Teaching With a Global Context
"A more global framework creates new perspectives, and some fresh challenges, making American history a livelier experience and, of course, linking it to other history courses in a less fragmented way. Ultimately, I would suggest, a global approach to American history lets us deal with three key, and difficult, questions – important ones, but tough ones as well." - Dr. Peter Stearns
Why Do It?
Globalizing history education, therefore, involves an “opening” of students’ conceptions of the past through expanded content, broader methodology, and units of analysis that go beyond the nation.
Start small and be intentional and explicit with students. Let them know that instead of using the dominant military, economic, political perspectives for a unit, you will expand their approach with a global perspective
A thinking routine is a set of questions or a brief sequence of steps used to scaffold and support student thinking. A thinking routine is a set of questions or a brief sequence of steps used to scaffold and support student thinking. Researchers from Harvard's Project Zero designed thinking routines to deepen students’ thinking and to help make that thinking “visible.”
Thinking routines help to reveal students’ thinking to the teacher and also help students themselves to notice and name particular “thinking moves,” making those moves more available and useful to them in other contexts.