Experimental archaeology is a vibrant and fascinating field that offers great opportunities for hands-on student learning in history. Although it is typically taught by archaeologists and anthropologists, it is certainly accessible and easily adapted to history courses. In addition to teaching "Introduction to Experimental Archaeology"…

In February 2020, the author was offered a position as a postdoctoral teaching fellow at a large land-grant college in the American West. A couple weeks later, COVID-19 hit in full force. As the newly hired postdoctoral teaching fellow, the author's department chair tasked the author with a challenging assignment -- to develop an asynchronous…

In this article, the author describes their class, titled "The World in A Year: A Global History of 1948," that was created to give students exposure to a set of events that, when scaffolded strategically, highlighted themes and processes featured in most global history courses: imperialism, environmental change, social hierarchy,…

Few academic disciplines have undergone the academic scrutiny that history has since the end of the Second World War. A growing consensus among historians has emerged to the effect that, if history is to be revitalized, it will require recognition of the disconnect between popular and professional, as well as an embracing of innovative methods of…

Educators, legislators, and other segments of the general public have been in discussions related to evaluating history as an academic subject. Various individuals and groups have taken up the task of not just trying to decipher what history majors learn, but also how they are equipped to apply what they learn outside of academia. Since the Spring…

Food is perfectly positioned to link students' lives to the deep and broad historical forces around them. Like everybody else, students procure and consume food on a daily basis, use it to mark special occasions, share it with friends, enjoy or dispute it with families, all perhaps without ever considering its potential for historical analysis.…

There is a general perception that methods courses are not as interesting as upper-division content courses. The author admits that they were among those who believed this. In this essay, the author explains how they used backwards design to structure the "History Research Methods" course and how they scaffolded assignments throughout…

As former elementary classroom teachers and current teacher educators, the authors teach, research, and advocate for anti-oppressive elementary social studies education. In their current role as teacher educators, they consider it our responsibility and mission to facilitate a social studies methods course that prepares pre-service teachers (PSTs)…

This article details an experiment with flipped/hybrid courses that was guided by questioning how history units across the nation's colleges and universities can curb enrollment decline, improve student experiences, and impart to students the value of studying history and why it should remain an essential part of college curricula. A team of…

Contextualization involves weaving together an interpretation of a document that situates it within its historical context. This study explores how undergraduate students approached the complex cognitive task of contextualizing historical documents. As part of their professional preparation to teach secondary social studies, undergraduate teacher…

During the past decade, interest in chocolate and its history has increased significantly. Following on this trend, a vast number of books dealing with chocolate have appeared in different publishing venues, both academic and nonacademic. Similarly, some instructors have included units that study the commodity or, in some rare instances, have…

This article examines a hybrid graduate history course called "Teaching Hidden History." Team-taught in Summer 2015 across two universities, the course fundamentally tasked graduate students in history and history education with creating online learning modules based on the idea that hidden within any artifact is a larger historical…

Due to the particular experiences of the African continent and its peoples, and the myriad of ways these experiences have been interpreted, appropriated, and reclaimed, there are a pressing series of epistemological, pedagogical, and ethical challenges, especially for those who wish to include African content in predominantly non-Africanist…

As early as the mid-1970s, William H. McNeill, the father of modern world history scholarship, warned that the pervasive tendency for faculty to pursue ever-narrowing specializations, combined with a widespread distaste for teaching survey courses, will be history's undoing. In his mind, without concerted pedagogical attention aimed at both…

History departments at many colleges and universities offer upper-level courses that focus upon the craft of the discipline. These stand-alone methods classes often lack the specific time period and geographic region that typically anchor history curriculum. Although most graduate programs in history provide in-depth exposure to historical theory,…