Humanities

How does one teach History online?

How does one teach History and make it interesting?

Online teaching and learning has certainly brought about many challenges for both teachers and students alike this term. Delivery of History lessons has highlighted how resourceful and imaginative we need to be.

As hundreds of millions of students worldwide are not attending school at this present due to COVID -19, we as educators are continuing to explore different ways to deliver curriculum and engage students. Good and meaningful discussion spaces, collation of material to accompany each module –all of this has taken time. But our aim has and still remains to empower students.

Online teaching isn’t less time consuming than traditional methods. We know that effective teaching isn’t the product of circumstance, but rather a significant investment of time in preparing the learning space, as well as encouraging what develops within that space. Collaborating and working through a learning platform such as STILE for example, is being used successfully by Year 8 and 10 teachers. Students can collaborate with each other, respond to the teacher, and retrieve information from this platform; Keep students on track with real-time written or audio feedback; pre-set responses for faster student feedback; empower students to respond with a mixture of text, multimedia, graphs and sketches; teachers can insert images, YouTube videos and other files to enhance existing material for students.

A plethora of material and imagination exists. Year 7s taking virtual museum tours via https://britishmuseum.withgoogle.com/

 Whist Year 9 students will soon be exploring the experiences of the Anzacs via the ANZAC PORTAL https://anzacportal.dva.gov.au/people.

Medieval Day and all its zaniness, sadly did not take place this year. However a number of students in Mr Perry’s 8.1 class have certainly embraced the opportunity to amuse and showcase their learning.

Examples of work below:

“Happiness and freedom begin with one principle. Some things are within your control and some are not.”

Epictetus, Philosopher. 55-155AD

So in the meantime stay safe.

Vicky Karakatsanis

Humanities Domain Leader