– Dr. Surin Pitsuwan, Former Secretary-General of ASEAN –
The Guide provides information and tips on how to utilize or customize the materials to maximize their teaching practices. It also introduces important pedagogical tools: How to work with complex vocabulary, active learning, the benefits of differentiation and example of assessment rubric.
Many active learning techniques can be used to engage students during the lessons.
Active learning techniques can be used to engage students during the lessons.
The shared histories lesson plans include activities using the techniques explained here.
Students work together to analyze some sources, answer some questions and share their findings with the class. To fully benefit from the cooperative efforts, it may be useful to assign roles including a facilitator to keep the discussion moving, a recorder to write down the group’s answers, a reporter to share answers with the class, and a timekeeper to make sure the task is completed.
A small group of students participate in the discussion while the others listen. In some cases, members of the audience can participate in the discussion or replace a person in the discussing group.
Several questions are posted in various areas of the classroom. Each small group of students is assigned to one station. They write their thoughts about the question . The groups move to another question and add their answer, complementing or criticizing the finding of the previous group(s). Once the students are back to their initial station, they synthesize the comments and present them to the class for discussion. In its simpler version, students move around the classroom to collect information from various stations. They present their findings and discuss as a group.
The jigsaw technique is a method of organizing classroom activity that makes students dependent on each other to succeed. It breaks assignments into pieces. Each small group undertake part of the assignment. Then each small group brings their input that the whole group assembles to complete the (jigsaw) puzzle.
The teacher raises a reflection question. Students spend about 1 minute writing down their ideas, 2 minutes talking in pairs, and 3 minutes sharing their ideas with the whole class.
Longer-term team projects can include:
This tool works best as a support for text analysis. It uses a chart with 3 columns: K, W and L.
Students brainstorm everything they Know about a topic. They record this information in the K column.
Students generate a list of questions about what they Want to Know about the topic. They record this information in the K column.
During or after reading, students answer the questions that are in the W column. They record this new information that they have Learned in the L column.
Students write down:
Lessons place less emphasis on “authoritative” textbook-like content. Instead, they try to bring together multiple sources. Whenever possible, they incorporate primary materials, including non-textual sources such as images, sound recordings, art and architecture
Especially when dealing with contentious issues, lessons refrain from a winner-loser narrative. Instead, they emphasize instead competing claims, interests, and contexts. Relatedly, students do not need to agree with all viewpoints or interpretations, but teachers should cultivate students’ ability to empathize—even when not in agreement with—different positions. Along the same vein, students should be able to understand where each historical actor was coming from, and to grasp the chains of events that had led to such positions.
All units bring a sub-regional or intercultural perspective. As much as possible, the units and lessons use examples from diverse geographic or cultural areas. They aim to highlight commonalities, such as common experiences, without glossing over differences.
The lessons emphasize the value of unity in diversity, or cultural diversity. They expose students to multi-dimensional relationships beyond antagonisms between states or peoples, as has often been the case in the teaching of war histories. Instead, materials show other aspects of relationships, such as co-operations, trade, negotiations, and co-existence, between peoples, states, and different cultures.
When appropriate, they highlight relationships that reached beyond modern state borders and do not impose current geopolitical borders onto past geopolitics.
Whenever possible, units’ content go beyond state-to-state or elites-to-elites framework, but instead pay equal, if not more, attention to everyday life, to “people’s history,” or “history from below.” This includes materials that might not be “historical” in the strictest sense (that is, with textual record), but knowledge and “histories” passed down through, or embedded in rituals, oral histories, myths, stories, traditions, etc. However, when used, these sources need to be used with care and contextualized properly.
Some lessons suggest activities that involve students’ community as well as parents, either as in-class activity or more often as part of extension work. Everyday interactions with people in the community is a great way to enhance students’ experience and creativity, as well as broaden parents’ perspectives on history.
As much as possible, the historical materials should be vivid and relatable to students, not just a list of facts and dates. The lessons suggest a variety of active learning pedagogies that encourage students to analyze and express their opinion rather than memorize dates.