Historical Thinking,Digital Methods:The New PedagogyCHRISTIAN JAMES

MLS CANDIDATE, UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND COLLEGE PARK

@CSCOTTJAMES

Virtual Symposium on Information & Technology in the Arts & Humanities

PRESENTATION – CHRISTIAN JAMESHistorical thinking, digital methods: The new pedagogy

SPONSORED BY ASIS&T SIG-AH & SIG-VIS

HOSTED BY SJSU ASIS&T

Historical Thinking,Digital Methods:The New PedagogyCHRISTIAN JAMES

MLS CANDIDATE, UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND COLLEGE PARK

@CSCOTTJAMES

Recent Books and Essays in Historical Instruction and Theory◦ John Fea, Why Study History? (Baker, 2013)◦ James Grossman, “Habits of Mind,” American Scholar (Winter 2015).◦ James Grossman, “The New History Wars,” New York Times (1 September 2014).◦ T. Mills Kelly, Teaching History in the Digital Age (University of Michigan, 2013)

All draw from Sam Wineburg, Historical Thinking and Other Unnatural Acts (Temple University Press, 2001).

A caveat: This is a review essay, not necessarily the state of the field.

Historical Thinking Digital Methods

This essay – recent selected works

So what is “historical thinking?”◦ Idea that “the past is a foreign country”

(Hartley, 1953)◦ Mentalité (Annales school)

◦ “Unnatural” - students must be trained to perform it

◦ Empathy – “ability to understand and share the feelings of another” – students (and historians) should have it to understand this strange past

◦ Primary sources – students and historians need to use them to understand the past

◦ NOT a laundry list of facts delivered by lecture – instead, an active exploration

◦ Concept not invented by Wineburg, but popularized by him

Historical Thinking, Digital Methods:Sam Wineburg◦ Following Historical Thinking and Other

Unnatural Acts, collaborated with Roy Rosenzweig, others on historicalthinkingmatters.org.

◦ Intends to use unique technological aspects of the web to enhance the educational experience, exposure to historical thinking

◦ A collaboration with the Center for History and New Media

Historical Thinking, Digital Methods:John Fea◦ History Department Chair, Messiah

College◦ Historical Thinking as a practical asset in

preparing students for democracy and a diverse workforce

◦ A leader in Digital Harrisburg project◦ Digital exhibits◦ Geotagging◦ Wrangling Census data

Historical Thinking, Digital Methods:T. Mills Kelly ◦ Digital literacy◦ Undergraduates need to learn how to

research and present their findings in a digital environment

◦ Lying about the Past course◦ Wikipedia hoax◦ Technology as way to explore nature of

historical evidence

Historical Thinking, Digital Methods:James Grossman◦ Director of the American Historical

Association◦ Echoes need for undergraduate student

research◦ “most direct and powerful way to grasp the

value of historical thinking is through engagement with the archive”

◦ ‘hands-on’ work includes digital projects◦ Need to prepare high school students

for this type of undergraduate work by reforming both high school and college history courses

Historical Thinking, LIS Methods?The Question of Convergence◦ Information Literacy

◦ Fea, Kelly and Wineburg’s concern with critically evaluating sources – dovetails with information literacy, information-seeking behavior/strategies, etc.

◦ Information Systems◦ Project-based coursework for Fea, Kelly’s

courses require fluency in information systems (CMS, wikis, etc.)

◦ Does this reflect “convergence” between history and LIS field? (Trant, 2009)?

◦ Need for collaboration between professionals in both fields

Source: Dana Longley (flickr user danahlongley

Questions for Further Research◦ What are the affordances of digital media, and do they support (or impede) historical

thinking and/or empathy?◦ Need to be more explicit about this connection - not just two things coinciding◦ Do these affordances support or impede historical thinking more than the other, or are these equally

countervailing forces?◦ What is ‘empathy,’ anyway – is the dictionary definition relevant to digital pedagogy?

◦ Empathy and its Discontents◦ Is empathy ever truly possible, or effective?

◦ Difference between K-12 and undergraduate education, technology use?

References Andrews, T., & Burke, F. (2007, January). What does it mean to think historically? Perspectives on History. Retrieved from http://www.historians.org/publications-and-directories/perspectives-on-history/january-2007/what-does-it-mean-to-think-historically

Bahde, A., Smedberg, H., & Taormina, M. (2014). Using primary sources: Hands-on instructional exercises. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO.

Bates, M. (1989). The design of browsing and berrypicking techniques for the online search interface. Online Review 13(5): 407–424.

Bloom, P. (2014, September 10). Against empathy. Boston Review. Retreived from http://bostonreview.net/forum/paul-bloom-against-empathy

Bradley Commission on History in Schools. (1988). Building a history curriculum: Guidelines for teaching history in schools. Washington, D.C.: Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation.

References Burdick, A., Drucker, J., Lunefeld, P, Presner, T., & Schnapp, J. (2014, May 12). The immense promise of the digital humanities: The book as technology. The New Republic. Retrieved from http://www.newrepublic.com/article/117711/digital-humanities-have-immense-promise-response-adam-kirsh

Cohen, D., & Rosenzweig, R. (2005). Digital history: A guide to gathering, preserving, and presenting the past on the web. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Retreived from http://chnm.gmu.edu/digitalhistory/introduction/

Degler, C. (1980). Remaking American history. Journal of American History 67(1), pp.7-25.

Fea, J. (2013). Why study history? Ada: Baker Publishing Group.

Grossman, J. R. (2014). The new history wars. New York Times (2014, Sept. 1). Accessed at http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/02/opinion/the-new-history-wars.html

References Grossman, J. R. (2015, Winter). Habits of mind. American Scholar. Retreived from https://theamericanscholar.org/habits-of-mind/#.VQeEAOGGNqB

Kelly, T. M. (2013). Teaching history in the digital age. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

Lowenthal, D. (1985). The past is a foreign country. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Kuhlthau, C. (1993). A principle of uncertainty for information seeking. Journal of Documentation 49: 339-355.

Martin, D., Wineburg, S., Rosenzweig, R., & Leon, S. (2008). Historicalthinkingmatters.org: Using the web to teach historical thinking. Social Education 72(3): 140-143, 158.

Morris, S., Mykytiuk, L. J., & Weiner, S. A. (2015). Archival literacy for history students: Identifying faculty expectations of archival research skills. American Archivist 77(2): 394-424.

References Trant, J. (2009). Emerging convergence? Thoughts on museums, archives, libraries and professional training. Museum Management and Curatorship 24(4): 369-386.

Wineburg, S. (1999). Historical thinking and other unnatural acts. In Wineburg, S. (Ed.) Historical thinking and other unnatural acts: Charting the future of teaching the past. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2001.

Yakel, E. (2003). “Archival intelligence and user expertise.” American Archivist 66(1): 51-78.

Zelnik, E. (2015, March 17). Sympathy management, or how not to “pull a Genovese.” U.S. Intellectual History. Retrieved from http://s-usih.org/2015/03/sympathy-management-or-how-not-to-pull-a-genovese.html

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