Historical+Habits+of+Mind

TRANSFORMING STUDENTS TO BECOME HISTORIANS
To study history goes beyond memorizing a series of significant dates and events, or describing notable individuals' actions and contributions.

HISTORICAL HABITS OF MIND

 * How can the use of historiographical debates enrich your student's understanding of the past?
 * To what extent do general assumptions such as presentism cloud the frameworks and your classrooms?
 * What activities can we use to push our students to develop healthy historical habits of mind?

Courses in history should be designed to take students well beyond formal skills of critical thinking, to help them through their own learning to:
 * 1) Understanding points of view and multiple perspectives
 * 2) Perceiving past events and issues as they were experienced by people at the time, to develop historical empathy as opposed to present-mindedness
 * 3) Making connections between time periods
 * 4) Identifying themes (e.g., social, cultural, religious, economic, political, geographical)
 * 5) Constructing and evaluating arguments: using evidence to make plausible arguments
 * 6) Using documents and other primary data: developing the skills necessary to analyze point of view, context, and bias, and to understand and interpret information
 * 7) Inductive reasoning (i.e., making generalizations based on historical facts)
 * 8) Making inferences (i.e., analyzing author's original intent)

What activities can we use to encourage our students to develop historical habits of mind?
What are some strategies and methods that might help you in determining whether or not your students have developed historical habits of mind? How can you tell whether or not if students have demonstrated mastery in historical concepts presented in your class? What strategies and methods have been effective in your classroom? What do you suppose contributed to the success?