CLIOPATRIA: A Group Blog
What Should History Majors Learn?
Yesterday the New York Times and Inside Higher Ed ran articles on a new effort at colleges and universities in Indiana, Minnesota, and Utah to establish learning outcomes for undergraduate majors in history and a few other fields. In the latter article, Scott Jaschik dug up a list of history competencies used in the Bologna Process in Europe that will serve as a foundation for this American pilot project, which is funded by Lumina.
This new development reminded me of a conversation about a year and a half ago between Mills Kelly and myself about the curriculum for undergraduate history majors. Mills made a great point about my recommendations: he observed that I was assuming "the measure of success of an undergraduate history curriculum is the degree to which it prepares majors for graduate school and ultimately for PhDs in history." I think the same thing can be said for above-linked Bologna competencies.
Since then my thinking has changed a bit on what our students should learn in history undergraduate programs. Mills still has a point about asking students what they want to get out of the major. But in my experience few students pick up historical thinking and practice skills unless they are explicitly taught them. I have experimented with quizzes, projects, and assignments to help students learn these skills and met with some success. In future courses I plan to emphasize applications of history skills in society and the workplace, as well as digital skills like semantic search and publishing content online.
I hope the people involved in this Lumina-funded project pay close attention to the recent curricular recommendations issued by the National History Center. I don't think we need to spend more foundation money covering ground that has already been covered by others. It would be great if this new project comes up with more specific learning methods and outcomes for history majors, without falling into the trap of focusing solely on academic applications for history. Our students need a history major that provides a liberal education and prepares them for the technological complexities of living and working in the twenty-first century.
- suggested assignment for students by Maarja Krusten (April 9, 2009 at 8:09 AM)
- Re: suggested assignment for students by Sterling Fluharty (April 9, 2009 at 11:18 AM)
- Re: suggested assignment for students by Maarja Krusten (April 9, 2009 at 1:15 PM)
- Re: suggested assignment for students by Maarja Krusten (April 9, 2009 at 1:38 PM)
- One more try by Maarja Krusten (April 10, 2009 at 7:54 AM)
- Re: One more try by Ralph E. Luker (April 10, 2009 at 11:09 AM)
- Re: One more try by Maarja Krusten (April 10, 2009 at 11:32 AM)
- Re: One more try by Jeremy Young (April 10, 2009 at 3:37 PM)
- Re: One more try by Sterling Fluharty (April 10, 2009 at 4:19 PM)
- Re: One more try by Ralph E. Luker (April 10, 2009 at 4:24 PM)
- Re: One more try by Jeremy Young (April 10, 2009 at 4:32 PM)
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