Schools are finally recognizing that we have moved into the twenty‐first century. Finally educators are recognizing that the way that students are being taught needs to be revised to reflect the changing work force and the changing world in general. No matter where one looks, almost all works dealing with twenty‐first century skills reinforce the importance of critical thinking in this new revamped world of learning.
Critical thinking is exactly that – thinking critically. Looking at a website and evaluating it before simply accepting the information. Critically reviewing what one is reading to determine the relevance and reliability of the print resource. Reviewing the reason for the website (is it commercial?). Examining the credentials of the writer. These are only a few of the main elements of critical thinking but serve as excellent examples. Now, we also recognize that critical thinking extends to multiple fields: language, science and history, to name but a few. In history, we see a move away from simply recitation of facts towards a critical interpretation or evaluation of a resource or resources. No longer is it enough to simple regurgitate the facts of history. Now, one must evaluate the source and examine the resources critically. But to get our students to the point where they can think critically, it is crucial to work with the teachers so that they have the tools and resources to facilitate this move towards critical thinking in history – or simply, historical thinking.
This lofty ambition is the goal of The Historical Thinking Project. It “[…] was designed to foster a new approach to history education – with the potential to shift how teachers teach and how students learn” (homepage). The Historical Thinking Project has identified six main concepts that are essential to developing historical thinking. To think historically, students must be able to: establish historical significance; use primary source evidence; identify continuity and change; analyze cause and consequence; take historical perspectives; understand the ethical dimensions of historical interpretations (concepts page http://historicalthinking.ca/concepts). The Historical Thinking Project, therefore, is the website designed to develop basic historical thinking skills as well as providing lesson plans to assist in instilling historical thinking amongst students.
Accessing the massive amount of resources available from this website is quite simple. From the main page, one can select several options: News, which provides access to current news and events; Documents, which provides a selection of research reports related to historical thinking; and Participate, which encourages all to become active participants in building and developing this massive database of resources. On the side bar, there is the option to select one of the main six concepts of historical thinking. Selecting one of these will then furnish the end user with further basic information related to these specific concepts. For example, by selecting the key skill of Use Primary Source Evidence, the user will be taken to a brief, but concise, article related to this concept. It is obvious that this group has no assumptions that the people using this website come with the background information necessary to fully exploit this site. In doing so, they provide the information for any user from anywhere to move towards developing historical thinking. However, since the end user has control over what they wish to see or to examine, ultimately the end user controls their own needs. The information is present – but it is not forced upon anyone.
From the main page, one can also select Browse Lessons. Browsing the lessons provides the researcher with access to a range of lesson plans that expand upon one or more of the six main concepts of historical thinking. The lessons are strictly for school aged students (there are no post‐secondary lesson plans but any post‐secondary student could learn a lot by browsing these lesson plans). The user can either simply search by keyword (e.g. Riel) or do a more detailed search. The keyword search will provide lessons related to any of the six main concepts, for all grades, time periods and provinces. However, the end user can also filter results by concept, grade, province and/or time period. It is possible to use as many or as few of these filters as the end user wishes. This is a strong point in this website as ultimately, the end user controls her or his own access to the resources.
Each result displays the title of the lesson plan, the concept(s) emphasized in the lesson plan, the grade(s), province for which this lesson was written, and the time period(s) covered. A brief synopsis of the lesson plan is also provided. This allows the end user to select relevant lesson plans right from the search screen. For further information, simply click on the hyperlinked title and the full lesson plan – with any related documents, websites or movies – is displayed. This is simple to use and quite effective.
Since this is a collaborative approach to building a database of lesson plans, the quality of the lesson plans varies depending on the actual person submitting them. However, all of the lesson plans that were examined were complete and of high quality.
There is also a Resource section of the website. This provides further information to many relevant documents: documents on assessment, classroom resources, provincial curriculum documents, PowerPoint presentations that could be used in developing historical thinking, professional development pages that are useful for the teacher as he or she moves along in historical thinking and textbooks that could be available for teachers to use. This section is crucial as it provides a one place to look resource for support material to the teacher as she or he moves along in historical thinking.
A Forum section is also provided which allows participants, on registration, to share ideas or to post questions. Registration was fast, simple and free.
While this website is specifically related to Canadian history, it does provides some excellent basic information on the general move towards historical thinking that should be considered by any teacher of history regardless of where they come from. An excellent site which is obviously useful for teachers of Canadian history and Canadian studies in general, but one that is also of use to any teacher of history.
