Thread by @apf102

This year I am exploring the things I wish every new #historyteacher knew in their first years . andallthat.co.uk/blog/some-thin…

In part 4 I want to talk about developing knowledge in history classrooms - something which has been a hot topic for a while. #PGCE #ECF

The ECF and CCF have quite a lot to say about how pupils learn. However much of this stops at the point of considering knowledge transfer and the role of memory. If you are not aware of these basics however it’s worth reading @mfordhamhistory in @histassoc TH166

Fordham is a good starting point for moving us from some generic principles about learning to something more specific about history.

Do a little task now: what have you seen great history teachers do when they develop new knowledge in class?

For me there are some key principles:
- they have a clear idea of WHAT needs to be learnt (substantive and second order)
- their chosen input (book, talk, video) breaks this down
- their tasks focus on thinking about the desired learning
- their assessments check this is embedded

But good teachers are also inherently relational - they adapt what and how they teach to their class
- they help students find the relevance of their learning
- they value what students bring to the classroom
- they celebrate learning as a collective aim - we learn together

So let’s go back to WHAT students need to learn. In a broad sense progress is the accumulation of knowledge and experiences over time. But there are many types (and ways) of knowing. In history we are always trying to hold together substantive knowledge and second order concepts

History teaching has, at points, fixated on the acquisition of generic skills. The problem being that these don’t really exist in isolation. We can’t be independently good at doing causal thinking - we think causally about particular things. More here - andallthat.co.uk/blog/shackled-…

To illustrate the point have a go at the task here which is an example of “reading for meaning” as a “skill”. Most people will draw on a range of prior understandings but without the specific knowledge context you will almost certainly get the relationship wrong

To read this properly you need to understand the historic relationship between the US and Apache and the ways the Apache resisted and survived US colonialism. See the extract below and you’ll read that scene in an entirely new way.

So we cannot do “skills” exercises and hope children will get better at history. Equally we cannot just deliver knowledge and assume this will result in better historical understanding. As Thread 3 noted, that’s not how history works! Knowledge is important but needs more thought

Plus, Brod (2021) suggests that even large quantities of prior knowledge can be of limited use unless teachers help activate it and ensure it’s both relevant and congruent to what is being learnt. @teacherhead has written similar recently teacherhead.com/2022/06/18/whe…

A key tool for history teachers is to have a big question which holds learning together over time, bringing disciplinary and substantive together and acting as a motivator. See egs from @Counsell_C & @katiehall1979 TH151. Individual tasks serve to advance the puzzle of the Qu.

Here is a good example. Note how the big qu shapes the first main task. Students embed key knowledge of the events in q1 and then move on to some causal prioritisation in q2. Both are needed to address the final question in image 3

Another exercise: look at these 2 tasks and consider what impact they’d have in advancing students’ understanding in a series of lessons asking the casual narrative question: “How did the Normans conquer England?”

Q1 serves a clear purpose in building knowledge of key factors and demands some thinking to decide whether an event helped or hindered.
But Q2 does little but convert the list back into its original form for the sake of following a GCSE question stem.

Again, look at this set of qus. Q1 does that same role of processing key knowledge. Q2 asks for some application to the question of HOW the Normans took control - moving to the disciplinary question. But how could it be strengthened? Would a different activity work better?

For me asking students to identify methods of control in Q2 would have been more effective - possibly even giving a list of options to choose from. This would force some more explicit thinking about exactly HOW the Normans took control & addressing the qu

Now compare the egs you’ve seen with this. Note how the questions seem to serve little purpose here beyond content extraction-there is no sense of a bigger purpose, of disciplinary thinking , of the role or relevance of the knowledge highlighted. It’s a “Glombots” (ref) activity.

We also need to think about the longer term roles of the knowledge we develop. Children build schema based on multiple and varied exposure to ideas. The knowledge we develop shapes the thinking pupils can do. Compare these two extracts. Which has the better schema about warfare?

It’s clear pupil 2 knows much a more about medieval warfare. The explanation is well grounded, if less well written than pupil 1. Pupil 1’s lack of schema was my fault as a teacher - I did not do enough to talk about medieval battles before trying to explore why W won at Hastings

So how do we develop complex schema? Repeated exposure to substantive and SO concepts is key. But how we move between concrete and abstract ideas over a task, a lesson, or over many lessons is also crucial. Semantic waves can reveal this process in action.

Effective teachers break down complex ideas and help students build up over time. Poor teachers often stay too abstract or too simple. This is often framed as an issue of “pitch” in schools. For more on this I would highly recommend @lee_rusznyak ‘s work.

Have a go. Watch this video by @MonsieurBenger and note how he breaks down and builds up concepts over time (see images). Great teachers do this over time as well as in lessons. classroom.thenational.academy/lessons/the-br…

Finally, it’s worth considering that, even when we focus explicitly on what we want students to learn, we cannot always control where students minds will be or what they will learn from (Nuttall, 2007). This is why teachers cannot just be conduits of “knowledge”

And if we want to develop students’ understanding of history then we need to know them and meet them where they are. Knowledge development means sharing collective goals for pupil-centred ends. This is where @1972SHP Principles are so valuable! #PGCE #ECT