Teaching the American History Survey at the Opening of the Twenty-First Century: A Round Table Discussion

The History Labs: Integrating Primary Source Literacy Skills into a History Survey Course

“…22 In a roundtable discussion of the pedagogy of the U.S. survey course conducted in 2001, very few of the faculty interviewed mentioned a focus 182 A. Bahde on teaching the skills that make up primary source literacy, and one even argued against using primary sources at all in a survey course. 23 And though the history survey pedagogy is changing, it is not shifting toward an emphasis on basic primary source literacy skills for students. Some of this ambivalence lies in the logistical predicament of bringing survey courses into spaces not designed to accommodate them, and which have limited hours and staff.…”

Signature Pedagogy: A Literature Review of Social Studies and Technology Research

“…Some professors choose to stick to paper and chalkboards, while others create slides using presentation software for each lecture (Kornblith & Lasser, 2001). Some professors believe that primary sources should be obtained through traditional research methods including heavy use of the library, while others believe that the Web offers an abundance of easy-to-access primary sources (Kornblith & Lasser, 2001).…”

“…However, the difference in the pedagogy reserved for the upper echelons of social studies education and that generally employed in introductory undergraduate courses is stark (Sipress & Voelker, 2009). Professors tend to stick to traditional instructional methods that rely on lecture and textbook content (Cohen, 2005;Kornblith & Lasser, 2001).…”

“…Some professors choose to stick to paper and chalkboards, while others create slides using presentation software for each lecture (Kornblith & Lasser, 2001). Some professors believe that primary sources should be obtained through traditional research methods including heavy use of the library, while others believe that the Web offers an abundance of easy-to-access primary sources (Kornblith & Lasser, 2001). Some professors stick to the images available in textbooks, while others routinely project digital maps, photographs, illustrations, and artwork as an integral part of presentations (Kornblith & Lasser, 2001).…”