
difference.
- 2. Avoid a chronological approach. E.g. analyse an issue now and
then, compare with a previous similar but not identical example.
- 3. Avoid
biographical studies as they lure you into narrative.
- 4. Avoid military
studies as you can get bogged down in the minutiae of battles and changing
technology .
- 5. Encourage students to select a topic with a bit of attitude,
something historians disagree about, preferably vehemently.
- 6. Start
building a resource base for students. In large centres with many students
studying the same 100 year spread there will be enormous pressure on scarce
resources unless you start building a resource base early. Keep this
electronically. Make it available on the VLE. Make a virtue out of
necessity. Having a heavily used intranet which contains a massive selection
of primary sources costs you no more for 200 students than it does for just
5.
- 7. 4,000 words are precious don’t waste them. How does each paragraph
answer the question?
I would like to acknowledge my debt to Ian Garrett’s
article Approaching the New Personal Study Module in History review no.66
March 2010 p.24-5, when writing this short article.
Another experienced history teacher gives her view
To help students with coursework it is important to:
a. Plan your unit THEMATICALLY rather than chronologically. It is all too
easy to get bogged down in the quagmire of seemingly endless content .
b. Remember to consider depth and overview. Case studies, individual
stories and detailed examples are vital for deep understanding and genuine
empathy.
c. Identify key issues. Select one development as a depth study on this
issue and then use this to compare with other similar events/developments.
d. Use comparison grids and living graphs to help students to create
patterns of change over time for themselves.
e. Build in independent learning by degrees; structure but not too much. Get the students to do the teaching. Not long turgid papers they read out
but 1 minute explanations etc What we call minute papers.
g. Use your learning platforms, Moodle VLEs to enable 24/7 access to the
materials they need (goodbye sharing?) in different formats - spoken
sources, podcasts, video etc
h. Encourage use of Web2.0 blogs, social networking to share ideas.
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