Designing and Teaching Inquiry-Driven Student Teaching

Among the challenges instructors often face in teaching introductory world history courses is the tension between massive content-driven coverage and the ability to offer skill-based active learning. Faced with so much to accomplish, instructors sometimes feel strained to assure the major events and trends get covered, while also incorporating student-centered pedagogical approaches that cultivate student ownership of their learning and that provide opportunities for students to practice and habituate the skills of historical thought. This presentation re-envisions these two goals not as in tension but as mutually supportive of one another. It argues that when students feel a personal connection to and investment in history, they more readily engage in activities that facilitate skill development, and can see the importance of historical contexts and processes, both in the past and in their lives today. The presentation will introduce the principles behind History for the 21^st Century, a faculty-led, grassroots collaborative project that uses an inquiry-driven and active learning approach to drive student engagement, employs “deep dives” that illustrate the major trends of world history, and that encourages students to make meaning of that history their own lives today. The presentation will also model some of the content and techniques used in these collaboratively developed teaching materials we have produced to help explain how faculty might use H/21-generated materials in practice.