History

Jennifer Clark · Adele Nye Editors
Teaching the
Discipline
of History
in an Age of
Standards
Teaching the Discipline of History in an Age
of Standards
Jennifer Clark Adele Nye
•
Editors
Teaching the Discipline

of History in an Age
of Standards
123
Editors
Jennifer Clark Adele Nye
The University of Adelaide School of Education
Adelaide, SA University of New England
Australia Armidale, NSW
Australia
ISBN 978-981-13-0046-2 ISBN 978-981-13-0047-9 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0047-9
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Singapore
Don’t rail against the limits … Discover
them, play with them, extend them.
—Griffiths quotes Dening,
The Art of Time Travel, 2016, p. 123.
Naturally for Andrew and Hannah who have
taught me much already.
For my parents, Elva and Bill Nye.
Foreword
Into the Fray

Imagine this, please, for a new world around the corner
—Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Nationalism and the Imagination, pp. 56–7.
History is not a discipline of agreement. Understandings of the past are advanced,

unravelled, repositioned and even retracted, leaving us with the sense that being an
historian or a history teacher means accepting that the ground is not stable. This
makes us a particularly frustrating group of people to deal with if you just want to
set things straight for a movie, a news article or a civics framework. In some
contexts, this is an admirable virtue, a form of courage that expresses uncomfortable
truths to remind people not to forget, silence or even harm others. In others, this is a
form of stubbornness that means that we miss the benefits of large-scale coopera-
tion in the name of helping more students to see the benefits of a discipline that does
so much to help us think about what the world has been, is and might be.
Yet our orneriness has limits. For all our blow and bluster, we are in remarkable
agreement about some pretty basic things. Two stand out in the context of this
book. The first is the assumption that the knowing and desired entanglement of
history and politics is something that happens in the Global South, development or
subaltern contexts. The fray is somewhere else. It’s for Gayatri Spivak to argue for
the imagination to unravel national identities in favour of a world in which new
forms of identity are brokered and questioned. The subaltern is India’s proud
invention for the discipline of history, and it owns it. It’s for Tuning Latin America
to suggest that all graduating history students recognise, contribute to and partici-
pate in sociocultural activities, and understand the social role of the historian.1 And
yet wherever we are, there are individuals and groups that struggle for airplay in
histories. I am not simply referring to the lobby groups that come with every
1
Tuning Latin America (2011–13). Competencies for the Discipline of History. http://tuning.
unideusto.org/tuningal/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=232&Itemid=261. Accessed 1
Oct 2017.
ix
x Foreword
exercise in reforming or recasting a history curriculum. My comment refers to those

whom we are blind to, or those whom we think we can acknowledge without really
changing what we customarily do. One of the better-known examples is the push to
move from writing women’s history for women, or to simply adding some women
into histories, to thinking about how the ways that writing, showing and teaching
history might change if we take the experiences of women seriously. Another
example are Indigenous histories, which still too often sit at chapter one—‘pre-
history’—in the history curriculum. The way that Australian Indigenous peoples
think about events as taking place, over taking time, is world changing, but we just
haven’t really come to grips with it yet.
This is not an argument for the dissolution of the discipline of history and of
history teaching into a billion identity fragments that make any discussion about
standards impossible. It is simply an invitation for us to be more generous in our
acknowledgement of others, because I don’t see history as a ‘nice to have’.
Acknowledging others, living or dead, is the cornerstone of ethics.
Acknowledgement is not just a content conversation, and this brings me to the
second thing that we tend to take for granted: students and teachers can demonstrate
mastery of the discipline of history in a wider group of ways than we might
otherwise acknowledge. We are the document exercise discipline, the essay disci-
pline, the short answer and political cartoon stimulus discipline. We make the leap
from learning outcomes about the critical examination of sources and effective
communication to analysing and generating writing. And yet we know, for
example, that oral culture is the engine room of Maori culture, as well as for many
other cultures around the world. We sometimes fall prey to the belief that longer
essays are better, and the longer the bibliography, the better the work, knowing full
well how much good or havoc a museum label or a tweet can unleash. When
students tell you that they believe you see the footnotes as more important than the
argument in a history, then you know you have some work to do.
We do have work to do. The leap from general learning outcomes to specific
kinds of assessment does not have to be made. The leap from historiography that
bristles with political anger to the assumption that this is playing out somewhere
else in the world does not have to be made. They do not have to be made because
history teachers have far more opportunity to be creative, challenging and generous
towards students than the dour appraisals of our discipline might suggest. We don’t
have to be that stereotype that gets fractious about a detail whilst missing the storm
all around them. We can love the details and the big picture, and recognise that any
discussion about standards exists at such a level of generality that there is plenty of
room for the recognition of difference. This is why the territory of this book is so
important. There is a new world out there, as Spivak reminds us, just waiting to be
imagined.
Australia Marnie Hughes-Warrington

Australian National University
Acknowledgements
The production of any book attracts huge intellectual and personal debts, and this
one has attracted more than most. Writing a book on history teaching inevitably has
caused us to reflect on and draw from our experience as students of wonderful
history teachers over many years. The best teachers are those who light a spark of
enquiry or who recognise in us something we don’t even see in ourselves. We are
grateful for the experience of teachers such as these. We are interested in teaching
partly because we had teachers who made our time as students so enjoyable and
who encouraged us to think that the past was worth studying as an exciting
intellectual place to spend our time. Bob Hind and Richard Waterhouse at the
University of Sydney and Alan Atkinson from the University of New England were
important in this regard. They infused the classes they taught with their own
humanity. Completely different in approach, they brought history alive to us in their
own way.
Once we started to work in the field of teaching and learning, we immediately
developed a new debt to colleagues who have been so generous in their willingness
to share expertise and to welcome us into a warm community. One day our col-
league David Kent, himself a splendid teaching role model, came down the corridor
recommending a new book by an English historian called Alan Booth. That was an
introduction to the insights of a great exponent of reflective practice in the teaching
of history. It is not surprising that Alan’s most recent work is about the passion of
history teachers as he exemplifies his own philosophy in this regard. Alan has been
a great friend to us in the pursuit of this project.
We remember fondly sitting in the Free House in Berkeley one afternoon with
Leah Shopkow discussing with her the possibility of such a book as this. We were
surprised and delighted that she thought it was a good idea. But Leah is like that,
always supportive, always encouraging, always helpful. That’s why she is both a
great teacher and colleague. We knew that there was a community of scholars out
there who were ready to join in: ‘I won’t let you down’ wrote Adrian Jones as he
scrambled to fit in all his commitments. His comment could have been duplicated
many times over as chapters came in from very busy people juggling many projects
xi
xii Acknowledgements
at once. But it’s like that when we are talking about teaching. The community of
historians interested in teaching is incredibly generous. We want to thank all of
those who contributed to this volume with such commitment and insight.
Last but not least, we want to thank our immediate colleagues at the University
of Adelaide and the University of New England who have taught us much about
what is good teaching in their own inimitable ways. All teach with dignity, grace,
good humour and passion. What more can you ask?
Contents
1 The Three Contexts of Writing About History Teaching . . . . . . . . 1

Jennifer Clark and Adele Nye
Part I Issues in Contemporary History Pedagogy in a Standards

Environment
2 Snapshot: The Discipline of History in British and Australian
Universities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Marcus Collins and Adele Nye
3 Passion: The Place of Passion in History Teaching in a Standards
Environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Alan Booth
4 Teaching the History Threshold Learning Outcomes to
First-Year Students . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
Jennifer Clark, Adrian Jones, Theda Thomas, Pamela Allen,
Bronwyn Cole, Jill Lawrence, Lynette Sheridan Burns
and Joy Wallace
5 Delivery: Relics of the Past? Rethinking the History Lecture
and Tutorial . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
Paul Sendziuk and Thomas C. Buchanan
6 Progression: Principles and Practice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
Geoff Timmins
7 Compliance: Built to Fail, Negotiating the Compliance
Paradox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
Sean Brawley
8 In the Shadow of Bologna: Teaching and Learning Outcomes
in the USA and Europe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
Leah Shopkow
xiii
xiv Contents
9 Leadership: Enabling Leadership in the Teaching and Learning

of History in Higher Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185
Adele Nye and Jennifer Clark
Part II Unpacking the Threshold Learning Outcomes

10 TLO 1: Demonstrate an Understanding of at Least One Period
or Culture of the Past . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
David Ludvigsson
11 TLO 2: Demonstrate an Understanding of a Variety
of Conceptual Approaches to Interpreting the Past . . . . . . . . . . . . 217
Zora Simic
12 TLO 3: How Historians Influence the Present and Future . . . . . . . 233
Gareth Pritchard
13 TLO 4: Identify and Interpret a Wide Variety of Secondary
and Primary Sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251
Adrian Jones
14 TLO 5: Examine Historical Issues by Undertaking Research
According to the Methodological and Ethical Conventions
of the Discipline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269
Nathan Wise, David Andrew Roberts and Lorina L. Barker
15 TLO 6: Examine Historical Evidence, Scholarship and Changing
Representations of the Past . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281
Sean Scalmer
16 TLO 7: Construct an Evidence-Based Argument or Narrative
in Audio, Digital, Oral, Visual or Written Form . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297
Paul Sendziuk
17 TLO 8: Identify and Reflect Critically on the Knowledge
and Skills Developed in the Study of History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313
Penny Russell
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 325
Contributors
Pamela Allen University of Tasmania, Hobart, Australia

Lorina L. Barker University of New England, Armidale, Australia
Alan Booth University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK
Sean Brawley Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia
Thomas C. Buchanan University of Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia
Jennifer Clark University of Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia
Bronwyn Cole Western Sydney University, Sydney, Australia
Marcus Collins University of Loughborough, Loughborough, UK
Adrian Jones La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia
Jill Lawrence University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba, Australia
David Ludvigsson Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden
Adele Nye University of New England, Armidale, Australia
Gareth Pritchard University of Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia
David Andrew Roberts University of New England, Armidale, Australia
Penny Russell University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia
Sean Scalmer University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia
Paul Sendziuk University of Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia
Lynette Sheridan Burns Western Sydney University, Sydney, Australia
Leah Shopkow Indiana University, Bloomington, USA
Zora Simic University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
Theda Thomas Australian Catholic University, Melbourne, Australia
xv
xvi Contributors
Geoff Timmins University of Central Lancashire, Preston, UK

Joy Wallace Charles Sturt University, Bathurst, Australia
Nathan Wise University of New England, Armidale, Australia
Chapter 1
The Three Contexts of Writing About
History Teaching
Jennifer Clark and Adele Nye
Abstract When writing about the teaching of history in universities, three contexts
become apparent. The first is the enormous diversity and sophistication of historical
practice and historical thinking. The second is the existence of Threshold Learning
Outcomes (TLO) to standardise history teaching. The third is the Scholarship of
Teaching and Learning which has provided an international intellectual and practical
framework within which to discuss discipline teaching. In this chapter, we position
this book within those contexts and introduce its purpose.
1.1 Introduction
This is a book about teaching history in universities. It is about the possibilities and
opportunities as well as the difficulties and challenges. It is about working together
to explore better ways to encourage students to model their own history practice on
the best examples available. Most of all, it is about how we can inspire students to see
the work historians do as valuable and the history they write as uniquely intuited and
evidenced interpretations of the past. Teaching history in Australia today is informed
by discipline standards, and this is the framework we have used to enter the world
of the university classroom. The perceived imposition of standards may primarily
reflect an initial desire to measure and quantify, but a close reading of the Threshold
Learning Outcomes may also help us to articulate and interpret the strengths of
our discipline for students. By focusing on apparent regulation, we might find new
inspiration. By responding to apparent restriction, we might find motivation. By
closely reading the Threshold Learning Outcomes within an international context,
we might find the clear air necessary to engage with history teaching in a new way.
J. Clark (B)
University of Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia
e-mail: j.clark@adelaide.edu.au
A. Nye
University of New England, Armidale, Australia
e-mail: anye@une.edu.au
© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2018 1

J. Clark and A. Nye (eds.), Teaching the Discipline of History in an Age of Standards,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0047-9_1
2 J. Clark and A. Nye
This is not the first book to explore history teaching, although far more has been
written on pedagogy generally than the specifics of teaching the discipline (Clark,
2009), and none have focused on Australian conditions and practice. It builds specif-
ically on the work of English, Canadian and American scholars Booth (2014), Booth
and Hyland (2000), Seixas (2006), Timmins, Vernon, and Kinealy (2005) and Wineb-
urg (2001), all of whom have explored what it means to think historically and how
that can be expressed through a signature pedagogy in the university classroom. In
the Australian academic space, however, its primary antecedents are not books so
much as reports (Brawley et al., 2013; Hughes-Warrington et al., 2009) produced
as a result of the encouragement to explore teaching and learning matters instigated
by the Australian Learning and Teaching Council (ALTC) which then became the
Office for Learning and Teaching (OLT). History was a prime beneficiary of this
Australian federal initiative to improve teaching and learning in higher education.
Hughes-Warrington’s Historical Thinking project gave historians a snapshot of the
relationship between historical thinking and pedagogy. The After Standards project
brought historians together for the first time to discuss curriculum renewal. It is now
time to situate the teaching of history in Australia within an international and disci-
plinary pedagogical context, as well as the political climate of contemporary higher
education more broadly. It is time to unpack our disciplinary practice and to share
suggestions about how to teach a varied curriculum within the current expectation
of standards. In the end, the main aim of this book is to create a scholarly domain
in which to consider, and reconsider, the art of teaching history as a discipline of
unparalleled complexity and burdened by expectation.
1.2 Context One: The Expanding Discipline
The expansion of the discipline is virtually a taken-for-granted assumption; it is the

nature of the work historians and academics do—contributing to the growth of new
knowledge. However, the vibrant originality of current new history writing is extraor-
dinary as it marks out new paths of enquiry and re-marks the old. We are experienc-
ing a period of permission giving for historians to explore beyond the spectrum of
the established, regulated and the known. It is a time when historians speak and write
into the imagined yet articulate spaces of the elsewhere, and the not-yet. Broadly, the
discipline has been shaped by shifts reflecting global, social and political movements,
multiple theoretical ‘turns’, new and old interdisciplinary partnerships, ontological
anxieties, hard-fought theoretical wars and enduring cultural battles. We may point
to such examples as the repositioning of national identity within transnational and
cross-cultural history; an increased interest in mobility, space and displacement;
the enrichment of cultural history through the lens of emotion or sexuality; the de-
centring of previously privileged histories and the rise of the Indigenous and southern
voices; and emerging scholarship in the posthuman. Additionally, one cannot span
the discipline for shifts in approaches or research fields without encountering firstly,
the pervasiveness of the digitisation of history sources including, for example, the
1 The Three Contexts of Writing About … 3
creation and manipulation of big data sets. Rosenzweig has described the impact of
digitisation as ‘a fundamental paradigm shift from a culture of scarcity to a culture
of abundance’ (2011, p. 7).
We are also experiencing a period when historians are engaging in strident debate
over the intersection of theory, practice and pedagogy. We are collectively more
willing to reflect on the meaning of the discipline, its parameters, its nuances and its
new inflections, perhaps because the discipline’s integrity is constantly challenged
and its purpose publically politicised. As a result, not only do we have an expanding
discipline, but it is pressing against other disciplines and constantly bursting free of
previous intellectual constraints. Carr’s (1961) classic question, ‘What is History?’
is becoming more and more troublesome to answer or explain.
In these ebulliently disturbing times, historians have exercised reflective and crit-
ical insight that is fundamental to the signature of the discipline. They have found
much that can be contested and contradicted so that the expansion of historical
knowledge and practice since the turn of the century shows great promise and those
driving the discipline offer future students unprecedented opportunities. We know
that academic historians are shaping the perceptions of generations of students. Many
of these will go on to be teachers in schools and universities and influence further
generations. The innovators of the history classroom will have an even more far-
reaching impact as the boundaries of the discipline become fluid and the tools, the
philosophies, theories and materials of history are re-sculptured. The history teacher
is as much at the cutting edge of the discipline as its practitioner.
Just as some historians celebrate the multifarious nature of the contemporary
discipline, others want a more structured approach (Fordham, 2017; Retz, 2017).
Fordham, for example, argues that ‘Authority and tradition are not barriers to the
learning of history, but rather necessary conditions that make it possible to learn the
discipline’ (2017, p. 640). Further to this, Retz suggests more clarity and structure
are required given the discipline has become ‘a maze that no longer possesses agreed
principles and procedures of historical practice’ (2017, p. 607).
The uneven ground of the discipline is further muddied by ideologically driven
political commentary in the media. Everyone owns a slice of the national history nar-
rative. History is a public discourse in one moment, and in the next, the grim respon-
sibility of the academy. In the Australian media, recently critics have denounced the
‘faddish’ nature of subjects available to university students (d’Abrera, 2017). Dis-
appointingly, these critics have provided only simplistic critiques of the discipline
and delved no further than a broad assessment of titles. Longitudinal mixed method
studies reveal a far more complex narrative and one much less suitable for scandalous
newspaper headlines.
The disciplinary response to the threat of further regulation and an unsympathetic
and ill-informed media is one of both collective and individual actions. On the
one hand, the history community responds by terse rejection and professional
justificatory statements and, on the other, individual historians fervently pursue their
teaching and research goals regardless. History is, of course, inherently political in
nature. Contesting the uncomfortable and troublesome narratives, be they national,
theoretical or local, are core features of historical practice and historical thinking.
However, while neither forming a single consolidated entity nor circling the wagons,
the discipline has moved to put down firm foundations. More individuals are writing
about the discipline, the teaching and the practice than ever before. More space is
being made for these conversations at conferences and not just in the Australian
Historical Association (AHA), but also in interdisciplinary spaces such as Australian
Association for Research in Education (AARE) and the International Society for
the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (ISSOTL).
The scenario of discipline expansion hints at the possibilities for Barnett’s feasible
utopia and ecological universities, where the work of knowledge production within
the discipline is interconnected, responsible, imaginative, globally aware yet still
grounded in the practical matters at hand (2011, 2013). Certainly, the generosity
and growth within the history discipline align with the optimism and hope to which
Barnett alludes. Standards can only knock at the door of knowledge and show students
how to enter an historical world. They cannot and should not prescribe what that world
is. The purpose of this book is to build a bridge between rapidly expanding historical
practice and its effective teaching in an age of standards. What are the pedagogical
issues that frame and shape our current practices as historians and teachers of our
discipline? How can we capture the excitement of new approaches to history within
our universities?
1.3 Context Two: Discipline Standards: The Threshold

Learning Outcomes
This book focuses on the Australian Threshold Learning Outcomes for the history
discipline. Between 1998 and 2007, historians became interested in tracking and
mapping history education in Australia. The Australian Historical Association initi-
ated two surveys on ‘The State of History’ in Australia (Roe & Arrowsmith, 2002),
followed soon after by two curriculum reviews of undergraduate and postgraduate
studies in Australian universities by Millar and Peel (2004, 2006). However, by far
the most significant project was that of Jill Roe and Marnie Hughes-Warrington from
Macquarie University who received an Australian Learning and Teaching Council
grant to undertake a major survey of historical thinking in Australian universities
(Hughes Warrington et al., 2009; Nye et al., 2009, 2011). The project mapped the
perceptions of historical thinking of staff and students as well as progression in stu-
dent learning from the first to the final year of their degrees. It identified capacity and
best practice across twelve universities. The historical thinking project succeeded
in scoping the discipline and pointed towards the possibilities for future research
especially in ‘sector-wide projects in curriculum and assessment-task design and
the articulation of standards of achievement’ (Hughes-Warrington et al., 2009, p. 7).
At about the same time, the Bradley Review (2008, p. 128) advocated a new system
of university regulation and emphasised ‘excellence and standards’ over ‘fitness for
purpose’. Recommendation 19 quite specifically demanded ‘transparent processes
for assuring the quality of learning outcomes’ and ‘the development of standards’
(2008, p. xx). The impact on higher education was substantial as the Australian
federal government developed a range of quality assurance regimes to sit under the
Tertiary Education Quality Standards Agency (TEQSA) which was enacted in 2011.
The key initiatives rested on constructing performance indicators for the tertiary
sector to measure student learning outcomes and student experience (http://www.
teqsa.gov.au/about).
In 2009, the Department of Education Employment and Workplace Relations
(DEEWR) commissioned the ALTC to engage discipline communities to develop
Threshold Learning Outcomes. History was one of the first ‘demonstration disci-
plines’ to respond under the leadership of the discipline scholar for Arts, Social
Science and Humanities, geographer Professor Iain Hay (Brawley et al., 2012, p.
23). After a period of consultation, history staff across Australia accepted eight
Threshold Learning Outcomes for all students graduating with a major in history
after three years of tertiary study.
Threshold Learning Outcomes

1. Demonstrate an understanding of at least one period or culture of the
past.
2. Demonstrate an understanding of a variety of conceptual approaches to
interpreting the past.
3. Show how history and historians shape the present and the future*.
4. Identify and interpret a wide variety of secondary and primary materials.
5. Examine historical issues by undertaking research according to the
methodological and ethical conventions of the discipline.
6. Examine historical evidence, scholarship and changing representations
of the past.
7. Construct an evidence-based argument or narrative in audio, digital,
oral, visual or written forms.
8. Identify and reflect critically on the knowledge and skills developed in
the study of history.
*After the After Standards Project identified problems implementing TLO
3, the wording was changed to: ‘Show how history and historians shape the
contemporary world’.
The TLOs were broad-based and generally covered what historians considered to
be current good practice. They fulfilled the desire of the discipline to identify stan-
dards for itself rather than have standards forced upon it. Such proactive engagement
was described by Huber and Brawley (2013, p. 5) as an ‘audacious move’. Although
the discipline was now committed to a set of standards which, theoretically, would
direct teaching practice, their creation came with little support to unpack, embed or
work with them. At the time of conception and ratification, little attention was paid
to their implementation, how they might be taught progressively or how they might
be assessed for compliance.
In 2012, the ALTC funded another major project called After Standards which built
on Hughes-Warrington’s Historical Thinking in Higher Education project (Brawley
et al., 2013). After Standards took as its primary purpose the professional develop-
ment of history academics, facilitating their engagement with the standards. History
staff from 30 universities and all sub-disciplines came together for the first time
to discuss teaching and learning outside of disciplinary research interests. Through
a series of workshops and plenaries, historians discussed the standards, identified
issues, talked about how they could be implemented and explored potential mecha-
nisms to prove compliance with them. If historians were to implement the standards
in any form, argued the After Standards team, then they needed to build capacity to
do so (Brawley et al., 2011, p. 172).
In line with the push for standards across a range of disciplines, in 2012, the
ALTC, now reformed as the Office for Learning and Teaching, funded In the Begin-
ning: Renewing first year curricula for social sciences and humanities in the context
of discipline threshold standards. This project, which sat across five separate dis-
ciplines including history, examined what students needed to know and do in the
first year in order to reach the Threshold Learning Outcomes in their final year. Tri-
angulating the TLOs with Decoding the Disciplines methodology (Middendorf &
Pace, 2004) and first-year pedagogy (Kift, 2009), the project encouraged historians
to examine what aspects of their discipline, as represented by the eight TLOs, ought
to be appropriate for first year students. As part of this project, workshops were held
for each of the participating disciplines. It became obvious that out of the five cho-
sen disciplines, history was the most advanced when it came to engagement with the
Threshold Learning Outcomes (Thomas et al., 2014, p. 4). Having been a demonstra-
tion discipline was paying dividends, and the impact of the After Standards project
was also evident. Historians were now clearly well placed to press ahead and engage
more closely with the aspirations of the TLOs in specific contexts. Comments from
the participants at the In the Beginning history workshop (40 participants from 13
universities) indicated that they would return to their classes with a renewed interest
in reflective practice especially as it related to their first year teaching (Thomas et al.,
2014, p. 8).
The momentum has held. Martin Crotty and Paul Sendziuk are recreating Millar
and Peel’s 2006 survey under the auspices of the Australian Historical Association to
measure change in the discipline. Similarly, the longitudinal study History Teachers:
Philosophy, Theory and Evidence in Australian Universities (Nye, 2016a) builds on
the work and recommendations of Historical Thinking in Higher Education (Hughes-
Warrington et al, 2009; Nye et al., 2011). Notable has been the increase in the number
of academics talking about teaching and learning as a field of both research and
practice reflected in the view that ‘teaching has become a much more dynamic active
space’ (Nye, 2016a).
1.4 Context Three: The Scholarship of Teaching

and Learning and Support for Innovation
This book is also the product of an influential international development, the rise of the
Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. In 1990, Ernest L Boyer made his now famous
claim that academics needed to consider teaching as part of their professional activity
with as much rigour and commitment as they did their research. This argument was
intended to re-engage academics with the full breadth of their work and reduce the
narrow focus on discipline research as the most worthwhile purpose of academic life.
Over 25 years later, we are still re-interpreting and expanding upon Boyer’s original
position. Rather than diminish as time passes, the editors of the anniversary edition of
Boyer’s Scholarship Reconsidered (Boyer et al., 2015, p. xviii) argue that his initial
concept will grow even more in significance into the future as we continue to refine
new directions in our academic lives. Mary Huber claims further that Boyer’s original
idea was actually quite under-developed. Those who came after him, including Lee
Shulman, were the ones who recognised its potential as an impetus for reform. Quite
specifically Huber identifies the role of the Carnegie Foundation in this process by
initially looking at ways to identify means of assessing good scholarship of teaching
(Huber, 2016, p. xxi). The two ideas together, that there was a scholarship of teaching
and it was possible to evaluate it, meant that important new pathways for academics
began to emerge (Huber, 2016, p. xxi).
Throughout the 1990s, the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) devel-
oped into a prominent movement within the USA but certainly not limited to it. A
community of practice also arose within the UK, Canada and Australia. Although
for a long time SoTL remained largely a feature of the English-speaking world, it is
gradually gaining an audience in continental Europe (Brawley, 2007). The first SoTL
conference in Scandinavia was held in 2010 and in Germany in 2016 (Ludvigsson
& Booth, 2015; Neumann, 2015). SoTL was promoted as a mechanism by which
teaching as a subject of study could be reclaimed from education departments. SoTL
empowered discipline staff to use reflective practice to identify an issue or a question
related to their teaching, to undertake genuine action-based research to explore it,
and to share the findings of that work in peer-reviewed journals. SoTL became a
means to develop teaching practice and to put quantifiable professional standards
around it at the same time. In 2006, those seriously interested in the Scholarship
of Teaching and Learning in history formed a SoTL society of their own so that
international discipline-based practices could be shared (Brawley, 2007).
The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching in the USA, the Higher
Education Academy in Britain and the Carrick Institute in Australia which became
the Australian Learning and Teaching Council and later again the Office for Learning
and Teaching all committed to improve teaching and learning within higher educa-
tion. The funding provided by these bodies and the prestige for teaching associated
with their projects stimulated teaching and learning within higher education in ways
not seen previously. In particular, the emphasis on collaboration, dissemination and
evaluation meant that teaching attained both a higher profile in the sector and a more
credible base from which to promote change. The availability of substantial grant
income certainly gave SoTL exponents leverage and currency in their home insti-
tutions. The content of this book is informed by the developments and approaches
common to the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning.
1.5 Part One
Section One of this book identifies and explores some of the prominent issues con-
fronting contemporary history pedagogy in an international context. Over the last
couple of decades collaboration, conferencing and the impact of the Scholarship of
Teaching and Learning (SoTL) that Gilpin (2013, p. 117) describes as ‘community-
oriented and public, not private and idiosyncratic’ have slowly eroded the defen-
sibility of teaching in isolation. As a consequence, teaching practice is becoming
far less secretive and more open to influence, evaluation and reframing (D’Sena,
2015). The main framework for this book, however, comes from the international
push towards the development and adoption of standards reflected within Australia
by the ratification of Threshold Learning Outcomes.
Section One begins with a comparative snapshot of undergraduate history teach-
ing in British and Australian universities. Authors, Collins and Nye note the shifts
as well as the expansion of particular fields of history. These include the apparent
decrease in availability of traditional medieval history units, a growth in more recent
history periods and an interest in world and global histories. To what degree historians
have control over these shifts is varied; often such decisions are made at a managerial
level. It was, however, clear, argued the authors, that historians and their disciplinary
communities are increasingly reflective about their pedagogical practices. This inter-
est and commitment are especially evident in the third chapter by Alan Booth as he
explores the links between a history lecturer’s passion for the subject of history and
their approaches to teaching. Drawing on the evidence gathered through his exten-
sive interviews, Booth argues this enthusiasm is integrated throughout all aspects
of teaching history including curriculum development, working with students, and
collegial relations with other staff. Booth suggests that this passion is also critical in
breaking new ground in the discipline. In the climate of standards and the associated
challenges, Booth offers a refreshing insight into the joy many have found in the
pursuit of disciplinary work.
First-year history students and their teachers face particular difficulties. In Chap.
4, Clark et al. respond by creating a framework for encouraging collegial practices
that focus on the implementation of the TLOs. The authors draw from the work of
Pace et al. in Decoding the Disciplines and Kift’s principles for first-year pedagogy to
rethink Threshold Learning Outcomes. In creating an integrated theoretical model,
the authors offer a new perspective to the longstanding challenges of introducing
students to the discipline.
In Chap. 5, Sendzuik and Buchanan offer a very practical evidence-based critique

of the lecture and the tutorial. In this chapter, the view that lectures and tutori-
als no longer meet the requirements of contemporary pedagogical thought is chal-
lenged. They argue that lecturers have extraordinary breadth and opportunity to
experiment with engagement and interactivity in the lecture including flipping the
classroom. Additionally, the authors investigate different approaches to the tutorial,
again rethinking student engagement, but also taking into account the business of
managing cost effectiveness.
Progression through the history degree is an under-researched area in the disci-
pline. Timmins’ chapter identifies key aspects of student progression and differenti-
ation by examining content selection, the development of historical skills, the path
towards independent learning, and assessment strategies.
In Chap. 7, Brawley offers a personal and sometimes confronting narrative of the
political landscape of compliance in the discipline and the structure of degrees in
Australian universities. He highlights the development and implementation of the
TLOs, the challenges and what he calls the ‘compliance paradox’. More specifically,
Brawley asks those in the discipline to look critically at the multiple structures and
consider the scaffolding and student learning required to ensure Australian history
graduates are ultimately competitive in an international disciplinary market. Brawley
looks to the international arena and issues a challenge for members of the discipline,
and the higher education sector more broadly, to consider the contemporary issues.
In Chap. 8, Shopkow sheds light on the work of teaching and learning in his-
tory that has been done in the USA through the Tuning Project and in Europe as a
result of the Bologna Declaration. Shopkow provides readers with both the back-
ground to these initiatives as well as offering a comparative discussion on structures,
progression and learning outcomes.
The need for leadership in the discipline is explored in Chap. 9. Nye and Clark
acknowledge the importance of fostering a productive and enabling work environ-
ment but also argue that a balance is required, between meeting compliance demands,
supporting imagination, recognising difference and allowing staff to have autonomy
in their practice.
Section One asks what are we teaching in classrooms around the nation and
beyond? What is the essence of good teaching regardless of the national context?
How are we managing to support our students to grow intellectually within history
programs? Should we be looking at teaching the different stages of study in a separate
light? Is it possible to reconsider how we deliver our teaching to a new generation
of students? Is compliance with the Threshold Learning Outcomes reasonable and,
moreover, possible to demonstrate? Section One offers us all the opportunity to think
about the way we teach history today and the standards context in which we operate.
1.6 Part Two
Section Two specifically unpacks the Australian Threshold Learning Outcomes.

While the TLOs appear conceptually recognisable because they use familiar ter-
minology and reflect the aspirational practice of us all, on closer examination, their
meaning may not be as straightforward as first thought. When historians snatched
control of disciplinary governance from below by setting their own Threshold Learn-
ing Outcomes, they were forced to assess and articulate what historians did as well
as what students of history should know and be able to do. The result is a series of
short statements that describe professional purpose and direction as an aim of stu-
dent learning. However, do they do justice to a discipline that seeks imaginative and
creative approaches to the past and encourages disruptive agency? Is it even possible
to encompass, in a few pithy words, the complexity and depth of historical practice
and the unique quality of a discipline so reliant on the locatedness and positionality
of the individual historian for its strength and edge. Ludmilla Jordanova describes
historical skills as ‘developed over a lifetime, to become an integral part of the per-
son. They are enhanced by the ability to write well and to grasp the complexity of
situations. Naturally there is much that can be taught, but there is a great deal that
relates to more subtle human qualities, which are not so amenable to direct instruction
(Jordanova, 2006, p. 150)’. These qualities include scholarly maturity, imagination,
creativity and intellectual judgement.
When Arthur and David Cropley explored creativity in higher education, it was
as a function of the interplay between the limitations of known experience and the
possibilities offered by imaginative extension. They determined creativity was not
wholly the product of chance, in the sense that a good idea did not suddenly appear,
rather the creative person was one who operated within the confines of their disci-
pline while at the same time exhibiting a range of characteristics that made them
more open to new ideas and different ways of thinking. They argued that the creative
person produced a variation on accepted thinking by selecting from the informa-
tion available to them, by relating those pieces of information in different ways, by
combining pieces of new and old information and then by evaluating those com-
binations (Cropley & Cropley, 2009, pp. 46–47). They have knowledge and skills,
are self-motivated and hard-working and have a personality that is comfortable with
managing complexity (Cropley & Cropley, 2009, pp. 69, 111, 115). The truly creative
person is one who is prepared to think differently because they ask new questions and
make links between what might seem unrelated information, and they seek to solve
a problem. They recognise a gap in our collective disciplinary understanding and
see opportunities in working within the space of the unknown (Cropley & Cropley,
2009, p. 49). These characteristics may easily be applied to good historians. Are they
provided for within the TLOs?
TLO 1—Demonstrate an understanding of at least one period or culture of the
past.—This TLO appears deceptively easy in its demands, but as David Ludvigs-
son demonstrates in his chapter, the choice of subject to be taught and understood
presents an enormous challenge. He discusses the perennial dilemma of what to
teach, when and how. He considers the reasons why certain topics are chosen and
others are not. Ultimately, teachers choose content for largely pragmatic reasons,
what they know, what they feel comfortable teaching and what they think students
want to learn. How does this equate with the idea that students need to learn ‘frame-
of-reference’ content? A teacher interested in exploring the past imaginatively can
encourage students to look for the previously undiscussed, the purposely hidden, the
silent voice, and the uncomfortable or raw stories of a people’s past. The gateway
into this past may be the burning questions of the present, the forces of change we
grapple with today, the points of personal importance and individual experience.
There are many ‘periods or cultures’ that can be revealed by judicious selection and
transgressive accession. It is worth considering how historians come to choose their
research topics and relatedly their teaching topics. Of Greg Dening, a scholar who
influenced many historians in the Historical Thinking Project, Griffiths (2016, p.
117) writes:
A son of a sailor who talked him to sleep with stories of the sea, Greg became a scholar of
the Pacific, and his intellectual metaphors were drawn from the ocean. “There is no greater
joy for me than to walk a beach,” he later confessed, and he was referring to cultural as well
as sandy ones. Australia must have suited him, not just because of its littoral majesty, but
because it catered for his sense of the creativity of the margins.
TLO 2—Demonstrate an understanding of a variety of conceptual approaches to

interpreting the past—This TLO allows a teacher to introduce students to the com-
plexity of historical thinking. Each historian is different and so are the choices they
make in their historical practice. Hidden in this TLO is the seed of historical argument
and dispute. Going further, new approaches to interpreting the past are always pos-
sible. Even the big historical categories cannot be taken for granted. Katie Barclay,
for example, has argued for family as another societal category to sit with gender,
class and nationality (Barclay, 2009, p. 27). Similarly, Greg Dening is described as
unable to accept ‘an anthropology of natives and a history of strangers’ (Griffiths,
2016, p. 119). Another example is the digital revolution which has created opportu-
nities for historical analysis not previously considered even in the lifetime of current
historians. Students can be encouraged to think about how to locate themselves most
comfortably within the tradition of a conceptual approach or, to push out in a totally
new direction. Zora Simic tackles this TLO by looking at the ways in which different
approaches to the same topic or subject matter can produce vastly different interpre-
tations. She explores the value of engaging students with theoretical positions not
only so they are aware of what they mean and how they might be used, but how they
enrich the discipline, work dialogically together and provide for seemingly endless
variation.
TLO 4—Identify and interpret a wide variety of secondary and primary materi-
als.—‘What constitutes a source material today’ is a query that illuminates innova-
tion, perpetual motion and expansion within the discipline as evidenced in the fol-
lowing examples: Graffiti in library books (Hughes-Warrington, 2013), reconstructed
science experiments (Nye, 2016b), re-enactment and living history (De Groot, 2009;
Gapps, 2009), historical gaming (Chapman, Foka, & Westin, 2016), historical novels
(De Groot, 2015) ‘local knowledge’ (Roberts, 1995), revisiting heritage ecological
specimens (Black et al., 2016; Jordanova, 2012), soundscapes (Damousi, 2017),
roadside memorials (Clark, 2012), imagination for constructing counterfactual his-
tories, (De Groot, 2009; Hughes-Warrington, 2013; Mcintyre & Scalmer, 2006) and
gardens and landscapes (Holmes, 2011). The choice is further widened because his-
tory is either blessed or cursed with sitting comfortably or uncomfortably close to
other disciplines, for example sociology, anthropology and archaeology as well as
cross-disciplinary fields such as cultural studies or death studies. The materials that
can be used as sources range far from the traditional written text and can include
every conceivable item of the natural and manufactured world (De Groot, 2009;
Jordanova, 2006).
Adrian Jones explores the ways in which we might instruct students on how to find
sources and how to interpret them by taking a wide-ranging and longitudinal look at
the idea of the ‘source’. He discusses ‘sourcing’ as having its own history and along
with that a changing view of authority. He concentrates on the student’s capacity to
identify and interpret a source and to realise that history is about independent thinking,
and imaginative engagement with the source. Without the right question, a source can
remain useless and inanimate. With the right question, the same source can unlock
our understanding. As Wineburg (2001, p. 77) has argued: ‘For students, the locus
of authority was in the text; for historians, it was in the questions they formulated
about the text’. Two historians approaching the same source with different questions
produce different histories. The purpose of TLO 4 is to ensure that students are not
told what to think, but are asked to develop a critical understanding of the research
task and the fundamental essence of engagement with the source materials, both
primary and secondary. In particular, Jones explores the idea of academic rigour in
discrimination between and among sources so that students can be trained as active
and diligent interrogators.
TLO 5—Examine historical issues by undertaking research according to the
methodological and ethical conventions of the discipline—is a statement of pro-
fessional limitation. Under this TLO, students can be inducted into the historian’s
world of moral responsibility and conscience. It is important that students know that
history is constructed for a purpose and an audience. It is not in and of itself a neutral
discourse. History is political. It is tied to emotional well-being, a sense of justice, a
desire for reparation and a need to understand the national experience and the indi-
vidual life. It can be equally tied to active silencing or appropriation (Landsberg,
2004). The historian can become embroiled in the most crucial debates of the age so
that Henry Reynolds (n.d.) can talk about ‘the moral authority and political potency
of history’, Davison (2000) can write about the use and abuse of Australian history,
and some thirty years after Geoffrey Blainey coined the term ‘black arm-band’ of
history and controversially featured in a public debate about social cohesion and
Asian immigration in Australia, he remains vigilant in monitoring the interpretation
and re-interpretation of his intellectual legacy (Guilliatt, 2016). Nathan Wise, David
Roberts and Lorina Barker unpack TLO 5 and concentrate on the development of
the student in the classroom as an agentic practitioner who is able to research in the
way that professional historians work. They explore the idea of research and the way
in which the historian reflects their own contemporary concerns in the practice of
writing about the past. To this end, the context of authorship becomes important and
with that comes the understanding of ethical practice. They explore what this means
in terms of professional activity, but also explicitly what this might look like when
working with Indigenous people or others from diverse groups. They encourage
students to use reflection as part of ethical practice.
TLO 6—Analyse historical evidence, scholarship and changing representations
of the past—History is what historians write. It is not the same thing as the past. His-
torians position themselves not only within the current intellectual climate of the day
but also within the historiographical tradition of their discipline and subject matter.
Sean Scalmer examines how we might engage students to understand the importance
of reading histories and recognising that interpretations change. He advocates the
search for more opportunities to allow students to ‘do history’ themselves and to
experience the ways in which interpretations are formed. He discusses how histori-
ans move comfortably between primary documents and historical interpretations so
that the reading of one informs the other. This is difficult for students to recognise
and replicate but central to strong professional practice.
TLO 7—Construct an evidence-based argument or narrative in audio, digital,
oral, visual or written forms. This TLO is about the way in which students present
an argument that is founded not on conjecture or opinion but on evidence. Tradition-
ally, we have relied on the essay as the primary method of demonstrating historical
knowledge and understanding; however, we should not be so limited. Evidence can
be presented in a variety of effective ways, and an argument does not have to be
written down to have impact. Paul Sendziuk explores ways for students to present
their work other than in the traditional essay including group activities and reports,
exhibitions, role-play or through video and oral presentations. He argues that teach-
ers can support students to work with evidence, recognise its limitations and develop
a reasoned argument that can be presented in a variety of relevant ways.
In discussions about the implementation of national standards at the 2012 After
Standards workshop, historians suggested that TLOs three and eight were the most
difficult to implement.
TLO 3: Show how history and historians shape the present and the future
TLO 8: Identify and reflect critically on the knowledge and skills developed in the study of
history.
Perhaps they reflect the most complex processes of historical practice, that is, teaching
students to problematise the evidence, historians and themselves. These are skills that
are neither quickly learned nor easily quantifiable. Rather, they ask students to take
risks by accepting and engaging in the uncertainties of knowledge making. These
are transformative or threshold moments in the ontogeny of historical thinking, and
as such, there is ‘no going back’ once students understand their significance (Meyer
& Land, 2003, p. 5). As Savin-Baden suggests, this type of shift in learning is
challenging but generative (2008, p. 76).
Whatever the history student writes or the professional historian produces should
be thought of as constructed (Jenkins, 2003, p. 40), proposed (Ankersmit, 1994)
and imagined (White, 1973). Understanding this and the importance of locatedness
within the discourse of the history discipline is what distinguishes the most accom-
plished students. Imagining differently and creatively requires self-efficacy and stu-
dent agency. As Ankersmit (1994, p. 187) says: ‘To put it provocatively, the more
high-quality interpretations we have, the more the ideal of the ‘correct’ interpretation
becomes compromised’. High-quality interpretations emerge from creative, imagi-
native or agentic thinking. As White (1973, p. 82) explains: history is ‘a narrative
discourse the content of which is as much imagined as found’. Students need to
believe there is the opportunity for authentic engagement and intellectual risk, which
includes the rejection of the ‘correct’ interpretation of an historical problem.
Students enrolling in history at university for the first time sometimes think there
is a formulaic approach they can adopt to get through their studies based on the
pursuit of an ordered collection of facts (Calder, 2006, p. 1363; Nye et al., 2011,
p. 768). They must be disavowed of this view and encouraged to see the value of
reflection and engagement with the past in order to find the pathway to history. Their
task is to seek meaning in the past not simply recount it. That can be achieved in a
variety of ways. Keith Hancock advocated emersion in life: ‘spend equivalent time in
climbing mountains and wading rivers, joining archaeological ‘digs’, making music
and listening to it, producing plays and acting in them, learning languages, reading
novels and poetry’ (Griffiths, 2016, p. 12). The reason why was twofold, Hancock
reasoned: ‘No imagination, no history’ (Griffiths, 2016, p. 12). But it might also be
argued that the historian interprets the past for those living in the present. It is equally
as important to know the present as it is the past to be effective in that purpose and
that means, in turn, knowing how to interrogate the past creatively in order to answer
the pressing questions of the present with the greatest illumination and perception.
Gareth Pritchard has approached TLO 3 by taking issue with its limitations. He
recognises the way in which historians shape the contemporary world and draws
extensively from current political and identity debates in Eastern Europe to make his
case, but he also demands that we look at how society shapes historians to emphasise
‘the dialogical nature of the relationship between historians and society’. He positions
historians within the world of public debate and intellectual life as agents and not
simply as raconteurs. For example, he draws attention to the role of historians as
state officials in Eastern Europe, and he threads his discussion through the emotional
context of memory studies.
Penny Russell in Chap. 17 continues the discussion of how historians position
themselves and their work by considering the role of reflection in historical writing
and the importance of encouraging students to be reflective practitioners. She ques-
tions whether it is indeed possible or necessary to teach reflection explicitly, rather
it should be a skill that naturally infuses the learning experience of students so that
it ‘thickens’ with time.
1.7 Conclusion
There is no immediate relief from the current regulatory fashion. Managerialism is

yet to wain. We must be able to work within the terms of the Threshold Learning
Outcomes without losing any of the signature complexity of the discipline. Turkle
(2004) argues that technological forms can determine cognitive approaches. Her
point was that reliance on powerpoint presentations meant that we now think more
readily in terms of dot points rather than carefully prepared narratives. She claims
that ‘The tools we use to think change the way in which we think’ (Turkle, 2004, p.
B26) and that ‘presentation software has fetishized the outline at the expense of the
content’ (Turkle, 2004, p. B27). The dramatic compartmentalisation of history into
eight dot points was always going to be problematic and at risk of being homogenised.
Should we think of this through Turkle’s lens of the powerpoint presentation, that
is, embodying ‘its own way of thinking’ within ‘its own aesthetic’ (Turkle, 2004, p.
B27)?
In this book, we highlight the tension between the apparent prescription of the
TLOs, pared down to the most easily formulated, or managerialised concepts, and the
hidden depths of complexity such statements belie. In establishing specific standards,
the history profession has distilled its life-blood into an essence, made less obvious its
subversive and transgressive nature and not necessarily been fully able to articulate
the liminal spaces of intuition. Working within managerial frameworks can mean
that the complications, nuances and potentialities of a discipline may be obscured.
We argue that a nuanced reading of the TLOs informed by an understanding of the
ontological complexity of history and its liminal qualities means that the apparently
restrictive features of working to standards will not ultimately be an impediment to
the discipline.
When we began this book, our aim was to unpack the Threshold Learning Out-
comes so that we could support historians teaching in universities. We wanted to
offer a reading of the TLOs and suggest some ideas about how they might be well
taught. We thought a pedagogical context for the implementation of the TLOs would
be useful. By inviting a range of historians to explore the TLOs and associated topics,
what we have discovered is that the exciting diversity of historical practice must also
be captured in the way history is taught. By thinking about teaching history, we have
thought more deeply about the discipline as a whole and what we want students to
appreciate. This book has become not just an opportunity to talk about teaching but
a chance to unpack the discipline itself through a pedagogical lens.
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Part I
Issues in Contemporary History
Pedagogy in a Standards Environment
Chapter 2
Snapshot: The Discipline of History
in British and Australian Universities
Marcus Collins and Adele Nye
Abstract In this chapter we offer a snapshot of undergraduate history teaching in

British and Australian universities in 2016 based upon a comparative analysis of
units according to type, place and period. The ‘revolution’ in the teaching of his-
tory announced half a century ago by Brian Harrison remains incomplete in both
countries. The demise of premodern history is much more advanced than the rise
of world history. The fragmentation of the discipline detected by Harrison has been
kept somewhat in check by broad agreement about progression and training in his-
toriography and methodology. The differences between and within the Australian
and British systems testify to the multiplicity of influences upon curricula, many of
which have little to do with developments in historical research.
2.1 Introduction
In 1966, George Barlow and Brian Harrison published the first comprehensive survey
of history degrees taught in Britain (Barlow & Harrison, 1966). Two years later,
Harrison presented the findings of the second survey (Barlow, 1968) as evidence that
a ‘revolution has occurred in the structure and scope of university history courses’
over the preceding decade, comprised of five interrelated developments:
M. Collins (B)
University of Loughborough, Loughborough, UK
e-mail: marcus.collins@lboro.ac.uk
A. Nye

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0047-9_2
24 M. Collins and A. Nye
the decline of medievalism, the pressure for contemporaneity, the growth of ‘world’ history,
the penchant for comparative studies, and the fragmentation of ‘history’ as a monolithic
subject of study. (Harrison, 1968, p. 357)
Historians supporting such changes wondered whether Harrison had exaggerated its
magnitude (Bush, 1975, pp. 390–1; Hopkins, 1969, p. 337). Those opposed, how-
ever, generally viewed Harrison’s analysis as confirming their worst suspicions about
the terminal decline of historical study, higher education and civilisation as a whole.
‘[T]he principles upon which the revolution has been proceeding stand in fundamen-
tal contradiction to the true purposes of study and teaching,’ maintained Geoffrey
Elton, with the ‘chaos’ of the current situation prefiguring the ‘comprehensive dis-
aster’ to come (1969, pp. 63, 67).
This chapter presents the findings of a new survey of how history is taught in
twenty-first century universities. Fifty years on, we consider whether the ‘revolution’
envisaged by Harrison swept away the traditional undergraduate history curriculum
and what further innovations shape today’s history teaching. Our study differs from its
predecessor in being comparative and mainly quantitative. History units in Britain are
considered alongside those in Australia. They are classified and quantified by type,
place and period, supplemented in the Australian case by interviews with historians.
This snapshot of history teaching in 2016 indicates that the teaching of history is
as much subject to the passage of time as any of the topics we examine in the
classroom. Its findings do not tally with the hopes of revolutionaries or the fears of
traditionalists, not least because curricula are shaped in part by forces beyond the
control of historians.
2.2 Background
What do we teach, why do we teach it and when do we alter our practices? A

useful starting-point for answering these questions is found in Barnett, Parry and
Coate’s (2001) cross-disciplinary overview of curriculum change in higher edu-
cation. It argues that ‘knowledge fields’ determine the shape of curricula, so that
developments in the former lead to changes in the latter. According to the authors,
‘change in the knowledge fields— and in the curriculum—took three main forms’
(Barnett et al., 2001, p. 440). Change occurs when the knowledge field takes on a
‘new shape’, when it incorporates ‘new topics’ and it adopts ‘new techniques and
new forms of realisation’ (Barnett et al., 2001, pp. 440–1).
Barnett, Parry and Coate included history in their study, and the applicability of
their threefold model to the discipline is readily apparent. When discussing structural
changes, the authors discuss the effect on the curriculum of history becoming ‘more
sociological in character’ (2001, p. 440), although a subject specialist may prefer to
characterise history as engaged in a constant identity crisis over whether it is a human-
ity, a social science or an essentially self-sufficient discipline. The authors’ example
of women’s history as a new topic transforming a knowledge field is less contentious,
2 Snapshot: The Discipline of History in British … 25
as is their example of computers as introducing new techniques in research and teach-

ing (2001, pp. 440–1). The authors are also aware of the unusual fissiparousness of
the humanities in general and history in particular. Because historians displayed ‘less
consensus over the basic epistemological content’, the curriculum gave considerable
latitude for ‘personal interpretation’ (2001, pp. 441–2). ‘In history,’ they noted, ‘top-
ics and modules could be introduced or withdrawn depending serendipitously on
staff’s own professional interests’ (2001, p. 441).
The affinity between changes in the knowledge fields and the curriculum depends
upon the discipline operating independently of external pressures. Maurice Kegan
encountered such a set-up in British history departments in the 1980s, the undergrad-
uate curricula of which ‘mostly developed in a way which its practitioners feel to be
appropriate in the light of the accretion and broadening of knowledge derived from
scholarship’ (Kogan, 1988, p. 21). But it is a much harder scenario to imagine today,
when most academics have been expelled from their ivory towers. However much
historians may endeavour to create curricula which embody their conception of the
discipline, they also have to offer units (known as modules in Britain) that satisfy
the competing demands of students, parents, administrators, managers, regulators
and governments. They must respond to how schools have trained students before
they arrive at university and how employers will regard them when they graduate.
They must also take account of the resources at their disposal: money, time, books,
equipment and the skills, knowledge and capacity of students and academics alike.
These factors vary considerably between countries, so that—even though history
is an increasingly global discipline in terms of its research—there remain distinc-
tive teaching cultures and correspondingly different curricula from one nation to
another. This chapter compares and contrasts the undergraduate history curricula
of two ostensibly comparable countries, Australia and Britain. Once, empire yoked
the two countries together and led to considerable numbers of historians emigrating
from Britain to Australia (Serle, 1973, p. 687). Now, they teach roughly the same
proportion of their nations’ populations in roughly the same language (Parr, 2015,
n.p.; UCAS, 2016, p. 17).
Yet as much divides the two higher education systems as unites them. British stu-
dents typically take three-year undergraduate degrees in a single subject. Australian
students study more subjects than British ones at high school and continue to do so at
the start of their three-year degree. The regulatory frameworks for degrees incorpo-
rating history also differ between the two countries. Prior to 2010, Australia did not
have a national quality assurance scheme for undergraduate degrees and history was
‘a discipline with no background experience in professional accreditation or national
standards’ (Brawley et al., 2013, p. 16). The Threshold Learning Outcomes for his-
tory examined in this volume were agreed in 2010, modified in 2011 and represent
the first attempt to devise disciplinary benchmarks. Britain operated two systems
until 1992. Universities until then regulated their own degrees, whereas degrees at
polytechnics conformed at first to the requirements for University of London exter-
nal degrees, then to those enforced by the Council for National Academic Awards
(Cowan, 1989). When polytechnics joined the ranks of universities in 1992, they and
the pre-existing universities came under the oversight of the Higher Education Qual-
ity Council (HEQC) established in 1992 and the funding councils’ Teaching Quality
Assessment (TQA) scheme launched in 1993–4. The Quality Assurance Agency
(QAA) absorbed the functions of the HEQC and TQA in 1997. It published its first
disciplinary benchmarks for history degrees in 2000 (QAA, 2000), which remain
largely unchanged after updates in 2007 and 2014.
2.3 Methodology
Despite these differences, an instructive comparison between British and Australian

history curricula can be achieved through the classification and quantification of
history units. The authors collected records of undergraduate history units taught in
every Australian and British university in 2016. All Australian units were analysed.
For Britain, the larger number of universities meant that analysis was limited to all
718 compulsory or core units taught on 103 single-honours history degrees plus
a random sample of five optional units per university (477 in total). The authors
proceeded to categorise each unit into one of twenty-three primary subjects, one
of four types (overviews of a time and place, thematic topics and methodological
units) and, where applicable, one or more of four time periods (ancient, medieval,
early modern and late modern). British universities were asked to verify their core
offerings and the classifications assigned to each one.
The Australian data has been drawn from two national mixed methods stud-
ies, firstly Historical Thinking in Higher Education, a collaborative project under-
taken 2008–9 (Hughes-Warrington et al., 2009; Nye et al., 2011) and secondly, the
2016–2017 project History Teachers: Philosophy, Theory and Evidence (Nye, 2016a,
b). In each project data on courses, units and mission statements were collected from
university web sites. In both studies these data were complemented by broad quali-
tative interviews with fifty history academics. These interviews covered workplace
conditions, approaches to history theory, pedagogies, and philosophies.
This chapter specifically examines the 402 undergraduate history units in 2008
and 314 units in 2016 at fifteen of the 32 Australian universities (see Appendix). It
should be noted that the units cited represent the offerings that were available for
that particular year. Most universities have a larger group of units and offer them
on varying rotations depending on staff availability and student demand. The fifteen
universities were selected on the basis of having clear history departments within
larger schools or separate schools of history as opposed to history units being taught
in other disciplinary areas. Stand-alone history departments or schools are slowly
diminishing in size, with a corresponding reduction of their capacity to remain as
independent entities.
The primary research was supplemented by a review of Australian and British
scholarship on history teaching in higher education published over the last half cen-
tury in order to explore how curricula change over time as well as between countries.
Table 2.1 History units by type in Britain, 2016

Compulsory units Sample of optional units
Overviews of specified time 270 (37.6%) 261 (54.7%)
and place
Thematic studies 94 (13.1%) 174 (36.5%)
Skills, experience or research 354 (49.3%) 42 (8.8%)
Total 718 (100%) 477 (100%)
2.4 History Units Categorised by Type
The units were classified into three types: overviews of a specified time and place,
units structured around themes and those concerned with skills, experience or
research. In Britain, half of all core units (49.3%) belong to the last of these categories.
There are 270 overviews (37.6%), the teaching of which is particularly prominent in
the post-1992 ‘new’ universities, and a much smaller number of thematic units. A
different balance of unit types appears in the optional units taught to British under-
graduates. Whereas skills units represent a half of core units, they account for under
one in ten optional ones. This suggests that universities regard them as ‘eat your
vegetables’ units which are necessary, but unappealing. Conversely, three times as
many optional units take a thematic approach (36.5%, as against 13.1% of cores).
Further evidence that universities allow students to choose the topics they study in
depth is that 19.1% of options deal with periods of under thirty years in comparison
to just 3.2% of core units. Equal proportions of core and optional units are overviews
covering longer time spans of thirty years or more, accounting for 34.4% of the first
and 35.6% of the second (Table 2.1).
The different structure of Australian and British degrees impedes direct compar-
isons between the two, but our analysis suggests a stronger preference in Australia for
a thematic approach to teaching the past. These now constitute half of the undergrad-
uate units identified by this study. A number of universities including Melbourne, La
Trobe, Adelaide and Western Australia have broken with tradition by offering pri-
marily thematic first year units. The proportion of units focusing on skills, research
or experience is of particular interest given there had been some debate on how early
students should encounter theory and historiography. The historical thinking study
found most academics preferred to tackle these matters early in the degree (Nye et al.,
2011, p. 275). How this should be done has played out differently in each univer-
sity. The University of New England (UNE) for example has broken new ground by
developing a new degree: the Bachelor of Historical Inquiry and Practice. Students
enrolled in the Bachelor of Arts can also enrol in the same suite of units devel-
oped for the new degree. At UNE two out of six first-year units offered in 2016 were
focused on historiography and theory. Newcastle University and Australian National
University increased their offerings to four units in this category available to their
undergraduates in 2016. In contrast the University of New South Wales dropped
Table 2.2 History units by type in Australia, 2008 and 2016

2008 2016
Overviews of specified time 159 (39.6%) 126 (40.1%)
and place
Thematic studies 196 (48.8%) 157 (50.0%)
Skills, experience or research 47 (11.7%) 31 (9.9%)
Total 402 (100%) 314 (100%)
from 8 units in 2008 to just two in 2016 (see Chap. 8 for more information). This is
not to say that the universities which do not have multiple skills units have relegated
all of their theory and historiography to the postgraduate years. Instead, historians
consciously integrate these methodological and theoretical lessons throughout the
other units. The rationale for this approach is that theory and methodology is best
taught in conjunction with content (Table 2.2).
The classification of units by type represents a first step towards understanding the
structure of history degrees. To appreciate the range of historical subjects studied by
undergraduates and the impact of subdisciplinary and interdisciplinary approaches,
it is necessary to examine coverage by place, period and approach.
2.5 History Units Categorised by Place
The geographical scope of units in British and Australian history degrees bears the
imprint of decades of past practice. Ralph Davis recalled that prior to the 1960s,
history degrees in Britain conformed to a ‘basic structure’:
English History from ‘the beginning’ to 1914, examined in three papers; a period of English
Constitutional History (one paper); a period of foreign history (two papers); Political Theory,
based on Aristotle, Hobbes and Rousseau (one paper); a Special Subject (two papers); a
general paper and, if one wished to do it as an optional extra … a dissertation. (Davis, 1981,
p. 361)
In terms of geographical scope, the ‘revolution’ discerned by Harrison during the

1960s entailed ‘the growth of “world” history [and] the penchant for comparative
studies’ (1968, p. 357). Such developments were welcomed by those historians
relieved to have escaped the ‘English history jail’ in which they had been incarcerated
as undergraduates (Orme, 2011, p. 44; see also Eley, 2005, p. 1). More conservative
historians worried that ‘global involvement’ had supplanted the ‘domestic concerns’
upon which British undergraduates should cut their teeth (Elton, 1969, p. 61). ‘In
teaching,’ lamented Geoffrey Elton, ‘all things outside Europe are more glamorous
than anything European, and within Europe these islands bring up a rear which is
best ignored’ (Elton, 1984, p. 113; see also Kenyon, 1983, pp. 273–81).
Table 2.3 Place-specific history units by region in Britain, 2016

Region Compulsory units Sample of optional units
Local/subnational history 10 (3.3%) 11 (2.7%)
British Isles 78 (25.7%) 129 (31.7%)
Europe (incl. nations and 103 (33.9%) 103 (25.3%)
regions of mainland Europe)
Imperialism 17 (5.6%) 17 (4.2%)
World Wars (incl. Holocaust) 6 (2.0%) 19 (4.7%)
World/global 60 (19.7%) 38 (9.3%)
Atlantic World 9 (3.0%) 9 (2.2%)
Africa 0 (0.0%) 10 (2.5%)
Americas (incl. Latin 19 (6.3%) 43 (10.6%)
America, North America)
Asia/Middle East 2 (0.7%) 27 (6.6%)
Australasia 0 (0.0%) 1 (0.2%)
Total of place-specific units 304 (100%) 407 (100%)
An analysis of compulsory and optional place-specific units offered today does not
bear out the hopes of globalists or the fears of their nationalist critics. Half a century
after Harrison announced ‘the growth of World history and the decline of British and
even European history from their supremacy in the history syllabus’ (366), Britain
and Europe are the subject of 59.6% of compulsory and 57.0% of optional units
about a specific place. In comparison, units devoted to world history constitute a
fifth of compulsory units (19.7%) and half that proportion (9.3%) of optional ones.
When we take into account the local history units and transnational units on world
history, Atlantic history, imperialism and the World Wars which include the study
of Britain and Europe, we find that only 6.8% of compulsory and 19.9% of optional
units are wholly extra-European in their subject-matter. Not a single British university
requires students to take units which focus on Africa, Australasia or Latin America to
the exclusion of the West and only two of them (the University of Central Lancashire
and the privately run Regent’s University London) require any exclusively Asian
history units. All in all, a typical British student could expect to study one or two
core units on Europe, one on Britain and one on either world history or imperialism
(Table 2.3).
Geoffrey Serle described Australian history curricula in 1973 as resembling
British ones in providing a grounding in British and European history before branch-
ing out to cover Asia and the Americas (Serle, 1973, p. 695). But whereas his contem-
poraries in Britain were proposing that curricula ‘break out of the narrow nationalistic
strait-jacket’ (Ballard, 1970, p. 5), Serle was concerned that Australians learnt rel-
atively little about their own country (1973, p. 696). He might have been gratified
to know that Australian universities have subsequently developed a large and ever
growing field of Australian history. By the end of the 1970s Australian and American
histories were no longer thought of as secondary topics to be taught after the more
foundational large European survey units. New approaches to content progression
were implemented throughout the 1980s and 1990s, reflecting a focus on Australian
history and an accompanying narrative of emergent historical identities. These ideas
were then further complicated and enriched by the inclusion of women’s history
and Aboriginal history. In the following decade the discipline underwent profound
and long-lasting changes as transnational history offered new perspectives on the
complexities of Australia’s past (Lake, 2013, p. 277).
By the late 2000s there was a sector-wide trend for Australian historians to foster
an understanding of the phenomenon of globalisation through their teaching. Histo-
rians often argue that they have a moral obligation to their students to teach history
through this lens so they understand this new way of knowing and being in the world
(Nye et al., 2011, p. 776). How historians do this is perpetually changing. Frank Bon-
giorno, who specifically teaches and writes national histories, offers a more recent
take on how Australian history is being taught in Australian universities in 2017:
Australia is a product of not only a local political settlement but also of global and transna-
tional forces such as imperial conquest and decolonisation, industrialisation, migration, the
expansion of capital, the development of trade, and exchanges of information, knowledge,
ideas and culture. The best national histories treat the nation-state as embedded in global
networks shaped by these forces. (2017, p. 1)
Table 2.4 reveals a strong number of units in Australian, global and European histo-
ries in Australian universities. The category Asia/Middle East does not immediately
reveal the strong interest in South and East Asian history in Australia. For example, in
2016 20 units were specifically focused on Asia (typically China, India and Japan),
only 4 were specifically on the Middle East and the remaining 4 drew from both
regions. Africa on the other hand has received very little attention. In 2008 only one
university, the University of Tasmania, offered a unit on South Africa, and in 2016,
the University of Western Australia offered a unit named ‘An Introduction to African
History’. The notion that the discipline offers truly global coverage might easily
be challenged. The existence of a powerful metropole of the privileged academic
‘north’ identified in Connell’s study of sociology (2007) seems equally applicable
to the discipline of history.
The decline in the number of units that focus specifically on Britain has been raised
in the Australian media in recent times as a cause for concern (d’Albera, 2017). It
was perhaps inevitable, however, as Australian universities made the aforementioned
shift in the 1970s from large British and European survey courses and embraced the
multiplicities of its past and future. The inescapable impact of Britain upon Australia
(and vice versa) for more than two centuries means that the subject will always retain a
place in the Australian history curriculum, though generally as part of geographically
or chronologically broader units.
Table 2.4 Place-specific history units by region in Australia, 2008 and 2016
Region 2008 2016
British Isles 14 (4.0%) 5 (1.8%)
Europe (incl. nations and 77 (21.9%) 78 (28.0%)
regions of mainland Europe)
Imperialism 9 (2.6%) 4 (1.4%)
World wars (incl. Holocaust) 25 (7.1%) 22 (7.9%)
World/global 75 (22.0%) 61 (21.9%)
Atlantic World 1 (0.3%) 1 (0.4%)
Africa 1 (0.3%) 1 (0.4%)
Americas (incl. Latin 26 (7.4%) 23 (8.2%)
America, North America)
Asia/Middle East 44 (12.6%) 28 (10.0%)
Australasia 78 (22.3%) 56 (20.1%)
Total of place-specific units 350 (100%) 279 (100%)
2.6 History Units by Period
Stronger evidence exists in support of Harrison’s contention that history degrees

were becoming ever more recent in their focus due to ‘the decline of medievalism
[and] the pressure for contemporaneity’ (1968, p. 363). The debate over period
coverage overlapped with that of place, except that the advocates of a narrowly
Angiocentric curriculum argued in favour of studying a broad expanse of time. ‘The
student who does not feel the weight of millennia and cannot appraise the present
against a very long perspective is not getting a historical training,’ maintained Elton
(1969, p. 62). A surprisingly similar stance was adopted by David Cannadine in his
philippic against the ‘specialised and fragmented’ teaching of British history in the
1980s (1987, p. 180). Geoff Eley was less convinced of the virtues of having studied
‘the entirety of British history’ as an Oxford undergraduate, ‘beginning with the
burial mound at Sutton Hoo [and] end[ing] safely before the outbreak of World War
II’ (1995, p. 1). He shared A. T. Milne’s view that a ‘proper sense of proportion’
about the past did not necessitate studying ‘long periods of time and traditional
topics’ to the exclusion of everything else (1974, p. 46).
To ascertain the current situation, we classified British and Australian units which
dealt with specific periods: ancient (up to c. 500 A.D.); medieval (c. 500–1500),
early modern (c. 1500–1750) and late modern (since 1750). Units could be allocated
multiple period categories in contrast to the assignment of single categories for type
and place. A breakdown of the periods covered by history units at British universities
shows that the teaching of history is alarmingly presentist at the undergraduate level.
Of compulsory period-specific units, 77.5% cover the late modern period, 42.1% the
early modern period, 18.7% the medieval period and 9.2% the ancient period. A mere
6.9% of compulsory units are exclusively concerned with the ancient or medieval
Table 2.5 Time-specific history units by period in Britain, 2016

Compulsory units Sample of optional units
Exclusively Including Exclusively Including
Ancient 5 (1.4%) 32 (9.2%) 14 (3.3%) 21 (4.9%)
Medieval 17 (4.9%) 65 (18.7%) 38 (8.9%) 55 (12.9%)
Early modern 43 (12.4%) 146 (42.1%) 51 (11.9%) 106 (24.8%)
Late modern 177 (51.0%) 269 (77.5%) 266 (62.1%) 313 (73.1%)
Total of 347 (100%) 428 (100%)
time-specific
units
Table 2.6 Time-specific History Units by Period in Australia, 2008 and 2016
2008 2016
Period Exclusively Including Exclusively Including
Ancient 17 (5.1%) 39 (11.6%) 6 (2.3%) 23 (8.7%)
Medieval 20 (6.0%) 51 (15.2%) 19 (7.2%) 42 (15.9%)
Early modern 20 (6.0%) 80 (23.9%) 17 (6.4%) 59 (22.3%)
Late modern 203 (60.6%) 246 (73.4%) 182 (68.9%) 218 (82.6%)
Total of time- 335 (100%) 264 (100%)
specific units
periods, whereas over half (51.0%) deal only with events in the late modern period.
This suggests that millennia-spanning ‘Plato to NATO’ units which cover multiple
periods obscure the actual dominance of late modern history within curricula. A
higher percentage of optional units (86.2%) than compulsory units (69.7%) is con-
cerned exclusively with one time period, reflecting the more specialised nature of
options. Specialisation results in a higher number of exclusively pre-modern options
(13.1%), and late modern ones (62.1%) than their compulsory equivalents. Exclu-
sively early modern history accounts for approximately the same proportion of com-
pulsory and optional units, but the early modern period appears in relatively fewer
optional units. The slanting of history curricula towards the recent past appears to have
answered Gordon Connell-Smith and Howell A. Lloyd’s call for ‘relevance’ (1972, p.
1), albeit by leaving undergraduates sadly underexposed to earlier periods (Table 2.5).
The data collected from Australian universities in 2008 and 2016 provide a longi-
tudinal perspective. The preference for the late modern era is evident in both sets of
data although, as in Britain, the tiny number of ancient history units owes much to the
existence of separate departments teaching ancient history, classics and archaeology
(see Appendix). The units offered by the latter are excluded from our calculations
(Table 2.6).
Despite the clear preference for later periods, which one would expect as the
period is perpetually expanding, there is also a tendency to explore histories across
multiple periods. Growing interest in ‘big history’ and longue durée global history is
evident in both quantitative data and qualitative research (Nye, 2016a, b). Interviews
conducted in 2016 with Australian historians identified a dramatic divergence in the
types of tools, forms of evidence and lens applied to long and multiple historical
periods. History is being stretched, massaged and kneaded in a perpetual desire to
expose fresh narratives and bring new breadth to the discipline. Yet the continued
focus in undergraduate studies on the recent past in both Australia and Britain is
still notable and will undoubtedly affect postgraduate interests. Medieval history is
a consistent also-ran in Australian universities and fares only marginally better in
Britain. Subject areas such as medieval history risk further contraction in the event of
diminishing student numbers and sector-wide rationalisation. Restating the impor-
tance of premodern history to any curriculum with aspirations to comprehensiveness
will be essential to maintaining its presence in universities.
2.7 The Structure of History Degrees
‘The fragmentation of “history” as a monolithic subject of study’ formed the last

element of the ‘revolution’ in British history curricula detected by Harrison (p. 363).
Much the same trend emerged from an American study of nearly a hundred countries
over the course of the twentieth century (Frank et al., 2000, p. 30). Diehards such
as John Kenyon decried such developments as a ‘combined assault on their subject-
matter, their techniques and their very ethos’, though Kenyon’s diatribe against ‘the
inanities of “women’s history” and “black history”’ did not present traditional his-
tory in the best light (Kenyon, 1983, pp. 278, 281; see also Elton, 1969, p. 67).
Less hidebound historians celebrated the diversification of the history curriculum in
terms of democratisation (Cannon, 1989, p. 267), pluralism (Timmins, Vernon, &
Kinealy, 2005, p. 33) and creativity (Booth, 2008, n.p.). ‘The study of history today
is incomparably better than it was,’ declared Orme in 2011: ‘It is wider-ranging in
its geography, chronology and topics’ (p. 45).
Yet the broader range of units on offer to history undergraduates has created
dilemmas for educators. As Peter Stearns, Peter Seixas and Sam Wineburg put it, ‘The
teaching of history … involves choice and selection: One cannot avoid choices, one
cannot simply “include more.” The question then becomes on what grounds choices
are made’ (Stearns et al., 2000, p. 8). An undergraduate degree cannot possibly touch
upon more than a small fraction of historical periods and places, or introduce students
to more than a few methodologies and schools of thought.
The regulatory authorities in Britain and Australia have privileged freedom over
structure when drawing up the Threshold Learning Outcomes for history curricula.
The History at the Universities Defence Group, which coordinated the drafting of the
original History Benchmark Statement in 2000, championed institutional autonomy
and the value of ‘diversity in syllabus, as well as in the teaching and assessment
methods appropriate to them and to the circumstances of particular departments’
(cited in Booth, 2010, p. 499). When the Australian university system introduced a
national quality assurance framework a decade later, it was at pains to emphasise

that it would ‘not establish a national curriculum’:
Individual institutions will be free to set learning outcomes over and above national minimum
outcomes and … to determine the processes by which threshold learning outcomes are
achieved, including curriculum, learning resources, learning activities and formative and
summative assessment methods. (cited in Institute of Australian Geographers, 2010, p. 4)
Whereas Elton argued that history curricula should provide undergraduates with
‘coherent confidence in an ordered story’ (1984, p. 107), Australian and British
benchmarking documents speak of cultivating ‘qualities of mind’ which require
no prescribed canon of subject knowledge (QAA, 2000, p. 2). A similar approach
informs the various ‘Tuning History’ projects taking place across the globe, with
their stress on the attainment and deployment of skills (Belanger, 2017; Nováky,
2015).
Our analysis of British and Australian curricula provides evidence of considerable
diversity between and within history degrees, tempered by broad agreement over
matters of progression and skills training. In Britain, students chart their own path
through the past: first by selecting a degree from one of the 105 universities offering
undergraduate history degrees, then by selecting options within their chosen degree.
An important decision made (often unwittingly) by every student is whether or not
to study a history degree with a large element of compulsory units. At one extreme
is Glyndwr University, which requires its history students to take sixteen core units.
At the other end of the spectrum is the University of St Andrews, where except for a
final-year dissertation students take nothing but options. The degree of student choice
is generally greater at the older, larger and more prestigious universities. Students
at the two dozen Russell Group universities running degree programmes in history
typically take two fewer compulsory units (including half as many period-specific
units) than their counterparts at the fifty new universities established in 1992. The
compulsory periodised units at new universities are more likely to concern the late
modern period, while historiography at new universities is less commonly taught
as a stand-alone subject. Teaching methods also differ between types of university,
with Russell Group universities reflecting their ‘research-intensive’ ethos by offering
fewer contact hours and relying more on examinations as a means of assessment.
Upon entering a British degree programme, a student’s choice is reduced in prac-
tice by the preponderance of British, European and late modern units within cores
and options alike. The student will also discover that the skills-set outlined in the
benchmark statement is embedded in every curriculum, especially in units dedi-
cated to skills, research or experiences such as group projects and work placements.
Classifying these units by topic shows how they educate students in historiography,
methodology, study skills, allow them to develop their skills in employment, group
work, public history projects and a small number of place- or theme-specific units.
The ultimate test of the acquisition and application of historical skills comes in the
form of a final-year dissertation, a requirement at almost four-fifths of all univer-
sities. The ubiquity of dissertations is one indication that British history degrees
typically subscribe to a model of progression which envisages students as moving
from breadth to depth, from tutelage to independence, from compulsion to choice

and from critiquing to creating original historical research. Although Peters, Peterkin
and Williams are right to point out that progression is harder to ensure in modularised
degrees (2000, p. 137), universities display a common approach and commitment to
addressing the problem.
Early writers on Australian history teaching differed over how it compared to
its British equivalent. The British pedagogical revolution depicted by Harrison left
Geoffrey Serle with something of an inferiority complex:
We are clearly unadventurous and conservative in the English-speaking world in the small
degree to which we have developed thematic, interdisciplinary and contemporary courses.
We have very few courses, for example, in urban history, local history, comparative history,
the history of science and technology, art and society or the history of ideas. (1973, p. 695)
Keith Hancock’s experience of both systems led him to criticise the ‘lopsidedness’
of British history degrees which drilled students with specialised subject-knowledge
without providing them with the languages, statistics and systems of thought which he
considered to be ‘essential instruments of historical thinking’ (1969, pp. 56–7). How-
ever, he was no apologist for Australian history degrees. Despite ‘straight history’
not occupying students exclusively until their final year of study, he characterised the
course offerings as ‘insipid’ and the disengaged students looking for ‘information
for regurgitation on examination’ (Hancock, 1969, pp. 58–9). Similar lamentations
were heard in recent research (Nye et al., 2011, p. 768) about some less engaged Aus-
tralian students seeking a formula-based pedagogy, but also noted a broader desire
for close in-person contact and greater feedback from their lecturers. More recent
research by Boucher and Arrow (2016) found students felt the pressure of time but
were resistant to feedback driven by rubric. Before maligning students, we should
recognise that they are citizens of their time who face complex and contradictory
demands from contemporary society and the multiple ecosystems operating within
universities (Barnett, 2017).
In 2016 there were more than 300 historians listed as working and teaching in
Australian universities. In addition there is an army of unnamed postgraduate and
casual staff marking and teaching. To what degree do academics, as authors of the
history units, have agency and autonomy in their development? Jones warned giving
free rein to academics risked ‘curriculum anarchy’ (2012, p. 1) but little evidence of
such a calamity has emerged. The interviews undertaken by Nye in 2016 revealed that
while there is often a close link between research and teaching, it was not always the
case. Certainly there were numerous instances where new ideas, tools and analytical
lenses derived from research fed directly into the classroom. One such example in
Australia has been the increase in ‘big history’ and global history units that can,
apart from other forms of evidence, introduce students to historical ‘big data’. One
academic advocated such an approach as meaning that ‘students can get a real sense
of how the past has impacted upon the present, how they are a product of those
changing circumstances’ (Nye, 2016a). Many academics keenly described ways in
which their particular interests in theories and methods informed their teaching.
This is not to say all historians have an entirely free hand in the construction and
shape of their units. There was also evidence that many early career academics for
example will initially be assigned a unit to teach and have little influence over the
core epistemological ideas within units. Developing one’s own units takes time and
relies on opportunity.
2.8 Conclusion
A snapshot of history teaching in 2016 in two nations shows the discipline to be a

diverse field populated by academics who pursue their craft with enthusiasm and cre-
ativity. Curricula are shaped by historians’ research pursuits, student demands and
emergent historical philosophies. But they also cleave to forces extrinsic to those
who teach and study the discipline. The formulation and regulation of disciplinary
standards are part of a broader managerialism taking hold of higher education. Qual-
ity assurance and enhancement can become more than empty phrases if implemented
judiciously and sensitively. But managers can become driven by metrics and markets,
accountability can erode academic freedom and efforts to improve standards, how-
ever well-intentioned, can lead to a standardisation that quenches the passion infusing
history teaching at its best. In response, historians are becoming increasingly reflec-
tive about their teaching practice. Publications on the scholarship of teaching history
continue to grow in both Australia and Britain and international networks multiply.
Optimism in a time of standards and sector-wide pressures might seem unlikely, but
there is much to celebrate.
Appendix
Module information was collected and classified for the following universities.
• Australia
Adelaide University*
Australian National University*
Flinders University*
La Trobe University*
Macquarie University*
Melbourne University*
Monash University
University of Queensland
University of Newcastle
University of New England*
University of New South Wales
University of Sydney*
University of Tasmania
University of Western Australia*

University of Wollongong
*indicates university with separate schools or departments of ancient history or lan-
guages, classics or archaeology. The units taught by such schools and departments
were not included in the study.
• United Kingdom
University of Aberdeen
Aberystwyth University
Anglia Ruskin University
Bangor University
Bath Spa University
Birkbeck, University of London
University of Birmingham
Bishop Grosseteste University
Bournemouth University
University of Brighton
Bristol University
Brunel University London
University of Buckingham
University of Cambridge
Canterbury Christ Church University
Cardiff University
University of Central Lancashire
University of Chester
University of Chester, University Centre Shrewsbury
Coventry University
De Montfort University
University of Derby
University of Dundee
Durham University
University of East Anglia
University of East London
Edge Hill University
University of Edinburgh
University of Essex
University of Exeter (Penryn Campus)
University of Exeter
Glasgow Caledonian University
University of Glasgow
University of Gloucestershire
Glyndwr University
Goldsmiths, University of London
University of Greenwich
University of Hertfordshire
University of the Highlands and Islands
University of Huddersfield
University of Hull
Keele University
University of Kent
King’s College London
Kingston University
Lancaster University
Leeds Beckett University
Leeds Trinity University
University of Leeds
University of Leicester
University of Lincoln
Liverpool Hope University
Liverpool John Moores University
University of Liverpool
London School of Economics and Political Science
Loughborough University
Manchester Metropolitan University
University of Manchester
New College of the Humanities
Newcastle University
Newman University, Birmingham
University of Northampton
Northumbria University
Nottingham Trent University
University of Nottingham
Open University
Oxford Brookes University
University of Oxford
Plymouth University
University of Portsmouth
Queen Mary University of London
Queen’s University Belfast
University of Reading
Regent’s University London
Richmond, the American International University in London
University of Roehampton
Royal Holloway, University of London
University of Salford
Sheffield Hallam University
University of Sheffield
SOAS, University of London
University of South Wales
University of Southampton
University of St Andrews
St Mary’s University, Twickenham
Staffordshire University
University of Stirling
University of Strathclyde
University of Suffolk
University of Sunderland
University of Sussex
Swansea University
Teesside University
Ulster University
University College London (UCL)
University of the West of England, Bristol (UWE)
University of Warwick
University of Westminster
University of Winchester
University of Wolverhampton
University of Worcester
York St John University
University of York
No unit information was available on two other British universities which teach
single-honours history degrees, the University of Chichester and University of Wales
Trinity St David.
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Chapter 3
Passion: The Place of Passion in History
Teaching in a Standards Environment
Alan Booth
Abstract What place does passion have in teaching history in contemporary higher
education? How can we place it in a standards environment? This chapter examines
the role of passion in history pedagogy and why it matters. It explores the experi-
ential realm of history lecturer motivations, ideals and experiences and the love of
the subject that fuels a sense of identity as historians and educators. It considers the
link between the will to teach (and learn) history, the emotions and teaching effec-
tiveness and argues that in the increasingly regulated conditions of higher education
passion is a resource needed more than ever. Finally, it urges university historians
to acknowledge and amplify a voice too often submerged in the discipline’s public
curricular and pedagogic discourse, as an integral part of efforts to persuade multiple
audiences why higher learning in the subject matters.
3.1 Introduction
In 1970, Snyder published his classic study of the ‘hidden curriculum’ in higher
education. In it he explored the gap between official curricular practice and the
experience of students, and a similar dislocation can be said to exist between the
private world of the educational values, hopes, ideals and emotions of academic staff
and the public domain of authorised standards. For historians, a powerful experiential
territory shapes the will to teach. Its submerged personal and emotional discourse of
passion and love of the subject expresses a holistic, aspirational version of what it
means to study history and be a historian and history educator. This chapter examines
the place of passion in teaching history at university, why it matters and how it can be
compatible with a standards environment. It argues, more broadly, that if history is to
thrive as a major subject in increasingly regulated systems of mass higher education,
academic historians must listen carefully to this inner voice and amplify it in the
expression of curricular goals, in classroom practice and in engagement with public
audiences.
A. Booth (B)
University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK
e-mail: alan.booth@nottingham.ac.uk

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0047-9_3
44 A. Booth
What follows is therefore a discussion, an argument and an appeal. It draws for

illustrative purposes upon two principal data sources. The first is an online survey
questionnaire completed by over two hundred professional historians working in
university history departments within the UK about values and practices they con-
sider constitute and foster history teaching ‘at its best’ (Booth, 2014). The second
comprises a series of short, semi-structured filmed interviews with over fifty histo-
rians, mainly from the UK, North America and Australia, about their experiences of
being and becoming a history educator. Short clips from these can be viewed on the
website www.historiansonteaching.tv.
3.2 The Standards Agenda, Passion and the Emotions
In many countries over the last two decades, regulatory frameworks have bound
higher education institutions. Reductions in state funding, increased competition
between universities, rising tuition fees and a more explicit consumer ethos among
students have moved the student experience centre stage. The challenge from stake-
holders (including government, students, parents and employers) to provide visible
and measurable evidence of value for money has placed institutions, departments
and academic staff under closer public scrutiny and led to intensifying pressure to
pay explicit attention to the quality of teaching through robust quality assurance
processes. The need to be responsive to these multiple constituencies and perform
well in national and global league tables of performance and student satisfaction
is high on the agendas of all institutions, even the most research-intensive. In an
increasingly competitive international market, the desire to ensure and continuously
enhance standards of teaching has understandably become a pressing priority. As
the pursuit of reputational advantage has become a major driver of organisational
behaviour, the standards agenda has assumed a position of primary importance in
teaching quality assurance and enhancement regimes.
Historians have been in the front rank of discipline-based initiatives to produce
statements of standards of undergraduate student achievement. There is now sub-
stantive itemisation of learning outcomes: of what students will know, understand
and be able to do as a result of their undergraduate programmes of study. In the
UK, a lengthy process of community dialogue in the later 1990s resulted in the
(now twice revised) History Benchmark Statement of threshold standards in terms
of skills and ‘habits of mind’ (Booth, 2009, 2010). In Australia, similar consultation
has shaped the production of discipline standards as Threshold Learning Outcomes
(TLOs) mapping the professional and practical attributes gained by students from
degree-level study of the subject (Brawley et al., 2011, 2015). Lists of attainment in
terms of student competencies have also been generated through the Tuning process
financed by the European Union, initially for a European ‘harmonisation’ project
but increasingly a global process (Novaky, 2015). There are now competency-based
standards for history undergraduate programmes in many ‘regions’ including Latin
America, the Russian Federation, North America and Central Asia, with Chinese,
3 Passion: The Place of Passion in History Teaching … 45
Japanese and Indian ‘Tunings’ in prospect. In short, across countries and continents
the requirement to operate within standards frameworks has gained considerable
momentum in the discipline.
These efforts have brought benefits and concerns. They have fostered greater
curricular clarity and enabled history students (as well as academics) more easily
to compare history programmes, not only in their own country but internationally.
The emphasis in policy-making upon the student experience and the need to pre-
pare students for life beyond the academy has also directed attention more explicitly
and systematically to what it takes for students to become skilled learners in their
subject, and encouraged more intentional curriculum progression planning. More
broadly, standards initiatives have pointed to the need for excellent teaching to be
recognised and rewarded and furthered international conversation about good prac-
tice in university history teaching. However, the rise of the standards agenda has
also raised continuing grounds for concern. These include anxieties about a narrow-
ing gaze among institutional providers focused upon standardisation and meeting
the specified outcomes: more compartmentalised conceptions of learning; the notion
of the student as ‘customer’; fixation with ‘the employable graduate’ and bureau-
cratic approaches to evaluating and enhancing teaching quality in which more open-
ended educative purposes can easily get lost. Regulatory mechanisms have made the
assessment of teaching performance more feasible in purely technical terms, with
good practice seen as synonymous with the efficient delivery of specified learning
outcomes and excellence equated with high student satisfaction scores. Such crude
measurements of teaching have contributed to uneasy relations between academics
and senior managers and a climate inimical to pedagogic innovation, a situation
exacerbated when history standards are frozen in time. When a safety-first men-
tality prevails, the curricular status quo is sanctified through standards regulations.
Standardisation suffocates experimentation and teaching can all too easily become
routine labour dislocated from the personal motivations and aspirations of teachers.
As higher education institutions have branded themselves as competitive global
businesses, the language of the market has gained unprecedented ascendancy. A
muscular vocabulary of ‘efficiency’, ‘performance measures’ and ‘value for money’
has become ubiquitous, and hegemonic and concomitant regulatory frameworks have
sought to entrench a standards discourse that seeks to convey hard-edged messages of
curricular quality in terms of ‘accountability’, ‘transparency’, ‘measurable learning
outcomes’ and ‘audit’ (Sabri, 2010; Trowler, 1998, 2001). This policy discourse sits
uneasily with academic historians, many of whom regard it as inadequately sensitive
to the realities of teaching their subject. For some, it seems that such a policy carries
with it an intention to close down rather than open up serious, nuanced collegial
conversation about effective curricular practice and is more a vehicle for the rein-
forcement of a culture of compliance in higher education under the guise of advanc-
ing more professional approaches to teaching. The target audiences of this assertive
discourse, it is suspected, are less academic teachers than stakeholders with a signif-
icant economic interest in the transaction of higher education, notably students (and
parents) paying ever-higher tuition fees; employers demanding employment-ready
graduates and governments concerned with issues of national economic competitive-
46 A. Booth
ness. It is these constituencies that the dominant higher education discourse seems
intended to convince (or perhaps reassure) that value for money is being delivered.
This circumscribed and prosaic regulatory discourse sits awkwardly with a dis-
course of educational purpose and principle situated in the personal and emotional
territory of passion. The online Oxford English Dictionary defines passion as ‘an
intense desire or enthusiasm for something’ and the verb passionate as ‘having, shar-
ing, or caused by strong feelings or beliefs’. Passion is a powerful motivating force.
Whilst it can lead to narrowness of vision and irrationality if disconnected from
clear thinking about principles and purpose, to be passionate in teaching means to
think and act with conviction in authentic, values-led ways that involve the intellect
and emotions. Passion brings a living lexicon to the curriculum that includes words
such as excitement, enthusiasm, fascination, energy, attachment, engagement, inti-
macy, care, commitment, resilience, curiosity, wonder, connection, self-confidence
and integrity. Whilst this rich experiential discourse is generally spoken quietly and
in informal personal conversation, it expresses a deep-rooted sense of professional
engagement and identity allied to an open-ended educational vision that is integral
to how many historians think about and experience their work as teachers.
The tension is illustrated in the following example. In the late 1990s, the members
of one university history department in the UK gathered to consider the draft of a
national benchmarking statement for standards in undergraduate history degree pro-
grammes. Many of those present appeared wearily reconciled to the ‘sober and work-
manlike’ nature of the document (History at the Universities Defence Group, 1998).
It reflected, they accepted, a necessarily pragmatic response to ‘faceless bureaucrats’
incapable of understanding the value of higher learning in history in anything other
than instrumentalist terms. A significant minority, however, refused to accede to such
a scaled-down representation of teaching and learning their subject.
[They] argued passionately that the draft document missed the whole point of what study-
ing history is about. It is not about utilitarian matters such as ‘training’ and ‘skills’, but
the potentially intense excitement of studying the past, and the opportunities given to stu-
dents to develop their own potential at the same time as satisfying the basic human need of
understanding the past.
These purposes, those attending the meeting concurred, no longer appeared to carry
weight with higher education policy-makers. The government standards agenda with
its cramped terms of reference seemed to be overwhelming a richer version of history
education. What these historians articulate is a more expansive and transformative
vision of learning through the subject reaching out beyond measurable skills, the
employable self or even subject knowledge acquisition; a passionate (and hopeful)
pedagogy where the subject of study, the personal and the human constitute imbri-
cated and mutually reinforcing layers.
Today more integrative educational approaches are coming to the fore (see, for
example, Jarvis & Parker, 2005; Nussbaum, 2010; Walker, 2006). There has been
interest by educational researchers, for example, in teaching with multiple intel-
ligences (Gardner, 2000; Mortiboys, 2005); teaching with integrity (Macfarlane,
2004) and teaching for wholeness (Palmer, 1998; Rendon, 2009). This human learn-
ing agenda has gained traction from the rise of the learning sciences which have
explored the relationships between learning and emotions, mind and affect and from
the work of critical educators advocating complex learning that equips students to
lead fulfilling human lives in the twenty-first century (Barnett, 1997, 2000, 2004;
Boni & Walker, 2013; Clegg & David, 2006; Fox, 2008; Kent, 2012; McLean, 2006).
Researchers have come to recognise that the experience of being a student in higher
education is not only an intellectual challenge but also a profoundly emotional jour-
ney (Beard, Clegg, & Smith, 2007; Christie, Tett, Cree, Hounsell, & McCune 2008;
Garritz, 2010). The challenges (and opportunities) of this for classroom teachers
have been attracting growing interest from university history educators (see, for
example, Berry, Schmied, & Schrock, 2008; Frederick, 2001; Middendorf et al.,
2015). Together, and more broadly, these trends in educational research and scholar-
ship suggest that whilst teachers have to work within the requirements imposed by
standards frameworks, they must direct attention to the student experience of learn-
ing but also, importantly, to their inner lives as teachers: to their pedagogic identity
as expressed through their influences, motivations and notions of what makes for
good teaching and effective learning in the discipline.
3.3 The Will to Teach: Love of the Subject, Research

and Connection
The powerful role played by passion in the professional lives of a range of academics
has been the subject of insightful research by Neumann (1999, 2006). It is similarly
observed by Dintenfass (1999, p. 160) in an exploration of historians’ self-narratives
in which he notes that whilst these autobiographical accounts are dominated by a
cautious empiricism, ‘these same texts also speak a second language of the evidential,
and this is a language of longing, love and conquest’. Whilst in these accounts passion
is expressed largely in terms of scholarly development, this ‘second language’ is
equally applicable to the work of teaching.
The history academic staff in our research are keen to talk about the importance
of love of the subject as a major driver of their lives as teachers, regarding it as an
incomparable means of bringing learning to life and encouraging students to their
best efforts. As one historian interviewed summarises:
I think it would be very difficult to teach any subject you didn’t love at some depth. The
students know whether you’re just there because you have a pay cheque or you’re there
because you care about what’s happening. I think you have to care both about the students
themselves and the subject to succeed in teaching at all.
This love, expressed in words such as ‘excitement’, ‘zeal’, ‘energy’, ‘discovery’

and ‘joy’, arises from many sources. Historians particularly value the breadth of
possibilities their subject affords as an educational medium: its potential for human
storytelling; for challenging accepted beliefs; for fostering a particular kind of critical
thinking ‘in time’; for understanding people by promoting more complex understand-
ing of self, others and society; for stimulating a nuanced and holistic understanding
48 A. Booth
of past events and issues and for providing the evidential basis for imagining possible
futures. The subject matter holds the promise of exploring an almost inexhaustible
territory of enquiry in which new discoveries can always be made. History, the
respondents to our survey say, is an expansive, open-ended subject providing almost
limitless scope for individual choice and creativity in the classroom.
History crosses every aspect of human activity – from culture to the environment, to gender
relations, economics, welfare and nation-building… the list could go on. It’s inherently
fascinating.
History’s subject matter is all-embracing so it is impossible to get bored with it since it
does not deal with answers but rather issues… I also appreciate the fact that unlike some
other disciplines, the various methodological ‘turns’ have not led to any one approach being
dominant… I think that undergraduates nowadays have much more fun with a range of
available possible approaches that would not shame Tesco.
There is a marked satisfaction to be gained from, as one academic puts it, ‘teach-
ing something you are absolutely enthusiastic about—one’s own research specialism
and favourite areas particularly’. ‘I particularly like being able to teach my own sub-
ject—what I love’, comments another. ‘This brings enthusiasm and knowledge to the
class’. A significant number of historians confirm the strong link between passionate
teaching and their research. One notes the importance of ‘being able to communicate
my latest research findings and research interests to students’, another of ‘sharing
insights that come from making discoveries yourself, from reading fascinating stories
and the love of the subject that comes from these’. For many, attempts to compartmen-
talise professional life into two distinct roles as teacher and researcher do violence
to a love of the subject (an education) that they believe cannot be contained in sep-
arate, neatly arranged boxes. Historians commonly resist efforts to separate these
joint expressions of the passion they have for their subject and regard teaching and
research as drawn together through love of the subject and a desire to discover more.
In teaching, they suggest, research and teaching are mutually supportive and generate
insights that nourish both. A frequently expressed desire is to help students through
research-led teaching to become not only practising historians but also people able
to act with agency in the world.
This more agentic curricular vision means that when historians talk about teaching
they are anxious to mention the importance of connection and personal relationship.
One survey respondent, speaking for many, reflects:
What I find most rewarding about teaching history is having a personal connection with my
students - knowing something about their interests, ideas, beliefs, hopes and fears. Watching
them make connections, get excited, develop understanding.
Love of the subject, it is plain, acts as an intellectual and emotional bridge that
makes easier—at times makes possible—a connection between teacher and student
that can erode distinctions of expert and beginner, teacher and learner, and the fears
that accompany these apparent polarities. It makes the teacher human, the learn-
ing personal and the subject vital, and it generates and supports a spirit of enquiry
and curiosity that ripples outwards in widening circles of interest, engagement and
awareness. One academic observes: ‘A passion for history enables students to develop
and grow into themselves and the world whilst enjoying their studies and becoming
passionate learners’.
Love is not something distinct or separate from the substance of a well-constructed
history curriculum, it is integral to it. Love of the subject impels an engagement that
seems almost to demand what Neumann (2006, p. 413) calls ‘a conversation focused
intently upon it’. In the best teaching, this subject-directed conversation has stu-
dents at its heart. A passionate engagement with teaching one’s subject involves
an ambition for students to become equally passionate about it. Frederick (1999,
p. 52) observes: ‘The highest challenge we face as classroom teachers is to moti-
vate our students to love history, as we do, and to be joyously involved with the
texts, themes, issues, and questions of history that interest and excite us’. It is a
fundamentally active and reciprocal process, involving an immediate connection
between teacher, subject and students. Through this relationship between learner,
teacher and subject, the hope is that students can become people who come to under-
stand themselves and their world better, and so can lecturers. One of our history
academics observes that ‘passionate teaching and passionate engagement with his-
tory are symbiotic’ and this makes the important point that through immersion in
the subject, not only the students’ knowledge but their love of the subject itself is
enhanced. In the process of this connection between teacher, students and subject,
all are changed.
The realm of love in teaching has been the subject of perceptive comment from
educationalists (see Carrotte, 1999; Elton, 2000; Nixon, Beattie, Challis, & Walker,
1998; Rowland, 2000, 2006; Rowland et al., 1998). Appreciation by students of a
teacher’s enthusiasm for their subject, this commentary suggests, involves more than
a simple recognition of the latter’s enthusiasm for studying it, though this constitutes
part of the appeal. As Rowland observes in a roundtable discussion of academics as
teachers (Rowland et al., 1998, p. 134): ‘Teaching and research are both about learn-
ing: our learning, our students’ learning. Both require a spirit of enquiry, reflection,
critique, and, most of all, of passion’. However, he writes that the level of personal
investment that love of the subject represents carries a charge at a deeper human level.
The enthusiasm and commitment displayed by the teacher communicate a depth and
quality of engagement that involves the whole person: a broad and deep attentiveness
and sense of intimacy and connection—a belonging—but also a compelling thirst
for discovery. In a later work (Rowland, 2006), he remarks that the pursuit of this
love is never complete; there is always more to find out, but the searching itself and
the possibility that new discoveries and new interpretations are always possible (and
indeed are being made by the lecturer) holds a powerful appeal for students.
In The Courage to Teach, Palmer (1998, p. 120) offers a further insight. He
suggests that the ‘passion of the teacher for the subject’ goes deeper than is often
recognised:
I always thought that passion made a teacher great because it brought contagious energy
into the classroom, but now I realize its deeper function. Passion for the subject propels the
subject, not the teacher, into the center of the learning circle - and when a great thing is in
their midst, students have direct access to the energy of learning and life.
50 A. Booth
Here the teacher is not the centre of attention but rather, Palmer continues, the vehicle
for the subject as a means of connecting students to ‘a world larger than their own
experiences and egos, a world that expands their personal boundaries and enlarges
their sense of community’. Through love of the subject and connection to self and
the world that the teacher brings, a difficult or unpromising topic can be trans-
formed—brought to life and suddenly made interesting. A lecturer open to students
and sharing their enthusiasm for a topic is sharing something of themselves. One of
our surveyed historians captures something of this:
A passionate teacher puts the love of the subject above their own (lack of) self-confidence
and inhibitions in order to share their passion with others. They have the ability to put their
emotions and personality on display; are not afraid of allowing for their enthusiasm to spill
over in seminars and lectures; and have a commitment to listening to and developing the
interests and passions of their students.
3.4 Passion and the Will to Learn (and Go on Learning)
There is concern among history lecturers about the tendency for students to adopt
more narrowly strategic approaches to studying. Standards regimes may contribute to
this through, for example, exhaustive grading criteria that mean learners see advice on
what they need to do to obtain a particular grade as an incentive to make just enough
effort to meet the specified requirements. This sort of closed thinking is antithetical
to that desired by academic staff; however, there is evidence that the desire for a
more passionate engagement with the subject and connection with teachers is a
major driving force for many undergraduates. In an influential text on teaching and
learning in higher education, Prosser and Trigwell (1999, p. 66) quote examples from
research on student perspectives on learning. One comment they cite from a history
undergraduate is instructive:
If they [tutors] have enthusiasm, then they really fire their students with the subject, and the
students really pick it up… I’m really good at and enjoy [the course], but that’s only because
a particular tutor I’ve had has been so enthusiastic that he’s given me an enthusiasm for it.
This is echoed in Anderson and Day’s (2005) study of first- and final-year history
undergraduates, where issues of passion and relationship are equally evident. ‘If
you’ve got a real passion for history, you’ll do it; take your time over it’, says one
student they cite, whilst another observes how the academic staff member ‘conveys
his kind of like passion for it’ and how this ‘rubs off’ and ‘made us more enthusiastic’
(Anderson & Day, 2005, pp. 31, 35). Similar comments are made by history students
in other interview studies (Booth, 1997; Nye et al., 2011) and by the history staff in
our survey quoted below:
Students clearly know when someone is teaching something they do not have a passion for,
or at least an interest in, and it’s harder to get them engaged when the teacher is not engaged
either.
Always be positive and enthusiastic in your teaching, even if it’s a bad day - if you are not,
you cannot expect your students to be. Remember, if you’ve got that enthusiasm, the students
will do anything you ask.
These perceptions of the learning situation are fundamental to how students

approach their studies. Even when the substance of a lecture flies over their heads
or the lecturer talks too quickly or digresses, students sometimes say that they were
inspired to find out more if the teacher demonstrates enthusiasm, energy, commit-
ment and a strong sense of purpose that speaks with integrity and authenticity and so
is inspiring of emulation. This challenges students to become similarly engaged and
simultaneously demonstrates that this sort of immersion is possible. To students it
conveys belief in their own potential as well as that of the subject and emphasises the
importance of subject, teacher and learner in a dynamic and ultimately indivisible
learning relationship. Parker (2002, p. 379) suggests that ‘for humanities disciplines
the core is the critical, mutual engagement with humanities texts. This often passion-
ate engagement is what draws students to study the discipline and teachers to teach it;
it defines the relationship between teacher, student and material, the nature of judge-
ment, the parameters of assessment, the discipline’s discourse and modes of writing’.
As Huber and Hutchings (2004, p. 2) observe: ‘when students become passionate
about their learning, when a topic ignites enthusiasm, integration [of learning] is
more likely to happen’.
In The Will to Learn, Barnett (2007, pp. 6–7) makes an important contribution to
the discussion. He writes:
If we are to advance an idea of higher education that is fitting for the contemporary world, it
has… to draw on a certain kind of vocabulary. It will have to be a vocabulary that includes
such terms as excitement, passion, self-confidence, journey, travel, will, energy, engagement,
being and becoming. It is a language that helps to advance the idea, central to this inquiry,
of - as I will term it – ‘a will to learn’.
‘The key point I want to establish’, he continues, ‘is that a student’s engagement with
her course of study depends on her will’, and that perhaps the main task of teaching
‘is that of nurturing in students a will to learn’ (Barnett, 2007, p. 10). In a broad
and penetrating rethinking of higher education for the twenty-first century, he urges
teachers and students to (re)discover a vocabulary that reflects that will to learn;
a vocabulary that might profitably be constructed by historians around a critically
reflexive love of the subject and its agentic potential.
This vocabulary of passion and the will to learn is not only relevant to stu-
dents in higher education; it is just as important to graduates in employment. As
Future Fit: Preparing Graduates for the World of Work (2009, p. 4), an insight-
ful report from the UK Confederation of British Industry (CBI), noted: ‘employ-
ers value the skills and attributes that graduates develop through higher educa-
tion—fresh knowledge, critical thinking, the capacity to be excited by ideas and
challenge assumptions’. Lambert (2010, p. 2), then CBI Director added in his lecture
to the UK Confederation of Industry and Higher Education: ‘It’s impossible to pre-
dict what disciplines will be of most economic and social value in a rapidly changing
world… What matters is that graduates have the framework that allows them to keep
52 A. Booth
learning’. In this ongoing will to learn passion is essential, and energy, integrity,
self-confidence and commitment are qualities highly prized by leading employers in
addition to standard skills proficiency. In a lecture on employer expectations in 2010,
Carl Gilleard, then Chief Executive of the UK Association of Graduate Recruiters,
also pointed out that what today’s employers are looking for certainly includes
often-cited transferable skills, but most important, he urged, are personal quali-
ties such as enterprise, enthusiasm, self-awareness, willingness to learn, integrity,
emotional intelligence and, most importantly, passion. In his words: ‘They call it
(passion) the X factor today, but I call it the Wow factor… that makes all the dif-
ference’ (Gilleard, 2010, p. 76). Historians, even as they cast a critical gaze upon
the employability agenda, need not feel that the only vocabulary available to them
in terms of promoting graduate employability is that privileged by higher educa-
tion auditors or contained within the closed book of standards regulations. There
is another lexicon of value open to them that represents and expresses their edu-
cational hopes and ideals and is arguably closer to what history graduates need to
prepare them to make a living in the twenty-first century (see Booth and Booth,
2010).
3.5 Passion, Teaching Effectiveness and History Teaching

‘At Its Best’
Today a steady stream of writing offers advice on how to teach in higher education and
case studies of good practice. It is clear from this literature that whilst, and historians
would agree, there is no recipe for good teaching, some approaches (notably those
focused upon fostering experiential, collaborative, enquiry-based learning) seem to
have high impact in promoting student engagement and personal agency (see Bain,
2004; Kuh, 2008; Pascarella & Terenzini, 1991, 2005; Ramsden, 2003). Although
there will always be debate about how to teach history, there is also a good deal of
consensus among the historians in our survey about the factors that make for high-
value teaching. The following list captures in summary form the attributes most often
mentioned. Good teachers:
• Possess not only expertise in their subject but also an obvious passion for it.
• Demonstrate genuine enthusiasm for teaching and students.
• Have clear (and high) expectations: explain and model historical thinking but also
challenge students to reflect on their learning for themselves.
• Encourage students to become increasingly independent and take control of their
learning in a supported fashion.
• Empower students to engage in a conversation (with texts, themselves and oth-
ers) that values openness to differing viewpoints and the questioning of views,
including their own and those of the lecturer.
• Treat students seriously: with understanding, fairness, trust and respect.
• Create a learning culture based upon listening to students and grounded in open-
ness, honesty, constructive advice and caring.
• Show an appreciation of the importance of fun in learning, and that scholarship
and playfulness are not mutually exclusive but are both necessary to learning.
• Appreciate the need for a variety of methods to suit different situations and learners.
• Demonstrate an ongoing desire to try new things and encourage students to be
similarly enquiring and creative.
• Provide a place of trust where students feel safe to learn, let go of old habits and
make mistakes.
• Convey a sense of moral purpose—why history matters in the world and to stu-
dents’ lives—and enact (explain and model) these hopes and ideals in class.
• Embody an authenticity and integrity that infuses whatever approaches and meth-
ods they employ.
• Subject their work as educators to continuing, constructive self-scrutiny.
It is evident that the most effective teachers are perceived to possess qualities
that reach beyond subject knowledge or technical competence in teaching. Some
illuminating comments on this arise from memories of those teachers who made
history matter and inspired a deep and lasting love of the subject and learning. Here
are a few examples from the survey responses:
At secondary school I was influenced by a teacher who used narrative history to recreate life
in various periods of English history. He was passionate about his subject and was the first
teacher to suggest I should consider going to university. When Mr. B covered Dr. Snow’s
discovery of the causes of cholera, he brought in a play and got us to perform it. Although
he was about to retire he was still willing to try new methods of teaching.
I keep coming back to the same word - enthusiasm. The one thing they [named university
teachers] had above all else was enthusiasm for their subject. It was quite literally infectious;
it inspired me to continue into postgraduate studies and into teaching and research.
I was inspired by the passion shown by the people who taught me at university; their sense
that history mattered. What my teachers had in common was their passion for their subject.
One of my teachers was still bringing his research into teaching, with infectious enthusiasm,
in his mid-60s.
My Special Subject teacher got us so immersed in the topic we would talk about the subject
even out of class and in relation to contemporary politics and how the experience of early
modern protesters provided lessons that could profitably be learned by people trying to
change things in our own society.
The teacher who had the biggest influence on me taught me at school. He communicated his
own love of, and interest in, history very effectively - his enthusiasm was infectious.
As these recollections reveal, some teachers are never forgotten. They are remem-
bered not because of the efficiency with which they delivered the learning outcomes
specified in the module handbook but for their energy, intensity, creativity and abil-
ity to connect. Their passion was ‘infectious’. One of our respondents sums it up.
‘The best history teachers’, he remarks simply, ‘make the subject lively, relevant
and exciting’. Whilst these teachers come in many forms, they connect themselves
and the subject deeply to students’ lives and make history (and learning) personal,
54 A. Booth
intriguing, relevant. Indeed, only when contextualised within this sort of passion-
ate and supportive classroom can the learning outcomes specified in module and
programme documentation be realised fully.
3.6 Conclusion: Placing Passion in History Teaching
Today, passion has become an increasingly mainstream topic in scholarly conversa-

tions about the role and direction of higher education. There is growing recognition
among educational researchers that curricular approaches whose goal is the accumu-
lation of a repository of measurable skills, competences or indeed knowledge, ‘render
irrelevant or invisible the necessary commitment, openness, wonder or passion that
are integral to learning or to taking action more broadly’ (Dall’Alba & Barnacle,
2007, p. 681; Day, 2004; Neumann, 2006). As Rowland emphasises (Rowland et al.,
1998, p. 134), teaching in higher education ‘is not merely a technical service to
customers’; it concerns moral purposes, hopes and ideals, intellect and emotions.
For many history academics, this is also how they experience their teaching lives.
Teaching history is perceived as an expansive educational and ontological project
anchored in the subject but rippling out far beyond it. Teaching and learning are parts
of the same open-ended process in the course of which teachers and students are both
changed. One historian in our survey reflects:
I like so many things about teaching. I really get a kick out of seeing students develop,
particularly to the point when they don’t need me anymore. Partly this is the satisfaction of
reviving the students’ confidence and initiative (something that is systematically beaten out
of them at school by a secondary education system obsessed with results and meaningless
league tables)… I like the fact that in this career I can make a difference to so many lives.
The transformation to be made is not separate from love of the subject but deeply
rooted in it, just as research and teaching are inseparable parts of an ongoing process
of being and becoming an historian that is only with difficulty compartmentalised.
Without passion, history academics cannot hope either to realise fully the learning
outcomes specified by their discipline or make the contribution to changing students’
learning and lives that more deeply motivates them. Teaching with passion makes
sense in the flat terms of standards and efficiency just as much as in the richer, more
satisfying, vocabulary of joy, excitement and personal transformation. As Nussbaum
(2010, p. 120) observes, ‘a type of education that gets both students and teachers
more passionately involved in thinking and imagining reduces costs by reducing the
anomie and time wasting that typically accompanies a lack of personal investment’.
There are many ways that this sort of passionate engagement can be expressed
and fostered in the history classroom. Whilst there is insufficient space to consider
these here (and to be effective teaching must always be tailored to the context of
the particular class), there are plenty of examples in the scholarship of teaching and
learning in history (for a few examples, see Booth, 2003, 2014; Frederick, 1999,
2001; Jones, 2011; Schuster, 2008). Some broad pointers to practise, however, can
be made from the preceding discussion. First, there is a need to acknowledge and
be attentive to the emotions in curricular planning and classroom practice in history,
not least to allow students to explore their own (evolving) identities as historians,
learners and people. Second, historians must engage critically with the nature of
their experience of teaching and connect openly with their identities as teachers.
They must ask fundamental questions of what it takes to teach (history) and what
teaching truly entails beyond the delivery of outcomes or essential subject content
or what teaching techniques to use: what is meaningful work in this part of their
professional lives. Third, in order to advance a persuasive narrative of why the study
of the subject matters, the language of passion must be acknowledged and deployed
to effect in addressing a broad range of audiences from intending students through to
employers and wider publics. This passionate voice need not be excused or spoken
hesitantly or sotto voce but must be amplified, for it speaks to what attracts and
engages students and what many employers say they want from graduates.
Finally, passion must be sustained. In regulated, target-driven cultures of higher
education this is a challenging task. Our survey and interview data suggest that many
history academics experience considerable frustration with institutional initiatives in
teaching, regarding them as beyond their control and dislocated from personal expe-
riences of what makes for effective practice. This offers a reminder not only of the
importance of a sense of self-efficacy to staff well-being but also that a major influ-
ence on, and responsibility for, professional pedagogic development resides at the
level of the history department. If passion is to take its rightful place in notions of his-
torians’ development as teachers, become a standard part of curricular planning and
as standard a topic of collegial conversation as scholarship in the discipline, it must be
nourished. The context of the history department is a powerful point of intervention,
and the task of department leaders is to create (or, more properly, co-create) a local
climate in which passionate teaching can thrive (Knight & Trowler, 2001; Trowler
& Cooper, 2002; Trowler, 2008; Macfarlane, 2011; Ramsden, 1998). Leadership
matters, for without it passionate history staff will find it hard to commit the energy
required to take risks and imagine new things or sustain a continuing commitment
to their own development as teachers. Departmental leaders must actively nurture a
culture for teaching that enables and encourages colleagues to reflect, investigate,
experiment and explore creatively and in an informed fashion. This involves not only
genuine commitment to reward and recognition for excellent teaching but also the
provision of spaces where historians feel able to talk in an open (and increasingly
informed) fashion about their teaching lives, both as part of continuing professional
development and as a contribution to the advancement of teaching in the discipline.
In the end, Whittock (1997, p. 100) points out: ‘What we care about, we pursue;
what’s unimportant to us, we neglect or pay lip service to only’. Passion (for the
subject, for teaching and for engaging with students) is not just a nice-to-have quality;
it is essential to effective teaching. To teach history at all well in the contemporary
university calls for enthusiasm, energy, care and commitment and also integrity,
courage and resilience. It demands a passionate, expansive pedagogy through the
subject that enhances the will to learn and go on learning about self, others and
the world. It involves an approach to history education that takes account of the
56 A. Booth
prescribed standards but recognises their limitations; goes beyond their terms of
reference. To teach to the standards may be necessary but it is not sufficient; to teach
with them towards more open-ended (and open-minded) educational and personal
goals points the way towards a more authentic, productive and satisfying experience
for both history staff and students.
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Chapter 4
Teaching the History Threshold Learning
Outcomes to First-Year Students
Jennifer Clark, Adrian Jones, Theda Thomas, Pamela Allen, Bronwyn Cole,
Jill Lawrence, Lynette Sheridan Burns and Joy Wallace
Abstract Stakeholder ownership and implementation are crucial when applying

the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) to the development of curriculum.
Threshold Learning Outcomes (TLOs) are a case in point. While they might seem
to be triumphs of managerialism over pedagogy, we argue that they can be used to
build lecturers’ deep engagement with the teaching of their discipline and thus foster
sustainable change. By extending the professional use of TLOs, beyond the stages of
agreement, establishment and early dissemination, to the point of implementation, we
offer a framework for how to elicit collegial conversations to improve teaching and
learning practice in history. First, we combine ‘Decoding the Disciplines’ methods
developed by historians at Indiana University. Second, we add key principles of first-
year pedagogy, associated with Sally Kift. Third, we link to Threshold Learning
Outcomes. The framework is supplemented by a good practice guide that translates
our theoretical model into practical strategies in teaching and assessment.
J. Clark (B)
A. Jones
La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia
T. Thomas
Australian Catholic University, Melbourne, Australia
P. Allen
University of Tasmania, Hobart, Australia
B. Cole · L. Sheridan Burns
Western Sydney University, Sydney, Australia
J. Lawrence
University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba, Australia
J. Wallace
Charles Sturt University, Bathurst, Australia

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0047-9_4
60 J. Clark et al.
4.1 Introduction
Discipline-based Threshold Learning Outcomes, and associated explicit Learning

Outcome Standards, were introduced into the Australian tertiary sector in 2011 to
facilitate national uniformity of achievement for students graduating with a major
after three years of study. The early stages of this work necessarily focused on
establishment, agreement and dissemination processes. These processes identified
TLOs that were largely aspirational, and ceased before any substantial consideration
could be given to how students might reach these goals or how staff might teach
to them. Further work with the TLOs is needed if they are to elicit the genuine
stakeholder ownership and implementation crucial to the Scholarship of Teaching and
Learning. Otherwise, the worthwhile process of aligning the curriculum by scripting
Threshold Learning Outcomes for individual subjects, whole majors and complete
degrees can stop short of influencing actual pedagogy.
We see that the real SoTL challenge is not descriptive, or even prescriptive. It
is how to achieve ‘buy-in’ at the disciplinary coalface when SoTL initiatives are
perceived as an external imposition. To be sure, this is not a problem for disciplines
having to satisfy professional accreditation, but it does challenge academics teaching
in generalist degrees like the Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) or Bachelor of Science (B.Sc.).
Most SoTL discourse is of an educational designer and edu-insider nature, which may
also carry implications of managerial alignment (Clegg, 2010). This sort of SoTL
discourse is often about the ‘what if?’, ‘must’ and ‘why not?’ of teaching and learn-
ing, and often in a general way (Marton, 2007). But discipline-specific discussions
have long been seen as the better way to proceed in professional improvement dis-
cussions with non-SoTL-insider academics (Healey, Bradford, Roberts, & Knight,
2013; Knapper, 1995; Parker, 2002). The ‘how?’ issues of options and practices
tend to be more valued by research-active teaching academics, and especially when
they are also linked to the specific challenges of teaching their disciplines (Lucas &
Meyer, 2003; Prosser, Ramsden, Trigwell, & Martin, 2001).
Our core point in this chapter is its systematic and practical discussion of the
‘how?’ question. We outline a method that prompts collegial and discipline-based
conversations about each TLO. Our model is of the reflective practitioner, retain-
ing rigour amid uncertainty, sketched by Schön (1983, pp. 49, 69) as capable of
‘develop[ing] an epistemology of practice which places technical problem-solving
within a broader context of reflective inquiry’. They can rethink the implicit in their
professional life, on the new basis that ‘our knowing is in our action’:
Many practitioners, locked into a view of themselves as technical experts, find nothing in the
world of practice to occasion reflection. They become too skilful at techniques of selective
inattention, junk categories, and situational control, techniques which they use to preserve
the constancy of their knowledge-in practice. For them, uncertainty is a threat; its admission
a sign of weakness (Schön, 1983, p. 69).
4 Teaching the History Threshold Learning … 61
This chapter addresses this problem. We believe that collegial, discipline-based dis-
cussions about TLOs can rejig categories, disrupt situational controls and redirect
attention, but always on a ground that professional academics feel they still own. In
this chapter, we offer a framework for SoTL discussion that focuses on implementa-
tion of the TLOs and discuss how it may be applied to the professional development
of history academics. The framework uses Australia’s eight history TLOs to offer
a case study we suggest is applicable to other disciplines operating in generalist
degrees. Our framework treats ways to stimulate action on teaching-curricular and
student-learning improvements. For, however best-principled a general SoTL-speak
might be, any TLOs it frames will not transform anything in higher education unless
the disciplinary professionals can also discern ways either to amend or else to own
them (Ryan, 1987; Su, 2014). Viewed another way, our framework sketches a way
to re-position professional dialogue about TLOs to be more about the students’ pro-
fessional disciplinary ‘becoming’ rather than just about the discipline teachers and
students’ ‘knowing’ (Barnett, 2009; Dall’Alba & Barnacle, 2007; Schön, 1983, p.
300). Our framework suggests ways to engage with the real congregation for SoTL:
the professionally credentialed academic researchers, not trained professionally as
teachers, who are tasked to teach, in this case, history.
4.2 Project Background
While the discipline of history is our case study here, our collegial endeavour also
addressed four other disciplines in the humanities and social sciences (First-year
learning thresholds, 2015). With funding from the Australian Office for Learning
and Teaching (OLT), we first tried to discern better ways to begin the study of a
discipline, bearing in mind the TLOs. We also suggested some practical tools to help
academics to think about how to approach the teaching of the discipline standards.
The pedagogical context we offered was a normative framework of student progres-
sion. Our driving question was: what should students know and do when they begin
their first year of discipline study in order to meet the discipline standards at the end
of their third year? In its broadest sense, the project aimed to engage academics with
the core idea that Threshold Learning Outcomes, intended for students completing
their final year of study, had to be developed incrementally in order to be effective. It
was as important to teach with the TLOs in mind in the first year as it was in the final
year. Brawley et al. (2015) had shown that it is too late to start talking about Thresh-
old Learning Outcomes in the year in which they are to be met. For the TLOs to have
any useful purpose in teaching and learning, they should be part of the framework
of teaching at all levels.
The project presented an opportunity for staff teaching first-year history students
to work collaboratively with others in their discipline to engage with the Thresh-
old Learning Outcomes and translate that into effective first-year pedagogy specific
to history. The outcomes included professional engagement with first-year peda-
gogical theory, a reflective approach to teaching the history TLOs and engagement
62 J. Clark et al.
with the ‘Decoding the Disciplines’ model. Although the project was an exercise
in professional development (Thomas et al., 2017), at its heart was the view that a
triangulated approach was the best way to help academics to enable their students
eventually to meet the national standards (Parker, 2002). Our approach thus drew on
what we currently know about standards, about discipline-based teaching and learn-
ing knowledge and practice, and about pedagogical principles for teaching students
in their first year.
4.3 Method
An effective way to introduce discipline standards to first-year students is within

two intersecting pedagogical frameworks: Decoding the Disciplines and what is
commonly known as First-Year Pedagogy.
4.3.1 Decoding the Disciplines
For this aspect of our framework, we drew on a pedagogical model first introduced by
David Pace and Joan Middendorf at Indiana University in 2004 (Pace & Middendorf,
2004). ‘Decoding the Disciplines’ operates from the premise that discipline practi-
tioners are often inured; they intuit how their discipline works and may practise their
discipline without reflection. By contrast, students as novices sit outside this tacit
knowledge and understanding. Academic historians often entered their profession
because they were naturally analytical, or because they were astute researchers and
talented writers for whom historical thinking was easy and interesting. But not all
students have natural predispositions in these areas, nor can they intuit what they need
to learn and what method they should practise. According to Sam Wineburg, good
teaching involves a reduction of the gap in discipline knowledge and understanding
between the experts and the novices (Wineburg, 1991). ‘Decoding the Disciplines’
offers techniques that can help explain historical thinking to students who do not
already share the professionals’ intuitions.
‘Decoding the Disciplines’ operates on a seven-step process of reflective analysis
and modelling to help the novice better understand how the expert operates within
their discipline environment. Barriers to learning are identified. What is it that stu-
dents find difficult to understand or to do within disciplinary practices? Teachers then
identify what they do as experts that novices cannot do as readily or as well. The
teacher then models the process so that the student can see more clearly what needs
to be done. Opportunities follow for students to practise these processes.
The system is straightforward and thus attractive to time-poor and sceptical his-
tory staff. Its greatest advantage is that it stimulates teachers to think about what
the student actually finds difficult. Beginning a professional conversation from that
premise shifts the focus away from commonplace laments about student failings. The
Fig. 4.1 A conversation map for history TLO7
things students do not seem to know or be able to do now become an opportunity

for reflection and for the amendment of instruction. The model is student-focused.
Teaching staff pause in their rush to cover the content and reflect on the purpose of
their teaching. An easy-to-follow process equips teachers with the means to identify
their teaching hurdles, then to analyse the students’ needs and finally to implement
a plan of action in response.
At a Melbourne workshop in 2013, history staff were introduced to the ‘Decoding
the Disciplines’ model. They were invited to identify the specific barriers to learning
that sat around each history TLO. Participants worked individually and collectively;
everyone had an opportunity to use their own experience to articulate known barriers
and to suggest solutions. Conversation maps were then used to take each TLO and
break it down into what knowledge or skills students needed to learn or practise at
first year and the strategies that we could use to teach them. Figure 4.1 is an example
of part of a conversation map for the history TLO7: ‘Construct an evidence-based
argument in audio, digital, oral, visual or written form’.
Results from the conversation maps were subsequently analysed to construct a
list of what students should learn in first year in order to achieve the particular TLO
by the time they graduate after three years of a major. The barriers and issues, as
well as suggested approaches to teaching in the first year that would help students to
begin their path towards achieving the TLOs, were distilled from practice.
64 J. Clark et al.
4.3.2 First-year Pedagogy
For this aspect of our framework, we could draw on a wealth of investigation into the
student experience and strategies for enhancing it. Students’ first-year experiences
not only shape their transition but also their approach to and engagement with their
discipline. Nelson, Readman, & Stoodley (2016) found that students’ first encoun-
ters are critical, noting that when they experience intentionally designed curricula
and support interventions, student emotion is enhanced and positive psychosocial
(motivation, skills, self-efficacy and identity) responses are triggered. Leach (2016)
adds that an understanding of factors that influence engagement, particularly those
that impact within different disciplines, enhances both teaching practice and learn-
ers’ outcomes. Baik, Naylor and Arkoudis link a recent increase in more positive
student experiences to the ‘effect of university efforts to improve the experience of
first-year students’ (2015, p. 6). Much work has been done to support transitioning
students, to promote student engagement (Leece & Campbell, 2011; Kahu, 2013;
Maguire, Egan, Hyland, & Maguire, 2017), to remodel the learning environment
(Devlin & McKay, 2017; Tinto, 2005), to re-frame curricula (Kift, 2009a; Kift &
Field, 2009; Lawrence & Ryan, 2015) and to promote institution-wide approaches
to transitioning students (Nelson, Readman, & Stoodley, 2016).
Distilling this wisdom, we decided that any application of discipline standards to
first-year teaching needed to be positioned among the premises of first-year pedagogy.
The work of Kift (2009b) offers a useful framework. Her first-year pedagogy, with
its emphasis on clear steps of transition, diversity, design, engagement, assessment,
and evaluation and monitoring, suggested how the TLOs and standards might be
accessed and how they might be taught in first-year history classes. Within this
pedagogy, first-year students are seen as a cohort that needs particular consideration
and support. Instead of focusing on what content history students needed to learn,
history teachers could first think about what first-year students needed to do in order
to engage successfully with the discipline of history.
This alternative approach means that historians need to consider their students as
transitioning into university study at the same time as they begin their disciplinary
studies. For example, first-year students of history are enormously diverse. Perhaps
they come straight from school, never having studied history before. Perhaps they
studied history to a very high level, for example, through the acclaimed NSW History
Extension course. In other cases, new students are mature-aged, coming to history
with lived experience and a well-developed historical consciousness. First-year peda-
gogy asks us to design a curriculum that recognises diversity, including the students’
limitations, expectations and abilities. We need assessment that engages students
and is level- and discipline-appropriate. Assessment tasks should be scaffolded and
appropriate for novice practitioners in the discipline. Necessary, too, is a mechanism
to evaluate how well the history curriculum meets the needs of first-year students
and, at the same time, meets the demands of the standards environment.
4.4 The Framework
The framework for first-year curriculum and pedagogy design triangulates first-year
pedagogy, discipline pedagogy and Threshold Learning Outcomes. It poses questions
about student learning: Who are my students when they enter first-year history? What
do my first-year students need to know and do in history? What strategies can I use to
help my students develop the knowledge and skills they require to be effective learners
in history? What do my students know, and what can they do, at the completion of
their first year in history?
The framework provides an explicit guide to the kinds of thinking underpinning
disciplinary curricula that are often implicit and intuited rather than articulated.
It respects and acknowledges discipline cultures while taking into account current
research in broader pedagogical principles (Fig. 4.2).
4.4.1 Who are my students?
It is important for academics teaching in the first year to have an understanding of

who they are teaching and what those students bring to the learning and teaching
experience. Transition to university is not a one-off event that happens at orientation.
It is an ongoing process that gives students the capability to navigate the change to
university (Gale & Parker, 2014). Academics teaching first-year students can afford
them the resources to engage explicitly with the changed way of thinking and studying
at university.
First-year students come to university from diverse backgrounds with a wide
variety of past experiences. Unless lecturers understand the diversity of their students
they will have difficulty in adapting their first-year teaching to the needs of their
individual students (Kift, 2009a). First-year students need a sense of belonging in
the university. They need to integrate academically and socially (Devlin & McKay,
2017; Nelson, Readman, & Stoodley, 2016; Nicoll, 2010; Tinto, 2012). The lecturer
facilitates this by using students’ current and previous experience. First-year students
who actively and collaboratively engage with others in their cohort are more likely
to thrive (Araujo, Carlin, & Clarke 2014; Lawrence, 2017).
Bearing these principles in mind, designers of first-year history curriculum might
ask these questions about their first-year students:
• How do I design curriculum to respond to the diversity of my students so that it is

accessible to and inclusive of all?
• How do I acknowledge and use students’ previous experience in their learning?
• What are my students’ knowledge and skill levels in history on entry?
• What diverse personal backgrounds do my students bring to their understanding
of history?
• What are the barriers to students’ learning in history?
66
Designing First Year Discipline-Specific Curricula and Pedagogy
Students And First Year Students First Year Learners in my Discipline Potential Graduates in my Discipline
Their Learning
Who are my • How do we design our curriculum to respond to the • What are my students’ knowledge and skill levels in my • How do I allow for diversity, agency and creativity in
students when diversity of our students so that it is accessible to and discipline on entry? my students while still ensuring they achieve
they enter first inclusive of all? • What diverse personal backgrounds do my students prescribed learning outcomes?
year in my • How do I acknowledge and use students’ previous bring to their understanding of my discipline?
discipline? experience in their learning? • What are the bottlenecks to students’ learning in my
discipline?
What do my first • How do I design my curriculum to be learning • What are the concepts that first year students need to • What knowledge and skills do our students need to
year students focussed? master in order to be effective learners, thinkers and learn in first year in order to meet the learning
need to know • How do I make the students’ learning relevant to practitioners in my discipline? outcomes and attributes we want our graduates to
and do in my them? • What skills do I need to develop in my students in achieve?
discipline? • How do I make my expectations of students clear, order for them to be effective learners, thinkers and
meaningful and explicit? practitioners in my discipline?
What strategies • How do I scaffold and support students’ learning? • How can I support my students in developing the • How do we design assessments and assessment
can I use to help • How can I engage students actively in their learning? complex forms of thinking, reasoning and knowing criteria to meet required outcomes?
my students • How can I facilitate collaborative learning? that are central to grasping disciplinary ways of • How might students collect and provide evidence of
develop the • How should I assess students and provide them with thinking? their learning?
knowledge and regular formative feedback on their work? • Knowing the bottlenecks, how can I break down expert
• How do I develop my students as independent methodologies and explicitly model expert practice?
Fig. 4.2 Framework for first-year curriculum and pedagogy design

skills they require
to be effective learners? • How will students practise and apply discipline-specific
learners in my skills and get feedback?
discipline? • How can I help students to locate themselves within
the disciplinary community?
What do my
• How am I evaluating my students’ learning • Do my students have the skills to begin to think like a • How do we ensure that all students who pass meet the
students now
experience? practitioner in the discipline? learning outcomes required for first year in the
know and what
• Are my students prepared for their future study in the discipline?
can they do at the
discipline?
completion of
their first year in
my discipline?
J. Clark et al.
Students coming into the study of history at first year may come with different
expectations of university life and of what they will do with their degree when they
finish. If we do not meet their expectations, they may disengage (Lobo, 2012). A
question that designers of first-year curricula might ask regarding the expectations
of their diverse first-year students is:
• How do I cater for diversity, agency and creativity in my students while still
ensuring that they achieve required learning outcomes?
4.4.2 What do my first-year history students need to know

and do?
History academics need to consider how to construct a first-year curriculum that takes
into account both the needs of first-year students and the needs of early learners in
history.
The professionals’ intuitions and inured practices have to be disclosed. An
enabling and inclusive first-year curriculum needs to ensure that we teach students
how to transition from their previous presumptions about education (Kift, 2009a).
Learning is scaffolded first to learners’ ways of thinking, the better then to make
intuitions and unusual practices of the discipline explicit (Kift, 2009a).
Questions to ask when designing curricula for first-year students are:
• How do I design my curriculum to be focused on students’ learning rather than on
content?
• How do I make the students’ learning relevant to them?
• How do I make my expectations of students clear, meaningful and explicit?
Students at university are expected to engage in deep learning and to learn more
independently than at school. Assessment tasks should motivate and challenge stu-
dents to study regularly and deeply (Nicoll, 2010). This means teachers should get
to know the students in order to make the learning relevant to them. Teachers can
link learning to students’ previous experience, to relevant topics in the news, or else
to their aspirations. It is imperative that we develop students’ meta-cognitive skills
so that they can think critically and reflect on their thinking processes. If they do not
develop these abilities, they will not be able to cope with future learning (Larmar &
Lodge, 2014).
Questions for academics to consider when designing a first-year history curricu-
lum are:
• What are the concepts that first-year students need to master in order to be effective
learners, thinkers and practitioners in history?
• What skills do I need to develop in my students in order for them to be effective
learners, thinkers and practitioners in history?
68 J. Clark et al.
When we are considering the first-year curriculum, we also need to consider what
we want our graduates to achieve by the time they graduate. Learning outcomes for
first-year subjects should address the development of the skills and concepts needed
to meet these standards by the time the student graduates; thus, it is essential to divide
the curriculum into significant elements.
Questions to consider about the design of a first-year curriculum that sets students
on the path to be effective graduates include:
• What knowledge and skills do our students need to learn in first year in order to
meet the learning outcomes and attributes we want our graduates to achieve?
4.4.3 What teaching strategies are appropriate and effective

for me to develop first-year students as history learners?
First-year students need support in developing the knowledge and skills to become
effective learners at university. First-year curriculum should scaffold and mediate
first-year learning to help the diverse students understand the ways of thinking and
working at university (Kift, Nelson & Clarke, 2010). Assessment at first-year should
be explicit and guide students in their learning journey. First-year students need
regular formative assessment with detailed feedback and tutorial support in order to
clarify expectations, facilitate improvement and support adapting to the university
experience (Nicoll, 2010; Whittaker, 2008).
To aid first-year learning, teachers should also foster a sense of belonging for stu-
dents. Group activities and collaborative learning are ways in which we can encourage
students to work together and learn to know one another (Aderibigbe, Antiado, &
Anna, 2015; Hanken, 2016; Jones, 2011; Nicoll, 2010). Engaging students actively
in their learning has been shown to improve student satisfaction, success rates and
motivation (Krause, 2007). Our teaching strategies should help students develop as
independent learners and critical thinkers in order to empower them in their future
lifelong learning (Bovill, Bulley, & Morss, 2011; Nicoll, 2010).
We can ask ourselves these questions when developing strategies that engage
first-year students:
• How do I scaffold and support students’ learning?

• How can I engage students actively in their learning?
• How can I facilitate collaborative learning?
• How should I assess students and provide them with regular formative feedback
on their work?
• How do I develop my students as independent learners?
In teaching students the threshold concepts, teachers should plan ways of engaging
and motivating their students so that they feel more competent, autonomous and gain
a feeling of belonging within the discipline (Zepke, 2013).
The ‘Decoding the Disciplines’ methodology suggests that once we have identified
a concept that the student needs to learn and any bottlenecks or barriers to their
learning, we should then discover and articulate how an expert would tackle the
issue. Once we have done that we can break down their methodology to model it
for the students and determine methods whereby students can practise and apply the
methods (Pace & Middendorf, 2004). Our methods should not only focus on helping
students perform a task, however, but should also include a clear explanation of how
we select the strategies that we use and why we employ those strategies (Larmar &
Lodge, 2014, p. 101). This will help students in their future learning.
Questions that first-year history curriculum developers could consider when
designing learning strategies are:
• How can I support my students in developing the complex forms of thinking,

reasoning and knowing that are central to grasping historical thinking concepts?
• Knowing the bottlenecks or barriers, how can I break down expert methodologies
and explicitly model expert practice?
• How will students practise and apply history-specific skills and get feedback?
• How can I help students to locate themselves within the history discipline com-
munity?
The role of the academic is to design curriculum that incorporates discipline knowl-
edge and to teach with these broader principles in mind. To that end, we must think
about effective teaching strategies that address both the needs of the first-year student
and the demands of the discipline.
4.4.4 How can I evaluate what students have learnt in their

first year?
This last question relates to evaluation. We should be able to provide evidence about
whether the teaching strategies have been effective in introducing students to his-
torical concepts and practices. The first-year curriculum is designed to engage and
encourage first-year students. Kift (2009) highlights the importance of the regular
monitoring of student engagement so that we can make timely interventions and sup-
port students who may be at risk of failing. One of the tasks of the first-year history
academic is to ensure that students are given the skills and capabilities they need to
participate as learners of history as they progress into the next year of study (Zepke,
2013).
70 J. Clark et al.
We can ask these questions about evaluating the students’ ability to learn within
the history discipline:
• Do my students have the skills to begin to think like a practising historian?
• Are my students prepared for their future study in the history discipline?
Finally, there is the task of using the first year to prepare students for their future after
graduation. It is too late to think about standards in the final year of a course; we need
to prepare students from first year to meet those standards. In order to determine if we
have been successful, it is important to identify the standards, learning outcomes and
capabilities that students need in first year and then to measure if students achieve
those capabilities.
We might consider asking this last question when evaluating whether our students
are prepared for their future studies and as future graduates:
• How do we ensure that all students who pass meet the learning outcomes required
for first year in history?
4.4.5 How can curriculum development be informed by the

tenets of the framework?
From our work in investigating how to teach the TLOs in first year, using a specific
first-year pedagogy, we produced a Good Practice Guide that addressed each of the
Threshold Learning Outcomes (see appendix). The aim of the Good Practice Guide
was to give staff help and direction in analysing their own historical practice and
historical thinking. The guide addressed these main questions: What do students
need to know and do in the first year to approach the TLOs? What are the barriers to
their learning? What teaching strategies can be employed to help students overcome
these barriers? What do practical examples of that teaching and learning look like?
Our Good Practice Guide for history extends the framework in two main ways.
First, it explores the implications of applying the general framework specifically to
the discipline of history. What would such an application look like using real issues in
the teaching of history? Second, the guide provides examples of teaching strategies
addressing each TLO, not only through the lens of the known barriers or bottlenecks,
but also in a way that is suitable for first-year students. In that sense, each practical
example was also an extension of the framework principles. The Good Practice Guide
translates the theoretical positions into practical considerations for the discipline of
history. The ideas explored in the Good Practice Guide are expanded upon with
additional literature resources on the website at www.firstyearlearningthresholds.
edu.au.
4.5 Conclusion
Academic historians faced with the preparation of students to meet the history TLOs
in their final year of study should be willing to look more closely at how students will
make progress in preparing to meet the TLOs and standards. Inevitably, curriculum
development will require academic historians to ask questions about how to teach
the TLOs to first-year students in level-appropriate ways. They will also be required
to look carefully at what first-year students need in a generic sense and construct a
curriculum that meets those needs as well.
The framework proposed in this paper offers a way of facilitating collaborative
conversations among staff ensuring that they consider the needs of their students and
the requirements of the discipline. The framework provides questions to promote
deeper thinking about finding effective and innovative ways of helping students
prepare to think and learn like an historian. The framework is extended by a Good
Practice Guide for history that provides an example of how the framework might
be implemented for first-year curriculum linked to the Australian TLOs for history
describing:
• What students need to know and be able to do at first year in order to meet standards
in history by the time they graduate;
• What barriers there might be to them learning those concepts; and
• What teaching strategies can be used to facilitate that learning.
By combining knowledge of the demands of the history discipline with the prin-
ciples of first-year pedagogy, and the framework of Decoding the Disciplines to help
unpack the learning barriers of first-year students, the good practice guides and cur-
riculum development framework may help historians to think about how to teach the
TLOs in the first year in order to make them meaningful to transitioning students.
Acknowledgements The framework was originally published in Lawrence, J., Allen, P., Thomas,
T., Wallace, J., Clark, J., Jones, A., Cole, B. & Sheridan Burns, L. (2016). Proceedings of the
STARS Conference, 29 June–2 July, 2016, Perth, Australia. Retrieved from http://unistars.org/
papers/STARS2016/12B.pdf.
Support for this project has been provided by the Australian Government Office for Learning
and Teaching. The views expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect the views of the
Australian Government Office for Learning and Teaching. Graphic design by Trish Donald.
72 J. Clark et al.
Appendix
Graphic design by Trish Donald

74 J. Clark et al.
76 J. Clark et al.
78 J. Clark et al.
80 J. Clark et al.
82 J. Clark et al.
84 J. Clark et al.
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Chapter 5
Delivery: Relics of the Past? Rethinking
the History Lecture and Tutorial
Paul Sendziuk and Thomas C. Buchanan
Abstract Increasing student enrolments in higher education and burgeoning class

sizes have required creative approaches to delivering course material, especially if
active learning on the part of the student is the aim. In this context, traditional forms
of course delivery such as lectures provided by a ‘sage on the stage’ and tutorials
have been criticised as ineffective and expensive. However, thoughtfully designed to
accommodate student needs and desires, history lectures and tutorials can still play
an important role in higher education.
5.1 Introduction
Two inextricable forces have necessitated changes in the way that history students
are taught in universities and colleges. First, the student population has substantially
increased over the past two decades as many countries have sought to widen access
to higher education (Bradley et al., 2008; Goastellec, 2008; HESA, 2016; NCES,
2014). However, public funding of the higher education sector has not matched the
growth in the student intake (see, e.g., Lunt, 2008; Universities Australia 2015). The
consequential need for cost-efficient course delivery has resulted in increased class
sizes and is partially responsible for the move towards online methods of content
delivery, particularly the use of ‘virtual’ classrooms. Second, students themselves
have changed, as have their financial needs. Researchers tell us that high exposure to
electronic forms of communication and social media has altered the way that people
think and what they are prepared to tolerate (Carr, 2011; Greenfield, 2015). Thus,
students raised on technology are less likely to be inclined to listen to hour-long
lectures, never mind read an entire book or a set of scholarly articles in preparation
for a tutorial, and they demand to be entertained while being informed (Barnes et al.,
2007; Carlson, 2005; Thompson, 2013). Many students also either need, or desire,
to undertake paid employment to fund their university studies and meet their costs
P. Sendziuk (B) · T. C. Buchanan

e-mail: paul.sendziuk@adelaide.edu.au

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0047-9_5
90 P. Sendziuk and T. C. Buchanan
of living, which limits their availability to attend class (see ABS, 2013; BBC, 2015).
They must now be enticed to believe that classes are worthwhile, otherwise they
simply will not turn up. These developments have implications for the way that we
teach history, particularly the viability of the traditional means of course delivery:
the lecture and the tutorial. In this chapter, we make a case for why the history lecture
and tutorial should endure, but not necessarily in the manner that they are commonly
practised. We also consider how time during lectures and tutorials might be best
utilised.
5.2 Should We Lecture?
Should we lecture? This question is alive at present more than ever before. The devel-
opment of lectures as a delivery mode was the product of information scarcity, expen-
sive books and low literacy. For these reasons, they were already being challenged
before the Internet became widely used in the 1990s. But the Internet has made the
‘sage on the stage’—the lecturer as chief repository of knowledge and wisdom—in-
creasingly anachronistic. The emphasis now is on making the classroom more vital,
more interactive and filled with the sort of hands-on, engaging learning experiences
that give bricks-and-mortar institutions a reason for existence. The assumption is
that if classes are more interactive and cooperative in focus, students will be more
likely to attend. There is also evidence that learning gains can be achieved in such a
transformation (Prince, 2004).
Teachers can choose from a number of lecturing, or large-class teaching, formats.
There are still a few practitioners of what we would call the ‘old-fashioned’ lecture,
where historians primarily rely on engagement through oral delivery with few or no
visual prompts. More common is what we would call the ‘traditional’ lecture, which
marries a fifty-minute oral presentation with projected slides of text and images.
More recently, historians have explored using what has become known as a ‘flipped’
model of presentation, which has been used for many years in the STEM (i.e. Science,
Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) and professions classrooms (Abeysekera
& Dawson, 2014; Gilboy, Heinerichs & Pazzaglia, 2015; O’Flaherty & Phillips, 2015;
See & Conry, 2014). Here, students are asked to prepare before coming to the lecture
through focused reading, watching videos, listening to podcasts and/or completing
assignments. The lecture then becomes an opportunity for the teacher and students
to apply and clarify the information that has been imparted before the class, rather
than a vehicle to deliver information. This model has the virtue of making class
time focused on higher order learning skills and interactive group work that is suited
to face-to-face learning and teaching in the Internet Age; its potential weakness is
its reliance on students completing the preparatory work and the lecture space being
able to accommodate interactivity. Finally, at some universities, and in some courses,
large-class face-to-face teaching has been abandoned altogether, to be replaced by
online learning modules or other structured learning activities. This creates flexibility
5 Delivery: Relics of the Past? Rethinking … 91
in terms of when, where and how students study, and enables universities to recruit
students who otherwise could not take their courses.
The flipped model has attracted the most attention recently and has been studied
in other educational contexts, but evaluations of its effectiveness in university-level
history classrooms are only now beginning to be published. One recent study of a first-
year history course found that learning outcomes were moderately but statistically
significantly improved with a flipped classroom approach compared to traditional
lecturing. In particular, students liked the opportunity to improve basic writing skills
in the workshop settings compared with their learning in traditional lecture courses
(Murphee, 2014). Historian Judy E. Gaughan argues that the flipped model was suc-
cessful in her history classroom as students reported liking the opportunity for more
in-class discussion created by this approach (Gaughan, 2014). Most of her students
agreed that the homework assignments prepared them well for these engagements.
Jennifer Ebbeler, an academic in the adjacent discipline of classics, also reported
learning gains with the flipped classroom compared to traditional lecturing. She
noted that in her ‘Introduction to Ancient Rome’ course, ‘students graded perfor-
mance advanced remarkably over previous versions of the same course’ (Ebbeler,
2013). Low-stakes testing and more challenging assessments, when combined with
the flipped method, yielded learning improvements.
However, there are challenges involved in the application of the flipped class-
room model. Many of the positive examples of adapting the flipped model to history
courses come from American universities that often feature small numbers of students
in lecture theatres compared to Australian and British universities; the above-cited
examples involved course enrolments of between 10 and 50 students. Examples
from elsewhere are rarer. We note, however, the heroic effort of Sean Brawley and
the Macquarie University History Department to make a collective effort of flipping
their curriculum (Macquarie University, Faculty of Arts, 2014). This is an impres-
sive initiative, but the difficulties involved in providing meaningful group work to
students in classes of 100–500 people have not been resolved. This is even more
problematic when there is little or no additional in-class teacher support. Groups of
this size are also impeded by the classroom furniture, which is nearly always fixed
and front facing. It is worthwhile to note that José Antonio Bowen’s much discussed
book, Teaching Naked, which advocates for a face-to-face flipped classroom experi-
ence, acknowledges that traditional lecturing can still be the best strategy with large
groups (Bowen, 2012). Thus while the purported learning gains of flipped classrooms
are attractive, not all history academics have access to a classroom environment nec-
essary for easy adoption.
Another problem is that students do not always like the flipped model. Flipping
is demanding because students are required to complete assigned preparatory tasks.
Ebbeler (2013) notes that many students in her class did not appreciate the higher
workload required. They told her that they liked listening to lectures and, more-
over, that they missed having a fully informed and authoritative voice controlling
proceedings. Scholars in other disciplines have also noted that students give higher
evaluations to courses delivered by traditional lecturers compared to academics lead-
ing flipped classes (Berrett, 2012). However, evidence of student preference in the
history classroom has not yet been presented in the literature.
We were interested to test such observations and gauge student perceptions of
the history lecture more precisely. In 2015, we conducted a survey of University of
Adelaide students regarding their perceptions of the history lecture (all had completed
at least one history course between 2012 and 2014). The survey was administered at a
moment of change in the teaching culture of the university. While most large classes
were taught with traditional lecturing methods, teaching innovation was given high
priority by the new vice chancellor. In this context, individuals in the Arts faculty
were experimenting with flipped classrooms and other interactive methods in large
classes. The survey yielded responses from 492 students (a response rate of 26%,
which corresponds with 95% confidence in the results). The survey consisted of
21 questions composed of a mix of Likert, ranking, demographic and open-ended
questions. Some of the results are reported below.
Table 5.1 shows strong approval of history courses at the university and indicates
clear support for face-to-face lectures. The Adelaide survey is unique in terms of its
focus on history students, but other studies have documented similar affections for the
lecture among undergraduate students (Covill, 2011). Students were less enthusiastic
about the flipped classroom, though it is likely that some were not sufficiently familiar
with the pedagogy to make a definitive assessment. Only 7% of respondents strongly
agreed with the statement that the flipped format would be an ‘excellent way to
improve learning and engagement’.
Table 5.2 suggests the qualities that students valued in a good lecture. When asked
to rank important characteristics, ‘enthusiasm’, ‘logical organisation’ and ‘interesting
analysis’ were the highest ranked. It is interesting that ‘lecturer–student interaction’
was rated the least important characteristic of a good lecture among the choices
offered and that students seemed content with a monologue performed by a ‘sage on
the stage’ as long as it was clearly and logically organised, presented enthusiastically,
and offered interesting analysis of the topic.
Are history students mistaken to perceive that traditional-format lectures are better
for their learning than flipped classes? To some degree, we believe they are. There
is a strong bias against change in their response, which in part reflects a lack of
familiarity with the flipped classroom and also perhaps a desire for an easier learning
experience. But their responses also confirmed our suspicion that educationalists have
often overstated the deficiencies of the traditional lecture. While it is true that fifty-
minute monologues do not fit with the normal attention span of adult learners, that
content retention can be limited, and that they do not—in traditional form—allow
for constructivist dialogue with student learners, there can be benefits of traditional
lectures. Monologues allow for a depth of reflection that is difficult to achieve when in
dialogue, therefore allowing students to be exposed to a sustained form of evidence-
based argument. The students in the Adelaide survey clearly valued the ‘interesting
analysis’ that a lecturer with expertise in their subject matter can deliver. Others
have made similar observations (Jennings, 2012). Moreover, the enthusiasm that
a good lecturer can bring to the study of a subject, which Adelaide students also
clearly value, has been found by educational scholar Vivian Hodgson to foster ‘deep
Table 5.1 Satisfaction with education, face-to-face lectures and the ‘flipped’ classroom
Question Strongly Agree Neither Disagree Strongly
agree agree nor disagree
disagree
Overall, I am satisfied 22 68 5 5 0
with the quality of
education at [my
university]
Overall, I am satisfied 46 47 5 2 0
with the quality of
education in my history
courses
Face-to-face lectures are 47 29 16 6 2
important for me to
obtain good learning
outcomes in my history
courses
The flipped classroom, 7 30 46 11 6
where you have to
engage with learning
material online before
the lecture (e.g. quizzes,
videos) and then discuss
it in a lecture theatre, is
an excellent way to
improve learning and
engagement
Table 5.2 Ranking of the characteristics of a good history lecture (1–8, highest ranking 1)
Most useful activity Median Interquartile range
Clear, logical organisation 2 1–4
Enthusiastic delivery 2 1–3
Good use of powerpoint 5 3–7
Good use of audio-visual 6 4–7
material
Humour 6 4–7
Interesting argument or 3 2–5
analysis
Interesting human stories 5 3–6
Lecturer–student interaction 6 5–8
learning’ in the student listener (Hodgson, 2005). Such support for traditional-styled
lecturing, coupled with growing revisionist support for learning gains reported in
the educational literature (Hodgson, 2005; Jones, 2007; Schwerdt & Wuppermann,
2011), makes this an attractive option in some cases. In preferring this style of
delivery over the flipped model, teachers need to reflect on whether they also possess
the qualities that students’ value. They should ask themselves: Can I be inspiring?
Can I deliver information in an organised manner? Do I have an eye for interesting
analytical stories that can engage students? Second, they should reflect on the size
of the lecture class and their level of teaching support. Even for historians most
committed to face-to-face interactivity, traditionally delivered lectures are likely to
be required in large courses. For historians in online education, delivering lectures
by podcast or videocast, these same criteria would apply.
5.3 How Should We Lecture?
Given that the history lecture has not been a focus of much educational research, it is
best to gain inspiration from allied disciplines before illustrating what sort of tech-
niques might translate to the history lecture theatre. James Arvanitakis has explored
how lecturing fits into his overall pedagogical strategy in his Introductory Sociology
class called ‘Contemporary Society’, which has over 1000 students (Arvanitakis,
2014). Important for Arvanitakis is approaching lecturing from the perspective of
the learner, with a focus on threshold learning concepts. Arvanitakis works at a uni-
versity serving many first-in-family university students, and rather than lecturing
about the details of complex and arcane theory, he focuses on communicating key
concepts by relating them to commonly understood experiences. When discussing
globalisation, for example, he utilises body procession exercises to show the way
the global economy moves to definable rhythms, and the interconnected nature of
our global lives is demonstrated through a ‘flash mob’, with half of the students
mimicking the movements of the other half. For Arvanitakis, the focus is on core
understandings that can spark interest and motivation for further study. Rather than
a content-rich approach, he pares it down and looks for opportunities for student
engagement, often with an interest in how students view and experience the core
concepts. Thus when we think about how we should lecture we should think about
our students and how best to give them the conceptual tools to engage with the class
(Meyer & Land, 2003; Sendziuk, 2014b).
Another engaging way to approach the history lecture is by viewing it as an
opportunity for storytelling. Stories can be an effective way to generate student
engagement, especially if they lead to a broader discussion of threshold learning
concepts. As one student in the aforementioned University of Adelaide history survey
recalled: ‘I always enjoy the human stories so much—I do know that some lectures
on Eastern European revolutions got me teary. The lecturers that focus on the human
spirit in events are usually wonderful’. Another memorable lecture ‘conveyed the
real human impact of the events that were described’. Such comments show how
historical stories can create emotional experiences, which then can be used by the
history academic to explore key concepts and ideas. It is also worth remembering
that storytelling is not purely a verbal exercise; it is also performative. Gesture,
tone, movement around the lecture hall, even co-opting members of the audience to
facilitate the performance (to read parts, etc.), help convey the drama of the story
and create intimacy and emotional connection. The power of performance, and the
associated learning gains, may be lessened if students only listen to the lecture via
a recording rather than attending in person (Bos et al., 2016; Cramer et al., 2007;
Phillips, 2015; Williams et al., 2012).
Lecturers can certainly benefit from the appropriate use of technology. While
the results of the Adelaide survey (see Table 5.2) did not suggest a strong student
desire for ‘good use of PowerPoint’ or ‘good use of audio-visual material’, there
is evidence from elsewhere that students do support such innovations. Based on
student survey research, Clark argues that old-fashioned forms of lecturing could be
enhanced by going beyond bullet points and using the full extent of PowerPoint’s
capabilities to enhance student engagement (Clark, 2008). Following on from
Clark, Mark Lawrence Schrad advocates a ‘populist’ form of lecture that uses ‘an
ever-changing variety of materials, approaches, humour, visuals, music, pop culture
and video clips’. In his view, these all ‘facilitate great student engagement and
active learning’ and are effective in combating ‘death by PowerPoint’ (Schrad,
2010, p. 759). His survey of students found that students liked teachers who used a
multimedia approach to illustrate key concepts and ideas.
Technology can also be employed to enhance interactivity during lectures. Twitter
feeds can be used to solicit and submit questions during lectures. Internet-based col-
laborative project management tools allow for students to interact collectively, putting
into action themes and ideas introduced during lecture before collective review. Simi-
larly, online survey applications allow for real-time polling of student understanding,
enabling lecturers to address weaknesses in student comprehension in a way that is
anonymous and far more precise than the traditional method of requiring brave stu-
dents to raise their hands.
History lecturers need not rely on digital technology, however, in order to break-up
fifty-minute monologues with interactive elements. Techniques dating back to the era
in which the limited attention span of learners first became known can be rediscovered
and put to use in the history classroom. Elizabeth F. Barkley’s handbook of student
engagement techniques includes dozens of ideas, such as pre-circulating primary
documents and having students discuss how they apply to the historical analysis at
hand, or asking students to write a ‘letter’ from the perspective of a key historical
figure that engages with material presented in the first part of the lecture (Barkley,
2010, pp. 155–185). Research from the 1980s established the learning benefits of
pausing at least three times during a lecture to allow for student discussion in pairs
and then sharing, an approach encapsulated as ‘think, pair, share’ (Bonwell & Eison,
1991, p. 10). Other interactive techniques include asking students what they know
about the topic before the lecture begins, so that it is clearer what needs to be learnt
and then what has been accomplished by the end of the lecture (Bonwell & Eison,
1991, p. 18). The ‘minute paper’ has been used for decades to gauge: ‘What is the
most important thing you learnt in the lecture today?’ and ‘What important questions
remain unanswered?’ (Angelo & Cross, 1993, p. 148). Similarly, students could be
asked to draw up a list of the ‘convincing’ and ‘unconvincing’ aspects of the historical
analysis presented in the lecture, leading to small group or pair discussion before
representatives of these small groups feed back to the entire lecture class (Angelo &
Cross, 1993, p. 168). Many of these techniques build on the insights of collaborative
learning. Thus, lecturers could consider building small group collaborative learning
circles into their lecture classes as a way to facilitate interactive exercises, to build
teamwork and to develop emotional investment in lecture attendance (for the benefits
of cooperative and collaborative learning, see Millis & Cottell, 1998).
So how might all of this work in a history lecture? For example, historian Gareth
Pritchard recalled to the authors a lecture on the Hungarian Revolution of 1956
which he framed as an emotionally engaging story of common struggle against
totalitarian rule. While the story itself is compelling, he augments it by playing a
clip from the final recorded broadcast of the last radio station still in the hands of the
revolutionaries. This emotionally engaging broadcast then can be used to motivate
the students’ own research into the topics of ‘protest’ and ‘revolution’. In our own
teaching, we have had success in allowing students to choose social group ‘tracks’ in
a course, which have their own designed readings and assignments, that then allow
for critical analysis of common lecture experiences from particular perspectives.
Thus after a lecture on the rise of big business in Gilded Age America, students are
asked to assess it from the perspective of the social group they are studying, such as
‘workers’ or ‘elites’. Here, the technique of social group immersion frees students
from having to defend their own views (which are often nascent) and allows for
more vibrant in-lecture discussion than would otherwise be possible. The exercise
also directly relates to an assessment task, thus motivating their participation.
George Mason University Provost and historian, Peter Stearns, has long advocated
for many of the strategies and techniques we have discussed here (1996). He notes
that while learning history through discussion is optimal, cost imperatives make
large groups unavoidable. The key then for lecturers is to optimise the learning
possibilities of this delivery mode. He writes that lecturing should not ‘monopolise’
a history course, that an ‘organised’ approach is crucial, that ‘enthusiasm’ is essential,
and that content should be reduced while focus should be on how to think like an
historian. He argues that active learning techniques should be blended through the
lecture, with group work, polling and in-class written assignments used to reinforce
learning (Stearns, 1996). Stearns wrote just as the Internet was transforming higher
education, but many of his ideas remain useful today.
5.4 Should We Offer Tutorials?
While their pedagogical value has been disputed, lectures remain the most cost-
efficient way to deliver course content. Only one person need be employed, and
only one venue occupied. A tutorial programme, in which students in the course are
divided into smaller groups to be taught at different times and in different places
throughout the week, is much more expensive. When budget savings need to be
made, it is the tutorial programme that has come under most pressure. Twenty years
ago, most History Departments in Australian universities offered 13 or 14 weekly
tutorials of 1–2 hour duration per semester, in which a tutor would preside over a
class of 10–12 students. It is now more common for History Departments to offer 10
tutorials or fewer per semester, with class sizes of 20 and above (Sendziuk, 2015).
As distinct from lectures, which might be attended by hundreds of students at a
time, tutorials offer smaller-group settings that allow students to develop personal
relationships and rapport with each other and their tutor. We have noticed from stu-
dent evaluations of our teaching that students appreciate it when their tutor quickly
learns their names and makes an effort to acknowledge the contributions that they
make in class. For some, this is a precondition for engaging with the course—a point
that is often missed in courses that are entirely delivered as lectures, even interac-
tive ‘flipped’ lectures. The use of tutorial rooms with furniture that can be flexibly
arranged also enables students to be easily divided into even smaller groups and
to move around the room and form circles, which is often impossible to achieve
in-lecture theatres with fixed furniture arranged into narrow rows. It is in such envi-
ronments that students have the greatest opportunity to contribute to discussions, test
what they think they know, and receive individually tailored feedback and acknowl-
edgement from their peers and tutor. They are most effective when carefully inte-
grated into the teaching programme, either reinforcing or extending or allowing
students to challenge information that is presented during lectures.
Tutorials need not be expensive. They can be used to make cost savings associated
with other teaching tasks, such as marking and correcting individual student written
assignments, duties often shared with casual staff who must be paid. Marking such
assignments is incredibly labour intensive, yet it is common for history course coor-
dinators to assign two essays (the largest typically 2500–3000 words in length), or
a research essay and a critical review, and/or a bibliographic exercise and perhaps
also weekly summaries of readings as assessment tasks in a single course. Yet there
are alternative assessment tasks that could be completed and assessed during tutori-
als, and these can both foster ‘learning through assessment’ (see Carless, 2007) and
allow students to prove they have acquired a range of desired skills and attributes.
For example, a number of years ago one of us replaced the second written assessment
task in his courses with a group activity that could be assessed by the tutor during
class time. This has taken various formats, such as having students compile and
present museum-style exhibitions on a theme, role-play, or engage in Oxford-style
debates (One of these tasks is comprehensively described and evaluated in Sendziuk
(2007).). They are all prepared by students working in groups mostly outside of class
but presented and assessed quickly and efficiently during tutorial time. Personalised
verbal feedback is delivered immediately and up to six students’ work is assessed
at once, without the need for any money to cover extra marking hours worked by
the tutor. Peer feedback and peer- and self-assessment can also be incorporated into
these activities (for justification and advice about how to best implement these prac-
tices, see Boud, 2001; Boud & Falchikov, 1989; Falchikov, 2005; Sendziuk, 2010;
Taras, 1999). They are just some of many options that could be explored; there is a
vast literature concerning in-class and group-based assessment tasks, as well as how
to assess student performance in these activities fairly, that teachers might adopt or
modify or use for inspiration (For an overview of the most important principles to
consider when designing and assessing group work activities, see James, Mclnnis and
Devlin (2002), and, in a history-specific context, Booth (1996). For ideas regarding
alternative forms of assessment, see Booth (2003), especially Chap. 8.).
5.5 What Format Should Tutorials Take?
Having established the utility of tutorials, and their potential cost-efficiency, we turn
our attention to determining the most engaging and effective forms of history tutorial.
There are a variety of formats from which to choose, with the four most common
being large (entire-class) discussions, small group discussions, role-plays and dis-
cussions conducted via the Internet. Each has their advantages and disadvantages,
so teachers should aim to adopt a format that suits the topic being taught and the
needs of the varying types of students in the course. Students studying off-campus,
for example, largely rely on online discussion regardless of its pedagogical benefits
or deficiencies. Moreover, one size certainly does not fit all, and courses would be
rather dull if every tutorial was conducted in exactly the same manner. Nonetheless,
in the course of providing professional development workshops for teachers, we
have often been asked: which tutorial formats do students generally find the most
engaging, motivating and effective? Such factors have implications for the reten-
tion of students and their overall satisfaction with their university experience. We
endeavoured to find out by conducting a survey of a group of history students at our
university. We were also interested to test our university administration’s assertion
that students prefer (or at least like) online teaching and learning and find Internet-
based tutorials to be motivating and effective. Scholarship in the field provides some
support for this assertion (see, e.g., Comer & Lenaghan, 2013; Means et al., 2009;
Sweeney et al., 2004), but anecdotal feedback from our students suggested otherwise.
The survey was conducted in a history course titled ‘Australia and the World’
that was offered to second- and third-year students. During the course, four different
tutorial formats were employed, with students experiencing each format at least
twice prior to being asked to compare them. One of us (Sendziuk) facilitated all of
the tutorials in the course. The results of the survey were thus not affected by some
students responding to the personality of a different teacher. A brief description
of each tutorial format follows (For a more detailed description of the role-play
activities, and an explanation of how the online discussions were organised and
conducted in this specific course, see Sendziuk (2014a).).
Large group discussion: students sit in a large circle as the tutor leads a group
discussion, which generally entails analysing primary source documents and talking
about the assigned reading that students should complete prior to class. The tutor
might use focus questions (provided in advance) and/or adopt the role of ‘devil’s
advocate’ to stimulate discussion.
Small group discussion: the tutor breaks the class into small groups of 3–5 students
to discuss a number of set questions. The tutor then circulates between groups,
listening in, occasionally posing questions, or asking for students to clarify their
positions. An extension of this format is for representatives of each small group to
periodically report back to the entire class.
Role-play: students are required to research the position of an actual historical

figure/group, and play that person/group in a re-enactment of an actual event, such
as a town hall meeting.
Asynchronous online discussion: rather than attending a physical classroom, stu-

dents participate in a ‘threaded’ discussion held in a ‘virtual’ classroom via an online
learning platform.
The online tutorials took place in Weeks 6 and 8 of the course, by which time students
were well acquainted with each other. It should have been a comfortable environment
for them to engage with their classmates.
At the end of the course, students were asked to complete a non-compulsory
and anonymous questionnaire requiring them to rank the tutorial formats against
each other on a scale of 1 to 4 according to various learning objectives. Forty-nine
students answered all of the questions and met the criteria of experiencing each of
the tutorial formats at least twice, an effective response rate of 72%. We report on
five of the learning objectives that students were asked to consider when ranking the
tutorial formats. (For elaboration, and discussion of the students’ consideration of
three further objectives, see Sendziuk (2014a).) These were:
1. which tutorial format was the most enjoyable;

2. which tutorial format entailed the least potential for student embarrassment or
feeling of intimidation;
3. which tutorial format offered the greatest opportunity for the student to contribute
meaningfully to the discussion;
4. which tutorial format provided the student with the greatest motivation to prepare
and participate; and
5. which tutorial format was the most effective in facilitating learning.
Figures 5.1 and 5.2 display the students’ response regarding the question of enjoy-
ment. The small group discussion was rated most enjoyable by the majority of stu-
dents (40.8%), while online discussion was favoured least by a considerable margin;
Most enjoyable tutorial format
Percentage of students in agreement

45
40
35
30
25
20 .
15
10
5
0
Small group Large group Role-play Online discussion
Fig. 5.1 Tutorial format considered to be the most enjoyable
Tutorial format considered either the first or second 'most

enjoyable'
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Fig. 5.2 Tutorial format considered either the first or second most enjoyable
none of the students rated it their most enjoyable format; only 22% ranked it in the
top two of the four options. (The second graph was compiled by determining the
proportion of students in the total cohort who nominated a particular tutorial style
as either their first or second choice.) Over one-fifth of the respondents nominated
role-play as the most enjoyable tutorial format, and 44.9% of students placed it in
their top two, which might surprise those who believe that adult learners are above
‘playing games’.
Figures 5.3 and 5.4 display the student responses to the question about which
tutorial format was the least intimidating. Students were given some guidance in
answering this question, with ‘least intimidating’ defined as the least potential for
students to embarrass themselves. The question was premised on the notion that stu-
dents feel intimidated to participate in tutorial activities (and often will not) when they
fear that they will embarrass themselves, either by having their ignorance exposed
or saying something wrong, offensive or in poorly expressed English.
Least intimidating tutorial format (i.e. least potential for

student embarrassment)
50
45
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
Fig. 5.3 Tutorial format considered to be the least intimidating (i.e. entailing the least potential for
student embarrassment)
Least or second least intimidating tutorial format

90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Fig. 5.4 Tutorial format considered to be the least or second least intimidating (i.e. entailing the
least or second least potential for student embarrassment)
The small group discussion format was again considered best in this regard, with
44.9% of students placing it first and 77.6% placing it in their top two. This is likely
because students felt less exposed in a small group, knowing that only two or three
other people, rather than an entire class, would hear them say something potentially
wrong or offensive or in poorly expressed English. Those feeling pressured to perform
in front of the tutor might have also favoured this option, as classes divided into small
groups do not enable the tutor to listen into all of the discussions simultaneously.
More surprising was the result regarding role-play. The second highest number
of students ranked role-play as entailing the least potential for embarrassment or
intimidation, even though students were required to speak publicly and at some
length during the role-play activities and have their research (or lack of) exposed for
all to see. They did, however, have the benefit of preparing their remarks in advance
and could use notes. Some might have also felt more at ease presenting the opinions
of a historical character rather than their own. Importantly, the results indicate that
Tutorial format offering the greatest opportunity for students

to meaningfully contribute
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Fig. 5.5 Tutorial format considered to offer the greatest opportunity for students to meaningfully
contribute
this particular activity gave students confidence and a willingness to speak, and,
indeed, got them doing so very early in semester.
One might have expected the online threaded discussion format to have been
favoured more highly according to this criterion. One of the benefits of asynchronous
online discussion is that it removes the pressure for students to perform ‘on the
spot’ and enables students time to consider the question, prepare a response and
frame it in correct English (Al-Shalchi, 2009; Rainsbury & Malcolm, 2003; Rollag,
2010). Such opportunities are considered to particularly benefit shy and less confident
students or those who speak English as a second language (Ellis, 2003; Tiene, 2000).
Nevertheless, only 16.3% of students ranked it as the format entailing the least
potential for embarrassment or intimidation, and only 34.7% of students ranked it in
their top two. In both counts, it lagged behind the other three options. The permanence
of the students’ posts and the consequential extra scrutiny that they might attract,
and the pressure to match other students’ well-researched responses, are possible
explanations for this result.
Figures 5.5 and 5.6 display the responses to the question of which tutorial format
offered the greatest opportunity for students to make a meaningful contribution. The
question is a vital one because students who find it difficult to participate meaning-
fully in tutorials are unable to have their knowledge of the subject content tested or
challenged and are also more likely to become bored, frustrated and to stop attending
classes. None of these outcomes can be considered desirable for student learning or
retention in the course.
Tutorial format offering the greatest or second greatest

opportunity for students to meaningfully contribute
Percentage of students in agreement 90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Fig. 5.6 Tutorial format considered to offer the greatest or second greatest opportunity for students
to meaningfully contribute
The overwhelming majority of students felt that the small group discussions
allowed them to make their most meaningful contributions. Some 51% of students
ranked it first, while 77.6% ranked it in the top two. This contrasts the students’
perception of large group discussions (rated best according to this criterion by only
8.2% of students), in which students effectively compete against many more of their
peers for time to speak and respond. It is much easier to canvas every student’s view,
and for them to have time to justify their position and challenge others, in a small
group as opposed to an entire class, especially when class sizes often now exceed
twenty bodies.
The survey shows that students were more ambivalent about the online discus-
sions, which, contrary to expectations, did not outperform the role-play tutorials
according to this criterion. 22.4% of students felt that the online discussions allowed
them to make their most meaningful contributions to the tutorial (compared with
18.4% of students who nominated role-plays), but not many more students ranked
it as either first or second preference (34.7%). On this scale, as Fig. 5.6 shows, it
lagged behind the other three options including role-play. This result was unexpected
because one of the much vaunted advantages of online discussion is that it allows
students to contribute whenever and as much as they wish (Sweeney et al., 2004;
Wang & Woo, 2007). They are no longer competing against other student voices or
the constraints of time. Moreover, they have the opportunity to analyse other student
contributions and to frame their responses accordingly while referencing quotes,
page numbers and URLs from texts and websites. One would imagine that the qual-
ity—or the meaningfulness—of the student contributions should be greater. Yet by
and large they did not think so. This is possibly due to the commonly acknowledged
problem of asynchronous online discussion whereby a student might enthusiastically
post contributions yet receive no response or acknowledgement from other students
for many days, if at all (Hew & Cheung, 2012; Lee et al., 2011). If students feel that
their contributions are not being valued (or even read) by their peers—and even if
this happens on just one occasion—they are prone to feeling that their contribution
is worthless. This dilemma helps to explain the students’ responses to other survey
questions as well. It is also impossible for text-based online discussion participants
to give and receive non-verbal cues of acceptance or rejection (such as eager nodding
of the head, glazed stares or hand gestures), which means that they miss out on
receiving vital feedback regarding the usefulness of their contributions.
Most teachers would profess that a crucial precursor to a successful tutorial is
preparation and participation on the part of the student. If students do not feel moti-
vated to prepare for tutorials—in the case of this course, completing the required
reading and considering questions prior to the class—then they are less likely to
have anything to contribute to the discussion and may well decide to skip the class.
Which tutorial format, then, provided the greatest motivation for the students to pre-
pare for class and participate? In asking this question, we grouped small and large
group discussions together, as prior to attending class the students were not aware
of the type of group discussion in which they would participate, unlike the role-play
and online tutorials. Given that only three tutorial formats are now being compared,
there is little point in presenting the data regarding the students’ top two preferred
options.
As Fig. 5.7 illustrates, the role-play most motivated the students to prepare and
participate, with 63.3% of respondents ranking this type of tutorial first. The in-class
discussions were ranked second and the online discussions proved to be the least
motivating tutorial format, with only 10.2% of the students nominating this as their
first option. The reasons for role-play faring so well are reasonably obvious but should
nevertheless be noted. Approaching the role-play tutorial, students understood that
they would be required to speak during class and that they, quite literally, had a
role to play. The activity was not, however, too intimidating: they knew what format
their contribution would take and were provided with advice as to how to research
their role. They likely feared looking foolish if they underprepared for the class, but
appreciated that the task was manageable and that their peers would all be feeling and
doing likewise. The knowledge that all of their preparation would be drawn upon
come tutorial time was another (and hopefully more pervasive) motivating factor.
Unlike entire-class discussion circles, they would definitely have the opportunity
to speak during class and have their work acknowledged, and knew they would be
unable to ‘hide’ behind the work of other students.
That far fewer students nominated the online tutorial format as the one that most
motivated them to prepare and contribute, coupled with the fact that the online tuto-
rials had the lowest attendance/participation rate, is concerning. It has been posited
that students are more motivated to prepare for, and carefully construct their con-
tributions to, online discussions because their words are effectively being published
for all to see, and remain on record (Sweeney et al., 2004). If this was the case, it
was not reflected in the responses to our survey. Student motivation to prepare for,
and participate in, online threaded discussions might be enhanced by the tutor offer-
ing a ‘carrot’ and/or a ‘stick’—awarding marks for the quality and quantity of their
posts that count towards their final grades, for example. However, it would suggest
that something might be amiss with the intrinsic nature of online discussion-based
tutorials if such inducements were mandatory in order for them to succeed. Con-
Tutorial format providing students with the greatest

motivation to prepare and participate
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Large and Small groups Role-play Online discussion
Fig. 5.7 Tutorial format providing students with the greatest motivation to prepare and participate
sensus on this matter has not yet been reached. While Berry (2008) argues that the
awarding of marks to motivate participation is ‘essential’, Knowlton (2005) argues
that compulsion for students to participate inhibits deep engagement with the task,
as they seek to meet minimum standards rather than actively participate and reflect
upon and analyse others’ contributions. Pena-Shaff, Altman, and Stephenson (2005,
p. 421) also report a negative impact on participation when discussions are graded,
finding that some students ‘rebelled against the fact that discussions were graded’.
Which brings us to the final question: which tutorial format did the students
perceive as the most effective in facilitating learning? This question deviated from
asking students to consider factors that promoted or impeded engagement with their
classes to focus on their perceived learning outcomes. In our minds, the two are
closely linked, for it is unlikely that students will attain optimal learning outcomes if
they are insufficiently engaged. Given that the students consistently rated small group
discussions first for the majority of the learning objectives, we expected that this trend
would continue for this final question. However, as Fig. 5.8 displays, the majority of
students preferred the large group discussions (with 37.5% ranking this their most
preferred format), and more students nominated role-play as the most effective format
in facilitating learning (31.3% of respondents) than those who ranked small group
discussions first (25%). Very few students (just 6.2%) felt the online tutorials were
the most effective.
The ranking order altered when the students’ top two options were determined (see
Fig. 5.9). The majority of students now preferred small group discussions (64.6%
of students placed it first or second), followed by role-play (62.5%) and large group
discussions (58.3%). Online discussions again fared poorly, with only 14.6% of
students ranking it first or second of the four formats in terms of their perceived
effectiveness in facilitating learning.
What might we make of these results? First, the fact that the large group discussion
format was ranked first by the majority of students (albeit by a small margin) suggests
that many students clearly value the presence of a tutor in discussions and perhaps still
Tutorial format that was the most effective in facilitating

learning
Percentage of students in agreement 40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
Fig. 5.8 Student perception of the tutorial format that was the most effective in facilitating learning
Tutorial format that was the first or second most effective in

facilitating learning
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Fig. 5.9 Student perception of the tutorial format that was the first or second most effective in
facilitating learning
look to the tutor, rather than their peers, to teach them ‘what they need to know’. While
many teachers in tertiary education are moving away from the top-down model of
teaching in which they perform as the ‘sage on the stage’, it looks like some students
are not yet ready to move with them. Nevertheless, small group discussions received
the majority of first or second placings, which indicates that many other students feel
they can cope and thrive when largely relying on each other in more intimate settings
to work through key concepts and discuss course content. Given that the real-time
classroom-based activities received the overwhelming majority of first and second
preferences, the findings also suggest that students have more doubts about whether
they are experiencing effective teaching and learning in an asynchronous online
environment. University administrations and advocates of online learning might be
convinced of the benefits of online learning, but these students were much less certain.
We add one caveat to this conclusion: the students in our survey were nearly all aged
between 18 and 25 years of age (and thus most likely to be comfortable with using
computers for a range of activities), but they were still attending a university that
primarily offers face-to-face instruction. Their choice of institution thus perhaps

predetermined their attitude towards online forms of teaching and learning.
Perhaps the most interesting conclusion to draw from the students’ responses to
this question is that they believe that role-play is an effective learning strategy (or,
at least, it is more effective than other more commonly employed activities). The
students ranked it first when considering which tutorial format most motivated them
to prepare for the tutorial (Fig. 5.7), and which required them to do the most work
(this additional learning objective is examined in Sendziuk (2014a)), which perhaps
explains why they felt this way. That students rated it so highly (and that 45% of them
ranked it first or second in terms of enjoyment) might come as a surprise to many
staff teaching in the humanities at a tertiary level, as anecdotal evidence indicates
that very few teachers employ role-play activities in their courses. Role-play is a
standard teaching and learning method in other disciplines such as law and medical
education, but is infrequently used to teach history and other ‘humanities’ subjects,
at least in Australia, although it is more prevalent in American institutions (There
are notable exceptions; see, for example, Brawley (2004), Beidatsch and Broomhall
(2010), and Carnes (2014).). Humanities teachers perhaps view role-play as ‘child’s
play’ and fear that students will see it as silly. Certainly, if the role-play is not well
designed, or if the tutor fails to ‘sell’ the activity, role-plays can fall flat. But our
evaluation suggests that with the right approach, they can be enjoyable and valuable
learning experiences.
Since the survey indicates that students respond well to role-play, one way to
improve the online threaded discussion experience might be to incorporate a role-
play element, such as by students participating in a discussion-based hypothetical
scenario and adopting the role of a specific stakeholder (or in the case of our discipline,
a historical figure), whose position they must research and present in the course of
the discussion. These types of activities were being used by teachers both before
and after this survey was conducted, and we have both since employed them in the
courses that we teach.
5.6 Conclusion
The responses of the students to the questions point to a strong preference for small
group activities over large entire-class discussions and indicate dissatisfaction with
‘virtual’ tutorials conducted as online threaded discussions, which were rated last for
the majority of learning objectives that were considered. This suggests that student
enthusiasm for online tutorials as an adjunct to, or replacement for, face-to-face teach-
ing and learning does not match the enthusiasm of their advocates. With this noted,
one must acknowledge that surveys such as these, which aggregate the responses
of an entire student cohort, obscure important individual needs. While the majority
of students have problems with tutorials conducted as online discussions based on
a range of criteria, they still serve a purpose for students with onerous family or
work commitments that prevent them attending regular classes during the day. What
cannot be disputed is the importance of offering a small group-oriented tutorial pro-

gramme of some kind. Similarly, we see a future for the history lecture, but one
that is adaptive to the digital environment and sympathetic to the needs and desires
of our students. This might mean ‘flipping’ classes, at least some of them, if the
environment is suitable. It is essential to make students aware of why lecture atten-
dance is beneficial in terms of learning outcomes and assessment. At the same time,
it is important for lecturers to craft emotionally connecting, analytical lectures that
engage students on a number of levels and which draw them to the lecture hall. They
should be delivered with enthusiasm and always linked to a communication strategy
that aims to motivate student activity in a variety of ways beyond active listening.
In our own institutional context in which large group teaching is prevalent as never
before, we believe—following the cited University of Adelaide student survey—that
we need to continue delivering lectures, albeit improved ones, and should not blindly
adopt technological innovations in digital delivery without considering the benefits
or alternatives.
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Chapter 6
Progression: Principles and Practice
Geoff Timmins
Abstract This chapter is concerned with the ways in which learning and teaching
history at degree level can be made more challenging for students as they proceed
through their programmes of study, thereby helping them to become more proficient
historians able to achieve higher levels of scholarship. The matter is addressed in
relation to the key curricular dimensions of content selection; enhancing students’
cognitive skills; learning and teaching approaches; and assessing students’ work.
The literature relating to these matters provides a context for discussion, highlight-
ing problems and possibilities that arise. Consideration is given to the need for pro-
gression to be devised and articulated, taking into account the perspectives of both
teachers and taught. For the most part, discussion is concerned with analysing exam-
ples of the approaches being adopted to progression matters by university history
departments in various parts of the world. Particular attention is paid to the ways in
which the provision they make is differentiated from level to level in the programmes
they offer and to the underpinning rationale.
6.1 Introduction
In discussing the design of history undergraduate courses, Alan Booth notes the ten-
sion that arises between structuring students’ learning and giving them freedom of
choice to learn as they wish. He sees decisions about the balance to be struck as
being amongst the most challenging aspects of course design. He fully recognises
the importance of motivating students by giving them ownership over their learning,
but he also points out that a ‘clear structuring and sequencing of material in terms
of learning are essential in order to ensure coherence and progression in learning’
(Booth, 2003, p. 72). In developing such an approach, enhancing the understanding
that students have of the nature of history as an academic discipline, as well as fos-
tering their ability and confidence to engage more effectively in historical practices,
G. Timmins (B)
University of Central Lancashire, Preston, UK
e-mail: JGTimmins@uclan.ac.uk

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0047-9_6
114 G. Timmins
both enter into account. Moreover, since history is a non-sequential subject, no fixed
order of progression arises in seeking to achieve these objectives. Rather an itera-
tive process is involved, that reinforces and develops students’ knowledge, including
their conceptual appreciation, and their skills, both in intellectual and personal terms
(Booth, 2003, pp. 20–22; QAA, 2014, p. 13).
The Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) benchmarking recommendations, which
aim to influence learning and teaching in degree-level programmes in the UK, draw
attention to addressing progression matters in relation to various subject areas. As
far as history is concerned, course teams are urged to demonstrate how their students
will gain ‘in competence, insight and performance’ whilst progressing through their
degree programmes. The recommendations suggest two means of so doing. One is
for students to undertake the same type of activities with growing proficiency as they
encounter varying subject matter. The other is to designate some courses as being
concerned with particular aspects of historical study and show how students will
progress as they move through them. The statement stresses that history departments
have a responsibility to ‘clearly and explicitly articulate’ how progression will be
facilitated over their degree programmes (QAA, 2014, p. 13).
Such a recommendation may be seen to have general applicability within under-
graduate history programmes and, for that matter, within other subject disciplines
and phases of education. Implicit in its implementation is the need to determine the
competency levels that can be expected of students at the completion of their degree
courses. In determining these levels, and with achieving comparability of standards in
mind, national and international frameworks have been devised for different phases
of educational provision. Besides the Australian Qualifications Framework (AQF),
they include the American Historical Association’s History Tuning Project: History
Discipline Core and, in the UK, the QAA’s, Framework for Higher Education Qual-
ifications in England Wales and Northern Island. The descriptors contained within
these frameworks provide guidance on the types of outcomes that should be demon-
strated to gain a particular award. Additionally, the question of competency levels
within designated phases of degree courses arises. At issue here is determining how
provision is differentiated between these phases so that more challenging activities
are introduced as students move through them.
In discussing the matter with regard to history undergraduate programmes, this
chapter begins with observations on why delineating progression and differentiation
has a crucial role to play in curriculum planning and delivery. The perspectives of both
teacher and taught are taken into account. The sections that follow deal with devis-
ing progression and differentiation in the key curricular areas of content selection;
developing historical skills; approaches to learning and teaching; and assessment of
students’ work. In each section, discussion draws on examples of approaches adopted
in university history departments from around the world and on the secondary lit-
erature. The intention is partly to identify discussion points that arise in addressing
these matters, but also to appreciate, and gain from, the views and experiences of
those who have been concerned with their implementation.
6 Progression: Principles and Practice 115
6.2 Why Implement Progression?
From the perspective of academic staff, the notion of operating within a framework of
progression and differentiation may not be welcomed. Surely, it might be contended,
they are in the best position to find ways of creating ever more challenging courses
for the students they teach. Such an argument certainly has substance if too tight a
degree of control over their actions is sought. Yet without a measure of constraint,
dangers arise in planning and delivering history curricula, particularly with regard
to attainment levels and the types of learning and teaching that students experience.
In relation to the former, members of course teams acting as individuals may have
quite differing views about what, in general, their students should be achieving at
each level of provision; either too little or too much might be expected of them.
The issue may be of more concern with large than with small teaching teams, and
one that working within national standards’ frameworks can help to overcome. As
to the latter, the issue is whether courses made available at particular levels enable
students to engage sufficiently with activities that are deemed to be important in
enhancing their understanding. An example might be to use primary material far
more in informing seminar discussion at level 2 compared with level 1. Unless such
requirements are heeded, the collective efforts of the course team in meeting level
expectations will be weakened and some students less well prepared than others in
proceeding to the next level of provision.
From the perspective of students, frameworks of progression and differentiation
are crucial in helping them to know what is expected as they move from one level to
the next, as well as to appreciate the nature and degree of the incremental steps they
take. Again, issues concerning levels of attainment and types of experience arise.
If students are to be encouraged to achieve higher levels of competence, they need
to be clear about what is involved in the process, including their responsibilities,
and of the stages through which they will pass. It is all too easy to assume that they
will appreciate how programmes encourage them to develop expertise in relation
both to familiar and unfamiliar types of task, but whether they do so or not is another
matter. Without clearly articulated and explicit guidance of the type envisaged by UK
benchmarking, students may well continue to operate in ways that characterise early
stages of provision. Furthermore, unless students can expect a reasonable degree of
consistency about the requirements made at different levels of provision, they will
lack general direction and be less able to benefit from the additional reinforcement
that a collective approach from teaching teams to assessment methods at each level
can engender.
6.3 Content Selection
The survey course unit, the content of which can range the centuries and which
emphasises the transmission of knowledge from teacher to taught, has long been
favoured at an introductory level in history degree courses (Sipress & Voelker, 2011).
116 G. Timmins
Its popularity reflects a perceived need for undergraduates to acquire a broadly-based

platform of knowledge for contextual purposes before they can satisfactorily under-
take more specialised, in-depth study. Other reasons include providing opportunity
for students to engage with the problem of periodisation in history and the possibility
of awakening new interests amongst them at an early stage in their studies, perhaps
in relation to a particular era or geographical area (Timmins, Vernon, & Kinealy,
2005, pp. 45 and 72–5). Some websites outline the nature of content progressions,
including at the University of Toronto (2016).
100-level courses are designed for students entering university. They take a broad
sweep of material and introduce students to the methods and techniques of university
study.
200-level courses are surveys that introduce in broad outlines the history of a partic-
ular country, region, continent or theme. Most are essential background for further
upper-level study in the area.
300-level courses are more specialised and intensive. They deal with more closely
defined periods or themes.
400-level courses are two-hour seminars that deal with very specialised subjects and
are often closely connected to a professor’s research.
As with this example, questions arise about precisely where the temporal and geo-
graphical boundaries are drawn between courses offered at each level and how much
precision is required in this respect. Perusal of course offerings give some indica-
tion, but where large numbers of them are available at each level, the nature of the
differentiation is hard to determine. The difficulty of designating and defining level
differences becomes greater as the number of levels increases. Overview, thematic
and in-depth may be useful terms to use in distinguishing three levels, with a nar-
rowing of content coverage being implied. But what if a fourth, more demanding
level is required? Given the nature of provision widely found at final-year level, the
answer may be to draw the distinction in terms of skills rather than content. A term
such as ‘research-based course’ may be appropriate.
If the notion of moving from breadth to depth in content coverage is accepted, how
extensive should coverage be at the outset? Might even major and single-honours
students be required to deal with a great amount of history in which they have no
particular interest on the assumption that at least some contextual value will occur at a
later stage in their studies? Certainly, the very broadly-based units that are commonly
offered at an introductory level have been subjected to telling criticism, including
that put forward by Bruce VanSledright of the University of Maryland, College Park
(VanSledright, 2007). With future teachers in mind, he remarks:
In short, historians teaching those survey courses attempt to regale their audiences with
stories about the past on the assumption that, if you tell them—that student audience—the
story, they will know it. Rarely, if ever, because there is so little time, do those future teachers
hear about how it is that this ‘hi-story’ came to be. Few historians appear to pull the blanket
back and reveal the debates and arguments the profession has entertained as practitioners
sought to construct acceptable histories from the vastness we call the past.
Provision is predicated, he contends, on the ‘quaint notion’ that telling students about
historical findings results in them learning and knowing, but they learn virtually
nothing about the nature of history as an academic discipline.
But should content progression move from breadth to depth? The UK history
benchmarking statement suggests that, in principle, there is no reason why courses
dealing with a broad chronological or geographical range should be more strongly
represented in the earlier rather than the later stages of history programmes. And
innovative ways of adding breadth in the later stages of provision have been imple-
mented. They include the Craft and Theory of World History, an upper-level course
offering at Wabash College, Indiana. Students taking this course read secondary lit-
erature about world history, including textbooks, more for historiographical analysis
than for content, so that attention can be focused on the theories and practices of
world history (Wabash, 2016).
The question of introducing breadth in upper-level history courses has been of
concern to those meeting the needs of future school teachers, an issue of major
importance if history is to flourish as an academic discipline. Fritz Fischer of the
University of Northern Colorado is amongst them. He maintains that a disservice is
done to history undergraduates if they experience only broadly-based survey courses
in large, first-level classes. What they need, he argues, is the opportunity to think
broadly about historical topics throughout their university experience. He draws
attention to his advanced-level US history course, which does not ‘cover’ US history,
but instead tries to uncover answers to a wide array of historical problems across the
broad sweep of American history (Fischer, 2006). To take another example, Leah
Shopkow at Indiana University offers an upper-level seminar entitled World History
on the Fly (Indiana University, 2016a, b). She concentrates on the first half of the
traditional survey course in world history—that is, the world to about 1450. She
deals with content, including its organisation for learning and teaching purposes, but
also promotes a greater understanding of historical thinking than occurs with lower-
level provision of this type, partly, as in the Wabash example, by incorporating a
theoretical dimension.
That theory can be used as a means of creating more demanding learning and
teaching provision raises an important issue concerning content progression. The
notion gives rise to questions about the extent to which the content of undergraduate
history courses should incorporate theoretical perspectives and what these should
be, as well as where they should be placed. Guidance is provided in the AQF, which
includes theory as a knowledge element at various levels and attempts to define
how theoretical inputs can be made more demanding from one level to the next.
Thus, associate degree graduates (level 6) are expected to have ‘broad’ theoretical
knowledge, whilst ‘advanced’ theoretical knowledge is expected of bachelor honours
degree graduates (level 8). How distinctions of this type might be drawn in practice
can be seen in examples suggested by Simon Gunn and Stuart Rawnsley, one of
which is reproduced below (Gunn & Rawnsley, 2004).
118 G. Timmins
Level 1—Empiricism—‘commonsense’ approaches to history.

Level 2—‘Materialist’ histories (e.g. Marxist, socialist, feminist), approaches which
in various ways critique empiricism.
Level 3—Post-structuralist approaches (e.g. forms of gender and postcolonial the-
ory), which further complicate the debate about what history ‘is’ and does.
A further means of adding breadth to content coverage in upper-level provision is
evident in capstone courses that encourage students to reflect on the experiences
they have had in studying history throughout their undergraduate programme. A
compulsory, final-year course entitled The Uses of History offered at the University
of Sheffield provides an instructive example. The module, which comprises twelve
lectures and twelve seminars, encourages and guides reflection on the nature of
history as a discipline and on the questions raised by representations of the past,
in both academic and non-academic settings. Students study and debate important
questions facing historians in the present and consider ideas about the role and
purposes of history as an academic subject (University of Sheffield, 2016).
6.4 Developing Historical Skills
The literature on higher education history teaching draws attention to a varied range
of historical skills with which history students engage. Some can be perceived as
being subject specific. They include appreciating the complexity that can arise in
considering past situations and events; understanding the nature of change and con-
tinuity over time; and being aware of how the past has shaped the present. Others can
be regarded as generic or transferable and can include social as well as intellectual
skills. Amongst them are the abilities to evaluate the reliability of evidence; to struc-
ture and communicate findings effectively; to offer informed interpretations; and to
work constructively in groups. As well as in studying history, such skills are seen to
have high use value in a variety of workplace situations, as well as in everyday life
(AQF, 2013, p. 11; Timmins, et al., 2005, pp. 96–131; QAA, 2014, pp. 9–10).
To a greater or lesser extent, all courses within history programmes raise stu-
dents’ awareness of the skills required in historical study. Such awareness may be
transmitted in lectures, as well as being encountered in reading and through prac-
tical engagement with primary and secondary evidence. Yet questions arise about
enhancing these skills from one level to the next. In particular, what emphasis should
be placed on developing them at each level of provision and in what ways can skills-
orientated tasks be made more demanding for students as they proceed through their
programmes of study?
The growing emphasis placed on the skills agenda in designing history degree
courses brings a need to ensure that, from the outset of their studies, undergraduates
are made aware of its nature and significance. To some extent, they will be informed
on these matters through previous study, since skills-based approaches have gained
wide acceptance at school level. Examples include the HSC History Extension course,
offered in New South Wales secondary schools, which has historiographical appre-
ciation and historical enquiry as underpinning elements. In the UK, the example of
the Schools History Project, available as a course at secondary school level, may
be cited. Again historical enquiry features with students using primary sources to
engage with a range of historical interpretations (Schools History Project). Under-
graduates will also have read, hopefully with a questioning attitude, the advertising
literature that history departments offer, which can pay considerable attention to the
types of skills that their courses foster. Even so, they will need reminding about the
types of cognitive and other skills that are important in historical study and of the
opportunities they will have during their degree course to become more proficient in
mastering them.
So, in what ways and how far should awareness raising about developing skills
be incorporated in the first level of history degree courses? Information provided in
course handbooks and induction sessions will certainly help. But should first-level
provision include at least one compulsory course that focuses on developing skills
within the confines of a limited range of content that can be studied in-depth, perhaps
involving students in practical activity? After all, it is widely accepted that broadly-
based content courses at this level are to be commended in terms of scene setting
and providing context for subsequent study. If the development of skills is also seen
as a key function of history degree courses, should it not be equally privileged, even
though, as a result, content coverage is reduced?
In British universities, such units are frequently provided. The University of Not-
tingham, for example, offers Learning History, a compulsory module that introduces
students to differing approaches used in studying history and involves them in group
projects (Booth, 2001). At Newcastle University, students take Evidence and Argu-
ment, which provides an in-depth introduction to the nature of historiographical
debate and gives them insights into the type of reading, research and writing skills
they will use throughout their degree programme. The course is compulsory, as is
the accompanying Varieties of History, which introduces them to a range of histor-
ical techniques. Another example is the Time Detectives course available at Edge
Hill University, which introduces the ‘tools and methods required to become an
independent researcher’. Included amongst them are selecting and interpreting pri-
mary evidence; locating secondary sources independently; and using digital tools
and archives effectively. Students also apply the research skills learned to a specific
historical problem to produce an original argument that is clear and convincing (Edge
Hill University, 2016).
Examples of similar courses at first year level, some reinforcing the notion of his-
tory students acting as detectives, are provided in other parts of the world, including
the USA. At the University of Maine, history major students are required to take The
Craft of Historical Detection, which concentrates on a single case study or historical
controversy. The students consider the related historiography and, using a range of
primary source material, make their own assessments of it (University of Maine,
2016). At the University of Connecticut, provision includes The Historian as Detec-
tive. Students use historical documents to reconstruct and explain an incident in the
past. The emphasis is on developing historical research skills, including evaluating
120 G. Timmins
evidence; explaining cause and effect; and understanding events in their broader con-
texts (University of Connecticut, 2016–7). The course is not compulsory, however.
Nor is Forensic Histories, which is available to first-year students at University of
Otago. The course outline states that doing research is like being a detective, with
evidence about the past being sought and one clue leading to another. Students are
made aware that some clues are trustworthy and others not and are provided with an
introduction to essential research skills, such as locating and interpreting historical
information (University of Otago, 2016).
Beyond the first level of study, skills-based courses become more frequent in
history programmes, especially to prepare students for the demands of final-level
projects or dissertations. The pattern of provision varies. In some cases, a single
course at second- or third-year levels is mounted, as at Siena College, New York.
Here a course designed initially to teach methods and historiography to first-year and
sophomore students has been moved to the junior year. The move occurred because
seniors felt they never fully grasped the topics taught in the course so early in their
studies and trying to write a lengthy paper in one semester proved too challenging
for many of them (Pojmann, Eelman, Reeves-Ellington, & Taylor, 2009). In other
instances, courses are made available at more than one programme level, giving stu-
dents a great deal of scope to extend and deepen their experience in research activities.
This is the case at the University of Connecticut. Following on from the first-level
course, the students can take The Historian’s Craft at level 2—a compulsory course
for history major students—and History Workshop at level 3. The former is concerned
with ‘learning critical reading, thinking and writing skills by interpreting a variety of
primary sources’; the latter covers ‘techniques of primary historical research based
on collaborative research and writing on a topic selected by the instructor’. At the
University of York, additional support in dissertation preparation across second- and
third-level provision is provided by a virtual learning environment, which incorpo-
rates a ‘Dissertation Clinic’ (Roodhouse, 2010).
In considering these examples, several progression matters arise. Firstly, if skills-
oriented courses are to be provided, should they be compulsory and offered at each
level and how much of a student’s programme should they occupy? Secondly, how
comprehensive should the coverage of sources and techniques be? Are forms of non-
documentary sources, including oral testimony and physical evidence, to be covered,
as well as a range of documentary sources? Thirdly, is moving from courses dealing
with using a range of primary sources to those focusing on a specific type of source,
such as visual images, a useful means of achieving progression? In other words, is
moving from breadth to depth, as often occurs with content-oriented courses, also
desirable for skills-oriented courses?
The question of what happens if skills-orientated courses are not included before
the final year also arises. How will provision be made for students to become aware
of, and enhance, the skills required to prepare a dissertation? What responsibility do
other courses have in this respect? At Kingston University in London a second-level
compulsory course entitled Life amongst the Victorians: researching and writing 19th
century British History is used to meet the challenge. Various social and political
issues are covered, but taught sessions are fewer than in other courses at this level.
Additionally, students work under supervision to ‘develop and conduct a primary

sources-based research project on a topic from the module, thus ensuring they are
well prepared for their final-year dissertation project’ (Kingston University, 2016).
To quote another example, historians at Davidson College, North Carolina, decided
not to introduce a course in historical methods, but required students to take one of
several sophomore (second year) topic courses that consider questions of methods,
historiography, research and writing (Williams, 2002).
Discussion so far has concentrated on how skills-oriented courses might be organ-
ised to achieve progression within history degree programmes. But what of the skills
themselves? What degree of competency in dealing with them might be expected of
students at each level of provision? The AQF and other qualifications frameworks
offer help in this respect, of course, at least as far as threshold levels are concerned.
Thus, at bachelor degree level, the AQF stipulates that students should be able to
review critically. Both primary and secondary material might be involved in such
reviewing. Progression with this skill to honours degree level is apparent with stu-
dents applying their critical thinking and judgment in developing new understanding
(AQF, 2013, p. 16). The implication here is that their critical powers will be brought
to bear in relation to their research activity, a distinctive feature at this level.
Taking a more general stance, Peter Washer has reviewed various statements
concerned with developing key skills to devise a framework that, he suggests, can
be used or adapted by any discipline at university level. He identifies key skills as:
• communication;
• working with others;
• problem-solving;
• numeracy;
• the use of information technology;
• learning how to learn; and
• personal and professional development.
Washer has prepared tables showing how undergraduates’ skills can be expected
to develop during their studies over four levels of provision. The levels he uses
correspond to those of the UK’s QAA, with certificate (level 4), intermediate (level
5) and honours (level 6) being distinguished, along with an entry level 3 (Washer,
2007). That he includes numeracy in his list should not escape the notice of historians.
More specific guidance on skills development relating to history programmes is
provided by the highly informative History Learning Project undertaken by historians
at Indiana University (Díaz, Middendorf, Pace, & Shopkow, 2008). They list the
following key skills that history undergraduates should develop as they move through
their degree course:
• understanding the nature of the historical discipline and analysis;

• dealing with evidence: primary sources;
• dealing with evidence: secondary sources;
• dealing with evidence: textbooks;
• constructing and evaluating arguments;
122 G. Timmins
Table 6.1 History learning project progression examples

Typical 100-level 200-level 300-level 400-level
components of compre- interpret/apply explain/evaluate create
history course hend/recognise
Dealing with Learn how to Interpret the Evaluate Develop
evidence: analyse/learn to human agency trustworthiness relationships
primary sources question a within the of sources and amongst multiple
primary source context of how an contrast diverse sources
artefact from the and conflicting
past was primary sources
produced.
Dealing with Identify author’s Distinguish Evaluate author’s Synthesise issues
evidence: arguments between an argument and in scholarly
secondary author’s main evidence writings
sources arguments and
secondary points
• conducting historical research;

• writing for history.
For each skill, the increasing sophistication expected in moving from one level of
provision to the next is articulated. Two examples are set out in Table 6.1 below.
With devising remedial measures in mind, the project also identifies the bottle-
necks and difficulties that students commonly experience in mastering the skills at
each level.
6.5 Learning and Teaching Approaches
In higher education particularly, the notion of promoting independent forms of learn-

ing is given high priority. Precisely how the term can be defined is debated, but it
involves a shift of responsibility for the learning process from teacher to taught.
The shift requires guidance from teachers, and student collaboration with them, in
devising and implementing learning activities. Rather than concentrating on the trans-
mission of knowledge, the academic staff member’s role becomes one of facilitating
active involvement in the learning process (Booth, 2003, pp. 110–27).
Achieving the shift has implications in terms of how teaching approaches might be
adapted from one level to the next. As far as history undergraduate programmes are
concerned, the main component of independent learning is likely to be the final-year
dissertation or research project, which might be of an applied nature that involves
students working with external organisations. In fact, the AQF makes planning and
preparing ‘project work and/or a piece of research and scholarship with some inde-
pendence’ a distinguishing feature at honours level (AQF, 2013, p. 51). That students
are invited to choose their own topic certainly gives opportunity for independent
learning to occur, even though the thorny question of how much tutor help should be
given remains on the table. Moreover, progression issues arise about the nature and
extent of tutor guidance they receive at previous levels and about the experiences
they gain.
The approach adopted by historians at the University of Birmingham demonstrates
the type of pre-dissertation learning opportunities that can be made available using
dedicated course units. Single-honours students must take the first- and second-level
courses noted below, which engage them actively and progressively in research-
related tasks.
Level 1
Practising History A: Skills in History

Students develop their personal research skills. They are given supervised practice
at note-taking, referencing, group work, participation in class debate and research.
They produce an extensive bibliography for their seminar group’s research project
and are required to collaborate and make research decisions for themselves.
Level 2
Group Research
Students work in small groups to design and execute a collaborative research project.
They gain experience in the process of historical enquiry and develop their research
skills in a supportive environment in advance of individual work for dissertations. The
course tutor helps the students at the outset by providing initial ideas and reading, but
the students are then free to design their own projects according to the enthusiasms
and capacities of their group. All groups make extensive use of primary source
evidence as well as reviewing the secondary literature on their topic.
Research Methods
This course supports students in developing a topic for their final-year dissertation.
In consultation with a tutor, they learn to identify and frame a valid, intellectually
coherent research question; identify, find and consider what primary sources they will
use and how they will use them; present their planned project to their peers; write
a literature review relating to their topic; and, over a two-week period, undertake
preliminary work on their dissertation.
Each course has a twenty-credit rating and the third-year-level dissertation, which
is 12,000 words in length, one of forty credits. Students take courses to the value
of 120 credits at each level. So, the dissertation and the teaching directly related to
its preparation comprise a sizeable component of the programme, a matter worthy
of debate. That the courses are compulsory aids progression, though students have
considerable choice in the work they undertake (University of Birmingham, 2016).
Of course, moving from transmission to more active and independent forms of
learning need not be confined to dedicated courses; they can be incorporated within
any course at any level. The first-year American history course taught by Lendol
Calder at Augustana College provides an example of the type of approach that can
124 G. Timmins
be adopted. The course covers the period from World War II to the present day.
Students experience several ‘prologue’ classes at the outset, which are concerned
with the nature and value of historical study. Each of the main themes that follow is
explored in relation to different kinds of study and source material, namely visual
enquiry, critical enquiry and moral enquiry. A transmission approach gives way to
one that engages students in practical work and discussion, the teaching role centring
on promoting discussion through posing questions and offering short inputs deal-
ing with analytical reading, historical thinking and other concerns (Calder, 2006).
The historiography course that Carole Srole teaches at California State University,
Los Angeles, provides another example. A scaffolding method is adopted, which
involves the teacher introducing incremental learning activities to develop progres-
sively deeper understanding. Group work features strongly (Srole, 2008). The course
requires students to prepare literature reviews that incorporate critical appraisals of
the differing perspectives historians offer, dealing with such matters as the evidence
they employ and the assumptions they make. In describing her approach, Professor
Srole remarks:
In this ten-week course, students pen three literature reviews: one at week four based on two
readings; a second at the eighth week; and a third during finals, each using three readings. I
furnish decreasing amounts of guidance for each essay. By the end of the quarter, students
barely need my help and rely on one another.
Mention may also be made of the scaffolding approach used in Historicizing the
News, an upper-level course in the history programme at Miami University in Oxford,
Ohio. Students collaborate in constructing a historical argument based on evidence
taken from issues of a late-nineteenth or early-twentieth-century newspaper. In the
first half of the semester, they use a specially created online database to analyse the
issues raised in the newspaper over a five-year period. The cumulative data set they
create serves as a major source for the second half of the semester, when each student
chooses a topic or theme from the database to prepare a paper showing change over
time (Miami University, 2016). To achieve progression, degree programmes might
be planned so that active and independent learning components are increasingly
represented from one level to the next, involving students in differing and more
demanding types of challenge. Examples can be formulated from the responses
made by academics in twelve UK universities to questions about progression matters
(Barker & McClean, 2004). Take seminars for instance. Tutor-led discussions might
feature initially, giving way to student presentations and then to presentations that
include an element of student assessment. Taking the presentation point further, a
requirement of the AQF is that honours degree students must demonstrate their ability
to ‘present a clear and coherent exposition of knowledge and ideas to a variety of
audiences’ (AQF, 54). The implication here is that students engage in applied history
activities, which could involve them in presenting material in appropriate ways to
groups outside their university.
6.6 Assessment
Promoting independent forms of learning is closely associated with formative assess-

ments that arise in various ways, including seminar discussion and tutor guidance,
and are directed at helping students to deepen their understanding as teaching takes
place. But students’ work that arises from independent study is also subjected to sum-
mative assessment as particular stages are reached in order to judge their attainment
levels. What implications arise with regard to progression matters?
Departmental assessment criteria will no doubt be used to establish the standards
students have achieved in both examinations and coursework. However, independent
forms of learning produce outputs that vary widely in subject matter. Accordingly, in
terms of progression, the move towards more independent forms of learning has been
accompanied by a shift in summative assessment from examinations to coursework.
Moreover, in some history degree programmes coursework has come to dominate
and is by no means confined to skills-oriented courses. The issue arises, therefore,
of the forms that coursework assignments can take and, from a progression point of
view, how they can be made more challenging for students as they move from one
level to the next.
An approach adopted at the University of Central Lancashire, where coursework
prevails across the history degree programme, relates to the form that coursework
essays take. In most courses at levels 1 and 2, except those that are skills oriented,
essays are based on the appreciation of secondary literature alone. At level 3, however,
each course is assessed by two essays, one of which has a more generous word limit.
Longer essays can be seen as a means of progression by requiring students to discuss
in greater depth, developing a line of argument more fully and in a more nuanced
way, than would be the case with short essays. In this case, the aim is to ensure
that students build on their ability to deploy primary evidence in order to deepen
their analysis of the theme under consideration, perhaps by drawing on evidence that
supports a particular interpretation, that adds qualification to it or that is critical of it.
The requirement is deemed to make the task more demanding for students compared
with using secondary material alone. A 60:40 weighting arises in allocating marks.
The Central Lancashire approach picks up the issue noted previously about how
far the burden of teaching skills, and hence related assessment, should be shared
across programmes rather than being confined to dedicated courses. Another example
occurs at Siena College, New York, where each of four compulsory survey courses
in USA and world history has skills-based assignment requirements. They comprise
an annotated bibliography, a book review, a primary source analysis and the analysis
of a journal article. The emphasis, as seems appropriate with survey courses, is on
skills-based assessments that relate to secondary material (Pojmann et al., 2009).
Other assessment progressions with regard to coursework extends the range of
challenges with which students are expected to deal. They are many and varied.
Amongst them are exhibitions, some of which might go on public display; reflective
logs in work placement modules; reviews of varying types of historical material;
fieldwork surveys; and the creation of website resources for use in primary or sec-
126 G. Timmins
ondary schools. Introducing assessments of this type at higher levels of provision

affords a means of achieving progression, since students are presented with chal-
lenges that are unfamiliar to them and that can make considerable demands on them.
Indeed, they may well need forceful counselling on the amount of time they should
spend on activities of this type, bearing in mind their other academic commitments.
One progression issue to arise concerning these less conventional types of assess-
ment is how well they fit with expectations of student proficiency at each programme
level. Take, for example, the case of an exhibition relating to a particular theme that a
student or group of students has investigated. At the stage they are at in their studies,
the expectation may be that they should be able to deploy primary evidence effec-
tively to defend or criticise an established interpretation, perhaps of an event taking
place locally in the past, or of a change taking place over a particular time period.
Accordingly, they will need to go beyond a mere description of the event or the
change and undertake historical analysis to incorporate in their exhibition. Further-
more, there is need to ensure that assessment and level of provision requirements are
in line with the guidance that students receive in preparing their exhibition, both in
written form and verbally (Carnegie Mellon University Eberly Center, 2016). For-
mative assessment can have an important role to play in this respect, perhaps with
feedback being obtained from presentations made to fellow students. What needs to
be recognised is that the challenges students face when tackling unfamiliar types of
assessment as they progress through their programmes of study can prove daunting
for them and misconceptions can all too easily arise about the nature of the end
product that should emerge.
6.7 Conclusion
The qualification frameworks mentioned in the introduction to this chapter, including

the AQF, are helpful in delineating expectations about the standard that final-year
history undergraduates should reach. They also provide a useful starting point for
determining how provision at different levels can be arranged so that, as value is
increasingly added, the expectations are realised. For each level, decisions need to
be made about the nature of the provision in relation to the key curricular dimensions
of content, subject-specific and transferable skills, learning and teaching approaches
and assessment. Designing history programmes with these elements in mind brings
advantage to both teacher and taught, as long as freedom of action is not too con-
strained and variety and innovation are not stifled.
The widespread adoption of a substantial, research-based dissertation or project
as the culminating element in honours degree history courses has created the need for
research techniques inputs at earlier stages of provision. As the examples discussed
reveal, courses dealing specifically with the matter can be offered at more than one
preceding level, so that expertise can gradually be acquired. Moreover, the task of
developing research skills need not be confined to dedicated courses. Acquiring these
skills is linked closely with promoting active forms of learning, which are seen to
deepen understanding; with the notion of fostering independent learning, as students

increasingly take responsibility for their learning agendas; and with a move towards
summative assessment by coursework rather than by examinations. The challenge
is to determine and explain the role that each of these characteristics will occupy at
each level of provision.
As regards achieving progression in the content of history degree courses, final-
level requirements can again provide a starting point. For good reason, much is
made of courses at this level being closely related to faculty research strengths, with
content coverage being limited in order to permit in-depth study. More broadly-
based courses giving context to them can be introduced at preceding levels, perhaps
with greater emphasis on examinations than coursework for assessment purposes.
But questions arise concerning how broadly-based temporally and geographically
these courses should be; how far they should engage students with differing types of
historical study; the varying approaches that historians adopt, including theoretical
and comparative dimensions; and fostering historiographical awareness. There are
questions, too, about the advantages of including broadly-based courses in upper-
level provision in order to enhance students’ historical understanding, as well as more
focused elements at the introductory level in order to stimulate students’ interest.
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Chapter 7
Compliance: Built to Fail, Negotiating
the Compliance Paradox
Sean Brawley
Abstract Why does a student choose to study history in their first year at University?
Is it because they want to engage with the signature pedagogy of the history discipline
or simply because they hold an interest in learning more about American history?
This chapter explores the consequences (existing and potential) that have confronted
the study of history in higher education within a sector now focussed on standards
and compliance. After outlining the new regulatory environment and the current
sector landscape and players, the threats to the history major provided by the current
compliance agenda are explored. The structural limitations associated with the major
when placed beside its international comparators, especially in England and Wales,
are also examined within the context of the attainment of standards. What are the
consequences of designing units for a history major when the vast majority of the
students are actually not completing the major? The chapter concludes by suggesting
a way that Australia’s history majors can escape the compliance paradox.
7.1 Introduction
On January 1, 2017, the Higher Education Standards Framework (Threshold Stan-

dards) 2015 came into effect across Australia (Commonwealth of Australia, 2015).
This legislative instrument to the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency
Act 2011 revoked an earlier instrument known as the Higher Education Standards
Framework (Threshold Standards) 2011. The original Standards Framework was the
culmination of over a decade’s effort to shift Australian higher education from the
old fit-for-purpose paradigm to the new world of excellence and standards (Bradley,
2008; Probert, 2015). Much of this bold vision for tertiary education, however,
was seen as unacceptable overreach by the Commonwealth that threatened the
S. Brawley (B)
Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia
e-mail: sean.brawley@mq.edu.au

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0047-9_7
132 S. Brawley
autonomy of the nation’s self-accrediting institutions of higher learning. Through

the trenchant opposition to the new regulator (the Tertiary Education Quality
and Standards Agency—TEQSA) of a number of sector players (most notably
the research intensive Group of Eight Universities—Go8), the Framework was
reconceived against affirmations of reducing compliance costs and red tape; a
desire to ‘minimize the regulatory burden’ (Group of Eight, 2010; TEQSA, 2016a;
Thornton, 2015). As well as the re-writing of around half of the original standards,
the 2015 document—the work of an independent ‘Higher Education Panel’—also
engaged with an area around which the 2011 document had squibbed; the prickly
issue of specific standards in teaching and, especially, learning. As well as removing
the confusing threshold and non-threshold approach, the 2015 Standards instrument
did, finally, address this fundamental quality assurance issue (Robson, 2015).
The new legislative instrument around standards in Australian higher education
serves as important background to this chapter and its examination of ‘compli-
ance’ and its consequences for the study of history. Over the last decade, Australian
university teachers in their day-to-day activities have been compelled to engage
with ‘risk,’ ‘accountability,’ and ‘quality assurance/quality improvement’ (Rowlands,
2012; Shah, Lewis, & Fitzgerald, 2011). Universities may have been able to stave off
government interference with calls to self-determination, but the academics within
these institutions have not in turn escaped from what many of them see as a pervading
‘managerialism’ (Brancaleone & O’Brien, 2011; Lynch, 2015; O’Connor & White,
2011). Within the new paradigm of excellence and standards, however, there resides
the fundamental need to warrant that standards (however they might be conceived)
are being met (Krause, Barrie, & Scott, 2012).
Of course, compliance was a part of the old paradigm that so many older aca-
demics still lovingly idealize. As much as some colleagues like to perpetuate a fan-
tasy to junior colleagues that at some time in the past they had enjoyed a life where
there was no oversight of their activities and individual freedom reigned supreme,
academics have never been able to do simply what they like when they like. This
said, in the emerging standards environment compliance has new and foreboding
consequences. This chapter contends that the way history is taught in Australian
universities—almost exclusively in majors in generalist degrees—leaves us suscep-
tible to a ‘compliance paradox’ and whatever decisions individual institutions or the
discipline community make in response to the new standards paradigm could have
long-term impacts on the shape and even the long-term viability of the discipline of
history in this country.
7.2 The Landscape and Players
As some pundits within the higher education sector had foreseen in the wake of
the Go8’s attack on TEQSA, the new Standard Framework’s position was neither
as detailed nor as onerous as had been originally and generally expected (Creagh,
2013; TEQSA, 2016a). Many of the requirements around teaching and learning in
7 Compliance: Built to Fail, Negotiating the Compliance Paradox 133
the Standards instrument refer to institutional responsibilities far removed from the
day-to-day efforts of university teachers at the coalface. When it comes to the issue
of ‘design,’ the standards provide only the most general of statements explicating
requirements and expectations. Under Clause 3, ‘Teaching,’ the instrument holds
that ‘teaching and learning activities are arranged to foster progressive and coherent
achievement of expected learning outcomes throughout each course of study.’ Con-
tent and learning activities will engage with ‘current knowledge and scholarship in
relevant academic disciplines.’ Students will study the ‘underlying theoretical and
conceptual framework’ and ‘emerging concepts that are informed by recent scholar-
ship, current research findings, and … advances in practice.’ Moreover, students will
be able to achieve the ‘expected learning outcomes regardless of a student’s place of
study or the mode of delivery.’ Finally, and with regard to expectations around indi-
vidual university teachers, the Standards state that academics will have ‘knowledge
of contemporary developments in the discipline’ as well as ‘skills in contemporary
teaching, learning, and assessment principles relevant to the discipline, their role,
modes of delivery, and the needs of particular student cohorts’ (Commonwealth of
Australia, 2015).
Despite continued criticism of the managerialist motivations that are seen
to inspire them, and questions regarding their usefulness as tools for ensur-
ing/demonstrating student learning and drivers for regulation (Allais, 2012; Branca-
leone & O’Brien, 2011; Clark & Nye, 2017; Furedi, 2012; Hargreaves & Shirley,
2009; Havnes & Prøitz, 2016; Hussey & Smith, 2002; Parker & Jary, 1995; Shattock,
2008), ‘learning outcomes’ are at the core of the teaching and learning standards.
With regard to warranting, the Standards note that on completion of their studies
students will ‘have demonstrated the learning outcomes specified for the course of
study, whether assessed at unit level, course level, or in combination.’ In this regard,
it is noted that ‘[m]ethods of assessment’ are to be ‘consistent with the learning
outcomes being assessed’ and ‘capable of confirming that all specified learning out-
comes are achieved and that grades awarded reflect the level of student attainment’
(Commonwealth of Australia, 2015).
The Standards instrument does not expressly state who sets the required teaching
and learning standards for an individual course of study. Given the aforementioned
demands of universities about self-accreditation, such a need might appear redundant.
Yet TEQSA’s associated ‘commentary’ does note that universities will need to engage
with ‘credible external referencing to the outcomes against national/international
comparators,’ and that the regulatory authority ‘may engage external discipline
experts to assist in its deliberations.’ Further, TEQSA’s so-called reference points for
determining how learning outcomes and assessments in a unit of study are appropri-
ate include ‘[l]earning outcomes statements developed for the field of education or
discipline by discipline communities or professional bodies’ and ‘[t]he requirements
for professional accreditation of the course of study and registration of graduates
where applicable’ (TEQSA, 2015a).
134 S. Brawley
While universities have cried long and loud about their self-accrediting status,
an important dimension of warranting in Australian higher education has been the
externally regulated and unregulated professional accreditation of courses of study.
Although such processes are unfamiliar to academic historians, they are very famil-
iar to many other disciplines. A range of external accrediting bodies exist at state
(e.g., for teaching), national (e.g., for psychology or engineering), and even interna-
tional level (e.g., business). TEQSA does have a policy position on its relationship
with ‘professional bodies with links to the higher education sector’ which reflects
its desire to develop a ‘complementary approach to course accreditation processes
and requirements’ (TEQSA, 2016b). What role such relationships might play in the
warranting of courses of study by TEQSA is not clear.
Another player in this space has been discipline-specific or multi-disciplinary aca-
demic advocacy bodies, notably the various Deans’ Councils that exist across a range
of disciplines or discipline groupings—for History, this is the Australasian Council
of Deans of Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (DASSH). Recent pronounce-
ments from a number of these bodies suggest that they see some advantage for their
respective courses of study from uniting with a common vision around minimum
expectations (Council of Australian Law Deans, 2012; DASSH, 2011; Gannaway &
Trent, 2008).
It is clear that as the Higher Education sector embraces the new world of excellence
and standards many discipline communities, despite some reservations (see e.g.,
Muldoon & Lee, 2007), continue to see external compliance as a way both to drive
innovation and protect themselves from budgetary constraints and the other travails of
university existence in the early twenty-first century. It is equally clear, however, that
many University executives are becoming increasingly concerned about overreach
by professional and/or disciplinary bodies attempting to use the compliance space
to dictate a program’s content and structure. University central administrations are
becoming increasingly wary of having to cash the cheques written by these external
bodies.
7.3 Built to Fail
Returning to warranting and TEQSA’s identification of ‘[l]earning outcomes state-

ments developed for the field of education or discipline’ as a ‘reference point,’ it
is clear from the activities of the former Australian Learning and Teaching Coun-
cil (ALTC)—which commenced some of the preliminary work in this area before
its unfortunate abolition by the Gillard Government in 2011—that early thinking
around national standards saw the discipline as the place where student accomplish-
ment would be warranted and that institutions would be judged across the nation by
the same criteria. The ALTC’s Learning and Teaching Academic Standards (LTAS)
project set out to establish national Threshold Learning Outcomes (TLOs) in a range
of disciplines in a process driven by the discipline communities themselves (Ewan,
2010). The project included disciplines that held their own specialist programs as
well as disciplines resident in generalist degrees—including history. While many

disciplines saw value in the exercise and a number of disciplines continued this
foundational work after the demise of the LTAS project and the ALTC, the Go8 had
already stepped in to try to derail what it saw as another attack on self-accreditation
(Lane, 2010).
The LTAS project was silent on the issue of whether different expectations might
exist in a compliance framework between a discipline that resided in its own specialist
degree and one that resided as a major in a generalist degree. Discipline teams
commissioned for the project simply completed the design of their TLOs aware of
the usual structure in which their disciplines appeared in Australian universities and
were briefed that ‘threshold’ represented the minima that, it was assumed, could be
met by all institutions teaching the discipline and any student who had successfully
completed their studies in that discipline.
At the time of writing, what role the LTAS TLOs will play in the Standards process
is unclear. In determining Australian expectations around learning and teaching, the
new Standards instrument notes that
(i) ‘expected learning outcomes for each course of study are specified’;
(ii) are ‘consistent with the level and field of education of the qualification awarded,’
and;
(iii) must be ‘informed by national and international comparators’ (Commonwealth
of Australia, 2015).
The LTAS TLOs do meet all of these criteria.
The ALTC LTAS project for History had completed its original work with the
issue of comparators front and center. Set against the developing National Curricu-
lum for History in the K-12 space, history’s TLOs were benchmarked first against
the so-called Dublin Descriptors and the Australian Qualifications Framework
(AQF) with regard to attainment of generic skills and abilities pertaining to the
successful completion of a Bachelor’s Degree. Discipline-specific benchmarking did
engage somewhat with the history-specific competencies of the European ‘Tuning’
project—the Latin American (Tuning America Latina, 2011) and USA (American
Historical Association, 2013) Tunings had not been completed at the time—but the
most significant single international influence on the TLOs was the UK Quality
Assurance Agency (QAA) Honours Benchmark Statement for History which had
been first drafted in 2000 and revised in 2007 (QAA, 2007). The detailed 17-page
statement was extremely useful, and one of the members of the QAA subject
benchmark review group for history—Professor Alan Booth—was a member of
the LTAS history team. Nevertheless, from the outset, the project team’s riding
instructions from the ALTC made it clear that the ‘Australian project will not pursue
learning outcomes to the same level of detail’ (LTAS Project 2010). The history
LTAS TLO statement did as it was instructed and did not provide the same level of
detail as the equivalent QAA document.
136 S. Brawley
The LTAS process relied on the endorsement of the TLOs by the peak body of
the discipline in question. For history, the Australian Historical Association was the
only discipline organization in the country with a legitimate claim and a more general
desire to represent the interests of the broader discipline community. Subsequent to
the AHA’s endorsement of the TLOs (after a period of stakeholder consultation),
the ALTC (and later the Office for Learning and Teaching-OLT) funded the Priority
Project After Standards: Engaging and embedding history’s standards using inter-
national best practice to inform curriculum renewal (Brawley et al., 2011, 2013a).
A central dimension of the After Standards project was to work with the AHA to
explore what a compliance regime for the warranting of history majors against the
TLOs might look like if it was run by the peak body. As the LTAS project had done
with the TLOs, the After Standards’ project was heavily influenced by the state of
play of the discipline in England and Wales and benefitted from the support of leading
scholars working in those jurisdictions. The decision to engage with British scholars
was also informed by the fact that the standards regime in England and Wales already
had a compliance dimension with subject areas compelled to complete discipline-
based institutional self-evaluation exercises, external assessments, and site visits by
a review team that would make judgements and recommendations that would not
only shape individual departments but the discipline more generally.
The After Standards project field-tested a compliance approach with three history
majors from three institutions completing a dummy compliance run. The results
were disturbing not because the project was unable to devise and implement an
approach but because of the difficulty students with a pass grade had in meeting
the expectations of the TLOs. Retrofitting existing majors to meet the TLOs was
problematic and utilizing a ‘light touch’ approach to compliance was found to be,
quite simply, impossible (Brawley et al., 2013b, 2015). A subsequent study also
found that student choice around their pathway in a history major also impacted on
their ability to attain all the stated learning outcomes (Fraser & Thomas, 2013).
These uncomfortable conclusions, however, did not have to be confronted because
by the time the After Standards project had informed the AHA of its results, the
sector atmospherics had dramatically changed. In a short space of time, the dis-
cipline approach to compliance was seemingly forgotten. Against the backdrop of
TEQSA/university squabbling, the Higher Education Panel failed to engage with the
original LTAS project, subsequent ALTC/OLT modeling on assurance systems (e.g.,
Krause et al., 2014), and, as noted earlier, teaching and learning standards more gen-
erally. History had begun preparing for a future (Huber & Brawley, 2013; Skinner,
2014) that seemed increasingly less likely. Indeed by 2014, I was advising the AHA
Executive, as the member responsible for Learning and Teaching matters, that there
was little to be gained at that moment in time by the peak body exploring a compli-
ance role for itself around national standards. That, however, was the landscape of
2014. Today, I am concerned that by not engaging with a national compliance system
through the peak body, history could be exposed in the emerging landscape.
7.4 Major Minor
One of the conclusions I eventually took from my leadership of the After Standards
project was that in seeing the QAA benchmark statement as the best comparator for
the Australian history major we were not actually comparing oranges with oranges.
This realization further aggravated a long-standing and nagging concern I have had
with the history major in this country. This concern is driven by the problematic beast
that is the Australian Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree. The Australian BA aspires to the
breadth of an American four-year degree but seeks to achieve this within the time
frame of a three year English/Welsh degree which provides much greater depth of
study in the chosen discipline area. When a student attends an English or Welsh uni-
versity to ‘read’ history that is pretty much their exclusive activity for the next three
years. A student completing a history major in a generalist degree at an Australian
university spends more time studying units other than those in their major. To be more
precise, a student completing single honours history at the University of Birmingham
can complete up to 94.5% of their degree in history. If they decide to embrace Birm-
ingham’s major/minor approach (say history with French) two-thirds of their time
over three years would be spent completing history units (University of Birmingham,
2016a). At Birmingham, about 300 (20%) of the 1500 students admitted to the Col-
lege of Arts and Law choose Joint (Combined) Honours (University of Birmingham,
2016b). Joint Honours in history and philosophy for example would see them spend-
ing 50% of their time completing history units. In contrast, at Melbourne or Sydney
universities a student can walk out of either institution with a major in history having
only completed eight units over three years of full-time study—a total of one-third
of their degree (University of Melbourne, 2016; University of Sydney, 2016).
Before the AQF uncoupled the honours year from the undergraduate pass degree
with the new Level 8 qualification (that has become known as the Bachelor of Philos-
ophy in many institutions), Australian students contemplating a fourth-year honours
were often compelled to complete an extra two or three units as pre-honours or as
members of an honours stream. Today, with Honours not coupled to the BA (which
did by the end of the fourth year provide roughly the volume of learning equiva-
lent to what an English Joint Honours student had undertaken in history over three
years), and with some limitations driven by breadth requirements, it is left to students
studying history in most Australian majors to decide if they wish to complete more
than the minimum requirements of the major. At my own institution, 254 students
majored in history over the period 2012–2015. Of these, 54 (21%) completed more
units than the eight units required to complete their major.
In recent years, a number of institutions have engaged with the depth issue in
the Australian BA major. At the University of Western Australia, for example,
the opportunity for greater depth is provided by students having the opportunity
to choose to complete a ‘double major’ (UWA, 2016), thereby completing 14 course
units which represents 58% of their BA—comparable to Brum’s Joint Honours or
major/minor programs. This said, the double major does not provide further pro-
gression as such—the student might widen their content knowledge through greater
138 S. Brawley
subject breadth or depth within the major but they only improve their skills and abili-
ties through greater repetition of existing assessment tasks. At the University of New
South Wales (UNSW), there was an acknowledgment in 2007 that meeting internally
devised learning outcomes for a major would be difficult over only seven units and so
the major requirement was increased to ten units including a capstone (representing
41% of the program). These departures noted, however, the original LTAS project
had to remain focussed on the minimal requirements as they exist in the average
history major and the minimum level of attainment for a student who successfully
completed the major. The After Standards project reinforced for me the belief that
eight course units (which seems to be the usual length for a history major in this
country) simply does not provide enough study in the discipline to warrant that any
student with a weighted average mark (WAM) for their major of 50 could meet all
the TLOs. Quite simply, the existing and average history major in this country is
built to fail such scrutiny.
7.5 Why Do Students Study History?
The number of units required for an Australian history major is not the only prob-
lem in warranting majors through a national standards framework using commonly
agreed criteria such as the TLOs. Returning to my own department, over the period
2012–15, 3442 individuals completed at least one unit in modern history at Mac-
quarie (ancient history resides in its own major in its own dedicated department). On
further examination of this enrolment data, what I found alarming was that 2115 of
these students (61%) only completed that one unit and another 534 (15%) only com-
pleted two. So over this period, the 254 students who majored in history were only
7.3% of the cohort of students who had undertaken some level of study in history at
Macquarie University.
While other institutions may have better conversion rates and one might respond
to my statistics by suggesting the issue may be a result of specific local factors, I
would attest that this example reflects a bigger structural weakness in many Australian
BAs. This issue simply becomes more pointed when placed in a standards compliance
environment. The reality for modern history at Macquarie University and, I would
attest, the history major in the overwhelming majority of Australian Universities
is that history units at 100 and 200 level (and in some institutions even at 300
level) are mostly taken by non-majors. At Macquarie University, the number of
students in any given 200 level unit in any given year who are history majors hovers
around 30 percent. While some may be undertaking the study of history to fulfill
a minor (which is not subject to warranting against outcomes), I would assert that
the overwhelming majority of our students at Macquarie not completing a major
have little to no interest in acquiring the discipline-specific skills and abilities that
we desire for history majors. Over 70 years ago, Arthur Adams of the University
of Nebraska asked: ‘Why do students study history?’ (Adams, 1942). I can find no
evidence that anyone has since bothered to ask or, more importantly, answer that
question. We know why students can come to dislike history at secondary school;
we’ve explored their historical literacy and ways of thinking; we assert how we want
to transform their understanding of history when they arrive at university; and, we
have even considered their expectations regarding university study (Calder, 2006;
Clark, 2008; Wineburg, 2001; Hughes-Warrington et al., 2009; Nye et al., 2011;
Ercikan & Seixas, 2015), but we do not appear to have asked them why they show
up in our classes in the first place.
I would contend that the overwhelming majority of students choose history
because of their pre-existing interest in the content knowledge offered in specific
units and not because of the opportunity provided by university study to engage with
history’s signature pedagogy. Teasing out this idea, we might consider Stéphane
Lévesque’s extension of Pierre Nora’s work; the notions of ‘memory history’ and
‘discipline history,’ and the role K-12 education has played in building the former at
the expense of the later (Lévesque, 2009). While about three quarters of the students
who enrolled in first-year history units at Macquarie University in 2015 had stud-
ied either Higher School Certificate (HSC—the final program of study in secondary
school in NSW) modern or ancient history, or both, only one quarter had undertaken
advanced study (“History Extension”) which provides them with more fundamental
introductions to the type of disciplinary history of which Lévesque speaks. From
the Macquarie University experience therefore, it could be extrapolated that most
students who come to the study of history at University (whether or not they have
recently studied it at HSC level) still see history as first and foremost about content,
not the study of a discipline or their engagement with its practice or ways of thinking.
Of course we seek to transform student understanding of the discipline once they
arrive but by not appreciating the motivations which bring them to us in the first
place we deny ourselves insights into our students and how we should engage them.
Why do we research and write in the areas we do? It’s the content stupid! Content
and training students to think historically and perform as graduates of the discipline
are not mutually exclusive ambitions, though it would be fair to say that in recent
years the water in the space has become muddied. Of course as Lévesque contends
‘[h]istorical thinking is … far more sophisticated and demanding than mastering
substantive (content) knowledge’ (Lévesque, 2009, p. 27), however, the latter relies
on the former, and it is student interest in the former that brings them to our classes
in the first place.
Whether we like it or not, historians in Australian universities are, first and fore-
most, service teachers in the nation’s BAs. There is nothing inherently wrong with
this, but the problem is that much of the renovation that has taken place around history
majors in Australia in the last decade or so has been completed against the fiction
that our students are all majors and therefore our first and foremost purpose has been
to alter the major to meet stated learning outcomes of the major in a new compliance
environment. Could this transformation in design, practice, and focus help to explain
the general decline in enrolments in history around the country in recent years? As
the After Standards project showed, to meet the TLOs, a history major requires much
more structure around the skills and abilities of the discipline—work that is not of
great interest to the majority of the students in our units (Brawley et al., 2015). In the
140 S. Brawley
UK, these needs often sit in explicit methods and/or historiography units. In Aus-
tralia, however, we run the risk of losing important student load (the non-majors) if
we follow this path, or seek to embed such activities more explicitly in our current
offerings.
7.6 Compliance Killed My Discipline!
Want to kill a discipline through compliance? The experience of history at the Uni-
versity of New South Wales provides something of a cautionary tale and one I can
speak to with the benefit of first-hand experience—at least until 2014. UNSW was
one of the first Arts Faculties to see the newly emerging sector landscape. As pre-
viously observed, the UNSW BA was reconfigured in 2007 after a review in 2006.
The need for Quality Assurance was closely aligned with desires around Quality
Improvement and among new internal compliance requirements was the stipulation
that each major set the learning outcomes for its discipline within the BA (Brawley,
2013). In adopting international best practice (something, as noted, the new standards
framework desires), those of us doing the design work again looked to the UK for
guidance and inspiration. All majors were now told they required a single gateway
to introduce students to the discipline and then a capstone at the end of the major to
reflect on and warrant learning in the major. Further, each discipline could only have
two first-year offerings and no more than 18 units available for students completing
the major to choose from—six fewer units than there were historians at the time
and a regrettable and short-sighted one size fits all approach that totally discounted
disciplinary difference and the breadth of content offerings in the history major. As
noted, the major had increased to 10 units to provide more depth and help majors
deliver on their stated learning outcomes.
Before these changes, history at UNSW had eight first-year offerings across Aus-
tralian, comparative Australian/American, European, Asian and World history. Total
enrolments for first-year history were a very healthy 1200 + enrolments per year. In
any given year, up to 150 students would major in history and the history major was
the single largest major in the BA. With the introduction of the new gateway regime,
the existing world history unit (which covered big bang till the nineteenth century)
was retrofitted for the role and another world history unit focussing on the twentieth
century (‘The History Matrix’) was created as the new Semester 2 offering. The units
were designed, as per the stated program requirements, to introduce students in more
explicit ways to the discipline and scaffold their acquisition of the requisite skills and
abilities. The content choice was driven partly from a belief a world history approach
had the greatest chance of harnessing interest beyond student’s national, regional, or
thematic interests.
The problem for history at UNSW was that the gateway was designed on the
assumption that every student entering the course unit was a history major—as one
might expect in an English University. While it might be claimed that such a gateway
introduction is no bad thing, the consequences for the history major at UNSW were
significant. As well as the simple reduction in offerings, the changes facilitated a

rapid decline in the number of students studying history at UNSW. In Semester 1,
2016, 270 students enrolled in the history gateway at UNSW. In Semester 2, 140
signed up for the follow-up 100 level unit. While the discipline was somewhat saved
in the past by the fact it teaches the gateways to other courses such as European,
Australian, Asian and women’s and gender studies, and these units could be counted
toward the history major and academics’ taught load, the Faculty recently decreed
that disciplines from 2018 will no longer be able to cross-list in that way. How a
unit designed and taught by an historian could not be counted toward a history major
beggars belief and reflects the reductionist madness that seems to have gripped the
learning and teaching endeavour in many institutions. Rather than a program offering
flexibility and choice, from 2018 it will only be those few students who complete
the second 100 level unit who will be eligible to complete a history major.
Why did this happen? One argument could be the internal competition of other
newly invigorated majors. Perhaps some majors did become more popular, but to
me, the problem, with the advantage of 20/20 hindsight, is clear. Other majors did
not win over students from history, history lost them. In this, history at UNSW was
and remains, a victim of the professionalisation and bureaucratisation of teaching
and learning which leaves disciplinary difference ‘sidelined by the quality agenda’
and the quest for ‘universally applicable general principles’ that can be applied to
‘standardized models and measures’ (Roberts, 2010; Nye et al., 2011). Ironically,
such an approach betrays the original vision of Boyer (1988) and the subsequent
SoTL enterprise, at the same time its creators continue to praise Boyer and his
vision (McKinney, 2006). History was compelled to put a square peg in a round
hole through a one-size-fits-all approach to curriculum revision and compliance.
Because of its inherent uniqueness as a discipline (see Russell, 2004), history had
to make the biggest changes of any discipline to its first-year offerings to meet
the new requirements. Many other disciplines (such as English, philosophy, or a
language) were virtually unchanged because the introduction of the gateway did not
fundamentally challenge the way they introduced their major. A student coming to
UNSW and keen to study Australian history, however, now found a history gateway
unit that simply did not interest them.
Another feature of the UNSW major is that while it can be suggested that first-
year enrollments in 2016 represent as much as a 66% decrease in average enrolments
since the curriculum changes were instigated, the decline in the number of majors
has been much less with average major completions in recent years just under 100
(a reduction of about 33%). Are those 100 or so majors benefitting from a more
structured and scaffolded history major with ten units of study? Notwithstanding the
results from the After Standards project regarding alignment with TLOs, the answer
must be yes. But the change has come with a substantial drop in history’s taught
load at UNSW. No less contentiously, can the collapse in student load be associated
with a decline in the number of continuing/contract staff in history at UNSW in
recent years? As of early 2017, the failure to replace retirements and resignations
has reduced what was once one of the nation’s leading history departments (with an
ERA 5 research performance) to a rump of 11 historians (fewer than half the number
142 S. Brawley
of historians there when I left for Macquarie University) and with fears that further
redundancies are imminent because the major is not generating sufficient load. How
can my former colleagues generate that load when the discipline is straight-jacketed
by one-size-fits-all compliance madness?
7.7 The Compliance Paradox
While one might choose to agree or disagree with the above analysis, such deliber-
ations may be quite moot. The new Teaching and Learning Standards only makes
reference to the units of study that make up the course of study. While no definitions
are provided in the instrument (the 2015 instrument refers back to the 2011 instrument
for meanings but that original document actually provides no further clarification in
this space), a subsequent ‘Guidance Note’ stipulates that a unit of study is what some
institutions call a module or subject and a course of study is ‘a coherent sequence
of units of study leading to the award of a qualification.’ A course of study, there-
fore, is what many universities would call a program and what many in the general
community would know as a degree (TEQSA, 2016c).
The Standards Framework makes no mention of the major—the place where
most Australian students of history complete their studies in the discipline as part
of a generalist degree. In my own institution, the word program has come to mean
both the course of study and/or a major within a generalist degree but this clearly
sits outside the TEQSA definition. Whether any University would seek to advance
the notion that a major was a course of study requiring further external warranting
within a specific degree program is unclear but why would you expend that effort on
the many majors that can make up a BA when the regulator is only asking for the
overall program to be warranted? The consequences for the discipline of history of
this uncertainty are, to my mind, significant.
Given the history major is, as here argued, problematic when it comes to compli-
ance, and the new Framework is silent when it comes to the need to warrant majors
within programs, the simple response for historians around the country to teaching
and learning standards might be to breathe a collective sigh of relief in the knowledge
that the BA in which their major sits, rather than the major itself, will be the focus of
regulatory attention. Some history majors may still have some external compliance
requirements such as the Go8’s Quality Verification System, but anyone who has
been involved in that particular system, or some of the other bilateral or multilat-
eral regimes that have been trialled, know the bar is often set distressingly low (see
also Bloxham, Hudson, den Outer, & Price, 2015). Many are little more than mark
moderation exercises designed to produce and endorse the required light touch.
I would assert that the compliance bar for a generalist degree compared to a major
also appears much lower. BA program-level learning outcomes across the country
are notoriously vague and generic, because they have to find commonalities across
the diverse disciplines and combinations that reside under the umbrella of the Arts,
Humanities and Social Sciences. There is usually some reference in BA program-
level learning outcomes to disciplinary knowledge (e.g., Tasmania’s BA speaks of ‘in-

depth knowledge in one or more of these disciplines’) but, mostly, the outcomes are
brimful of the generic—‘independent and lifelong learning skills’ (Flinders Univer-
sity, 2016); ‘think creatively and critically’ (Curtin University, 2016) ‘evaluate ideas
and develop creative solutions to problems’ (ANU, 2016a); ‘demonstrate capacity for
reflection’ (James Cook University, 2016a). These Learning Outcomes by their very
vagueness seem much easier to warrant than a discipline-specific learning outcome
such as History TLO 2: ‘Demonstrate an understanding of a variety of conceptual
approaches to interpreting the past’ (Brawley et al. 2013b).
To further complicate the situation, there are no nationally agreed TLOs or other
commonly held standards set for the Bachelor of Arts degree as an entity in and of
itself (Fraser & Thomas, 2013). Yet, the European Tuning process has been working
in this space and did produce what it called ‘Sectoral Qualifications Frameworks,’ one
for the Humanities (Tuning, 2011a) and one for the Social Sciences (Tuning, 2011b).
Perhaps not surprisingly, the SQF documents, like BA program learning outcomes
in Australia, are most noteworthy for the vagueness of their generic statements. For
example, a student completing a Bachelors degree in the Humanities should ‘Be able
to communicate effectively in one or more major languages of the world,’ and ‘Be
able to approach issues with curiosity, creativity and critical awareness’ (Education
and Culture DG, 2011).
I am unaware of any desire by DASSH, as the obvious peak body for the Australian
BA, to assume a role in creating such national program outcomes. One would assume
if they did embark on such an exercise, the result would be an even more generic set
of outcomes given it would need to merge both the Humanities and Social Sciences.
The exercise would not be an easy undertaking. For example, some BAs reflect the
degree’s long history and still contain units from outside the Arts and Social Sciences.
Mathematics for example remains a major in my institution’s BA. One must assume
that local program learning outcomes will dominate compliance considerations and,
while a program might see advantage to compare its generic learning outcomes to the
SQF (an easy undertaking it would appear to me), program to program comparisons
may be the only point of validation available in the emerging standards environment.
7.8 Teaching to the Test
Writing in 2005 McLaurin Smith et al. observed the impossibility of finding com-
monalities across the BA, because, in part, ‘students enrolled in the Bachelor of Arts
do not share any core subjects’ (see also Fraser & Thomas, 2013). Such a statement
may have been true a decade ago, but it is not today. One notable trend around the
BA in Australia in the last decade has been the number of institutions that have made
this generalist degree less generalist (see Gannaway, 2015). The BA degree at James
Cook University or Southern Cross University, for example, now includes manda-
tory core units that must be completed by all students enrolled in the program (James
Cook University, 2016b; Southern Cross University, 2016a). A group of academics
144 S. Brawley
have decided what in the Arts and Social Sciences a group of BA students need to
know and be able to perform above all others—usually in the name of employability
or other institutional graduate attributes. At Southern Cross, students complete a unit
on ‘Written Communication.’ At Macquarie, students compete a Professional and
Community Engagement (PACE) unit (Sachs & Clark, 2017). Unit activities can
consist of a work placement or other ‘real-world activities.’ While it is a program
requirement of the BA, students complete their PACE unit through their major.
Another interesting dimension of these types of units is they try to pretend a
disciplinary unity around the diverse offerings of a BA. At James Cook Univer-
sity, for example, this includes an ‘Introduction to the Social Sciences’ unit (James
Cook University, 2016b). At University of Wollongong, changes to their BA saw
a new compulsory unit: ‘Introduction to Arts and the Humanities’ (University of
Wollongong, 2016). Such program decisions reflect a contrived understanding of
the Arts, Social Sciences, and Humanities. Economics as a Field of Education sits
in commerce but is closer to history in methodology, structure, and purpose than,
say, language studies. Further, such decisions belie a fundamental misunderstanding
of why students enroll in Arts degrees. Lastly, and most dangerously, such deci-
sions around core program requirements have obvious impacts on majors. Before its
decision to introduce a new BA program in 2017, Charles Darwin University had
perhaps the most pronounced example of a generic core driven BA in the country.
Over half the program was either common or compulsory core—a combination of
foundational introductions to some chosen disciplines (e.g., ‘Sociological Perspec-
tives’) and generic units (e.g., ‘Academic Literacies’) (Charles Darwin University,
2016a). The new CDU Bachelor of Arts has fewer core requirements, but the depth
of its specializations (read major) remains unchanged. The specialization in history
is six units of the program’s 24 units (25% of the program). Given the nature of the
units on offer for this specialization (a number of which are themselves generic or
independent learning opportunities), it is difficult for me to imagine that any student
could be warranted for meeting history’s TLOs. Charles Darwin’s directive to its
historians that the TLOs should be reduced for their purposes to ‘four or five’ (Far-
ram, 2014) suggests that institution also held some misgivings about what could be
achieved in the specialization.
The Southern Cross University history major is another example. While I am in
no way seeking to denigrate the efforts of the teaching staff of any program, I am sure
colleagues at Southern Cross would be the first to admit their major faces significant
budgetary and staffing difficulties. It has a gateway unit (called ‘Making History’)
designed to introduce students to the discipline. Students then choose another seven
‘optional’ units though there appear only to be eight units to choose from with only
four of those actually badged as history (the others coming from indigenous studies
and management). Students can also choose from an internship and ‘independent
project’ unit to obtain their required seven units. There is no capstone unit for the
major (Southern Cross University, 2016b). Again, it is difficult to imagine that such
a major could be warranted against the TLOs. Like the Charles Darwin BA, there
simply does not appear enough learning in the discipline to be confident of that
outcome. If history is to survive at Charles Darwin or at Southern Cross, therefore,
it needs to be protected by a compliance regime focussed on the BA program and

not national TLOs around the major.
Why so many BA programs around the country have moved to providing this
more generic and often compulsory component is difficult to say, although anecdotal
evidence presented by colleagues during the After Standards project suggested that
relentless pressure to promote generic/transferable skills, and staffing and taught load
issues in discipline areas, are, unquestionably, significant factors. Regardless of the
original motivation, a more structured Bachelor of Arts holds a significant advantage
in a compliance environment—it is easier to warrant. It would be hard to defend
this emerging type of BA on the traditional argument of providing students with
flexibility—‘the ultimate flexible university degree’ according to UTAS (University
of Tasmania, 2016)—but one could assume that warranting Charles Darwin’s new
or old BA within the context of a national standards environment would be more
straightforward.
If more and more institutions decide in time that a generic and core driven BA is;
first, the best course of action for teaching their students transferable employability
skills and abilities, and; second, holds fewer risks in a compliance environment, then
disciplines such as history are big losers. Such approaches to the BA must, by their
very structure, and the teaching profile required to deliver them, diminish the place of
seemingly costly-to-run majors which offer too many units that generate insufficient
load to subsidize more expensive University activities. Charles Darwin can deliver
its ‘specialization’ in history with two historians in continuing/contract positions
(Charles Darwin University, 2016b). One simply does not need as many historians in
this BA of the future where compliance rests at the generic program level. Would not a
Faculty Dean, or multi-disciplinary Department Head, seeking to ensure compliance,
be more inclined to invest their precious resources in ensuring the program standards
were being met? The long and continuing slide in the number of tenured historians
teaching in Australian universities (a handful of recent philanthropic appointments
notwithstanding) might continue unabated if compliance resides only at the program
level. Do majors become less important when they are not under the compliance
spotlight? Surely they must. Today, it is virtually impossible to make the case for
new appointments based simply and solely on teaching and learning arguments (such
as the desire to embrace a new geographical area or theme). But if the major is the
subject of warranting one might hope that the staff teaching it may be better able
to hold the line against further losses in the name of compliance. I have certainly
witnessed the very same in other disciplines, even with new appointments. Like Star
Trek’s Captain Jean-Luc Picard, historians must yell: ‘The line must be drawn! This
far, no further!’
146 S. Brawley
7.9 Escaping the Compliance Paradox
Lest the future look too bleak I would attest that there is a way to escape from the
compliance paradox and to build for success. The answer is simple but controversial.
To escape the compliance paradox history must escape from the BA.
Two pioneers have already shown the way forward in this space. The first is my
own institution which, for many years, has offered a dedicated, although admittedly
modest, Bachelor of Ancient History degree (Macquarie University, 2016). This
degree had a 2016 Australian Tertiary Admission Rank (ATAR) entry requirement
of 92 in comparison to the BA’s 2016 ATAR of 75. Over many years and through
tireless engagement with the teaching of ancient history in schools in NSW, my
colleagues in ancient history have built a dedicated and high-yield program that one
can only envy. Students in this program complete 15 of their 24 units (62.5%) in
the offerings of the Ancient History Department—still some distance from Brum’s
Single Honours, but better than the history component that would exist in Brum’s
Joint Honours. Students can still complete a major in ancient history in the BA
although they are denied access to some dedicated units from the dedicated degree
program.
At the University of New England (UNE), colleagues set off on a bold exper-
iment in this space in 2011 with the creation of a ‘Bachelor of Historical Inquiry
and Practice’ (University of New England, 2016). In completing their program, stu-
dents complete six core units around historiographical and methodological issues.
They can then complete between four and eight units in either ancient or modern
history, at least four units around applied history units (e.g., archaeology, commu-
nity history, and heritage) and at least three advanced units from the following areas:
ancient history; Australian history; economic history; history, society and culture;
history, writing and communication; and religious history. Students can then com-
plete between four and eight units from elsewhere in the University although there
is strong encouragement for students interested in ancient and non-English speaking
areas to undertake language study. The minimum number of dedicated history units
a student can complete in the program is 16 (66%) though it could be as many as 20
(83%).
Feedback from colleagues who have taught the program over the last five years
remains positive. While, at June 2016, it had a modest 121 students, this figure for
UNE compares most favorably with two of the recent heavy hitters in Arts and
Social Sciences faculties around the country: the Bachelor of International Studies
(110 students) and the Bachelor of Media and Communication (145 students). Of
course, it is worth remembering that each of the students in this dedicated history
program are completing between 16 and 20 units, at least double the number of
units of a history BA major. So for a University with a BA major in history, the
number of program enrolments actually equates in load calculations to at least a
very acceptable 240 majors over the three years of the program—only 14 fewer
than Macquarie University delivered in history majors over four years 2012–2015.
Further, students are still completing the UNE BA history major, adding further load.
Colleagues also report that while the ATAR for the UNE program is set with the
Bachelor of Arts at 72.55, the anecdotal evidence is that the program is attracting
higher-performing students ‘far above those who are doing our BA majors’ (Clark,
2016). The first graduate of the program secured an Australian Postgraduate Award
is completing a Ph.D. at the University of Adelaide.
Escaping the BA major to a dedicated degree program does, to my mind, allow
history to escape the compliance paradox. Built for success, these programs would,
within the new standards environment, be subjected to new compliance regimes.
Whether it was a national TLO-driven standards regime or internal program learning
outcomes set against comparators (e.g.,the 2013 American Historical Association
Tuning Statement), the scaffolding and the sheer volume of learning within the dis-
cipline in such a dedicated program must mitigate toward success and, finally, allow
oranges to be compared with oranges on an international stage. The administrative
effort would be worth it, stabilizing student load, and, hopefully, academic appoint-
ments. History would not be left to the generalist degree and the vagaries of the
compliance paradox.
The ability to compare oranges with international oranges might, hopefully, also
reveal the significant structural weaknesses that exist in the teaching of history in
Australian universities and the degree to which the decreasing number of historians
in teaching positions impacts on the discipline’s ability to perform its role in build-
ing an educated and historically informed citizenry. A comparison of international
research rankings in history not only shows that Australian historians, pound for
pound, are world-beaters, but highlights this structural weakness. While University
webpages are not the most reliable sources of information, it appears that in 2016, 21
continuing and contract historians delivered ANU’s teaching program across two of
its colleges (ANU, 2016b, 2016c). In the QS world rankings (QS, 2016), ANU, (12th)
was bookended by UCLA (11th) and the University of Wisconsin-Madison (13th).
Both American institutions have around 70 teaching and research faculty members
(University of California—Los Angeles, 2016; University of Wisconsin-Madison,
2016). Further down the rankings, at 50th, Monash University competed with two
British universities. Exeter was 49th, and York was 48th. These English institutions
offer their history program with around 50 academics (University of York, 2016;
University of Exeter, 2016). In 2016, Monash appears to have the most historians
in Australia teaching a history major with 23 continuing and contract staff (Monash
University, 2016). These American and British universities can offer a breadth and
depth in their unit offerings that Australian history majors can only dream of. Is it
significant that the nation simply does not produce history majors who have had an
opportunity to study African history? Is it significant that most students completing
a history major have very limited access to the history of the Asian region in which
we live? Is it significant that students are denied deeper engagement with many of
the fields of study because there are simply not the staff to teach them? I recall once
speaking to the late Frank Crowley who built the now dearly departed School of
History at UNSW in the 1960s and 70s. He suggested that his rule of thumb if the
School was going to move into an area of study (yes this was once done!) was that at
least two, preferably three, appointments in the area would be required to allow the
148 S. Brawley
necessary depth and breadth. How many colleagues today find themselves isolated
because they are the only person in their area of interest?
Whether the AHA would need to re-conceive its role as the custodian of the
national TLOs and re-consider an accreditation role might also be less important
if history sat in dedicated programs. As noted, there can be advantages in external
accreditation, but one must question, given broader sector developments and the
fact accrediting history does not currently have a wider professional consequence,
whether there would actually be an advantage to the discipline if the AHA assumed
some accreditation role. Perhaps like the European and US Tuning process, the AHA
would simply be the keeper and reviser of the TLOs and individual programs would be
left to make their own case for warranting—as will be the case with the generalist BA
(unless Deans of Arts Social Sciences and Humanities, DASSH, suddenly embarked
on the folly of some generic BA learning outcomes accreditation exercise). Such
an approach might avoid the fears of ‘institutional isomorphism’ that have been
expressed around sociology’s TLOs (Farquharson, 2013).
One problem with the idea of escaping the BA is that not everyone will make it out.
In 2016, history majors in this country were taught by teams of continuing/contract
teaching/research and teaching intensive academics (usually with sessional staff sup-
port) that ranged in size from two to 23. Where the tipping point on dedicated pro-
gram viability might lie vis-à-vis, the number of teaching staff required to deliver it
is debatable. In many cases, there will simply not be a solid logistical or pedagogical
argument for creating such a dedicated program. The reality of course is that these
majors would have been those most likely to struggle in a compliance regime that was
attempting to warrant them. By staying in the generalist degrees they would remain
trapped in the paradox; protected, at least initially, by the focus on program-level
compliance, but susceptible to initiatives that bolster the program, at the cost of the
major, to jump through requisite compliance hoops.
Even for those capable of escape, such a transition would not be without difficul-
ties. For example, a dedicated program like Macquarie University’s in ancient history
or UNE’s cannot sit within a combined degree with a Bachelor of Education. Because
the volume of learning for these combined degrees is reduced from six to four years
and students need to also qualify in a second teaching method, there is simply not
enough room for more history through a dedicated degree. Ironically, the nation’s
history teachers (at least those who did not seek to complete their teacher training at
postgraduate level) would not have access to the more rigorous disciplinary training
a dedicated degree would provide.
Will those majors capable of escaping the compliance paradox do so? I am aware
of discussions at the ANU to introduce a specialist program titled something like
a ‘Bachelor of International History’ that would be well-suited to the geographi-
cal breadth the institution can muster (the absence of Africa notwithstanding). If
the nation’s best ranked and regarded History Departments build such a program
and the students come, then others may follow. This said, many a Dean, Associate
Dean (Education/Academic/T&L), and colleagues (both disciplinary and other) will
require convincing that the promise is worth the investment. Each of these constituen-
cies will have different priorities and set different outcomes for success. Given the
alternatives, it’s worth making the attempt.
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Chapter 8
In the Shadow of Bologna: Teaching
and Learning Outcomes in the USA
and Europe
Leah Shopkow
Abstract The conversation about teaching and learning goals in history is well
established in both Europe and the USA, where such goals may be called learning
outcomes, learning goals, or degree qualifications. Departments in the countries com-
prising the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) are required to generate these
goals and to publish them, while in the USA, participation in the creation of learning
goals is voluntary. In both domains, there is considerable institutional variation, but
there is substantial overlap in the teaching and learning goals historians have created,
suggesting broad agreement about the essential competencies and capabilities stu-
dents should have mastered when they complete an undergraduate degree in history.
However, the different programs followed by students suggest that departments use
the same words and concepts to mean different degrees of competence and there has
not been much attention paid to progression nor to effective evaluations of whether
students have attained these goals. This failure, coupled with considerable pushback
in both realms by faculty who find such goals alien to how they think about their
professional selves, threatens to undermine the value of such teaching and learning
goals.
8.1 Introduction
In the USA and in Europe, as in Australia, standards (or degree qualifications or

learning outcomes) are now part of the conversation about learning in history. How
these have been implemented and the degree to which they have been implemented,
however, has differed between the USA and Europe. In Europe, at least among the
forty-eight members of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA), departments
are required to develop a list of what students will know and be able to do when they
complete an undergraduate degree. These degree qualifications are supposed to be
public. At some point in the future, European departments will be expected to develop
L. Shopkow (B)
Indiana University, Bloomington, USA
e-mail: shopkowl@indiana.edu

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0047-9_8
156 L. Shopkow
lists of these qualifications for graduate degrees, although most have not yet done
so. In the USA, the development of degree qualifications for undergraduate students
in history has been essentially voluntary, but a number of history departments have
created such standards. What departments in Europe and in the USA have in common
is that standards have been mandated (in the case of Europe) and encouraged (in the
case of the USA) by the Bologna Process, hence the title of this chapter.
What the two regimes have in common (and where they differ from Great Britain)
is that standards have been created at the institutional level, rather than the national
or state level. This is in keeping with the Tuning process, which was adopted in the
EHEA as the means by which each institution would articulate its own standards and
which has driven much of the modern US discussion of learning outcomes or degree
qualifications. Nonetheless, a survey of the competencies students are expected to
attain in all of these regions suggests that, as we might expect, historians are largely
agreed upon what students should know and be able to do if they are to be considered
competent in history. In the first part of this chapter, I will discuss the situation before
the adoption of the Bologna Process and then the changes created by it in both the
EHEA and the USA. However, the articulation of standards is only the first step to
ensuring that students meet whatever standards have been articulated for them. The
next step has to be to determine what ‘meeting the standards’ means for each of these
institutions and figuring out how to show whether students have, in fact, done so. As I
will suggest in the last part of this chapter, these two tasks largely remain to be done.
Nor have these changes been universally embraced by faculty, a matter I will also
discuss as the need arises, perhaps because thinking about learning in history in this
way has, for many history faculty, introduced an alien element into their professional
lives.
8.2 The European Scene
8.2.1 Europe Before Bologna
European universities have been interconnected almost from their inception in the
Middle Ages. English scholars such as Stephen Langton studied and taught in France
(at what was not yet at the time formally a university), while the Italian Thomas
Aquinas studied in Paris. Albertus Magnus was a classic wandering scholar, studying
in Padua and Bologna, teaching in Paris and Cologne. This was facilitated by a
common language of learning (Latin) and under the auspices of a European-wide
institution (the Christian church). These universities, however, served only a small
percentage of the population.
After the Second World War, however, and particularly in the 1960s, in
Europe (as in America), student enrolments dramatically increased accompa-
nied by an increased dropout rate (Capano and Piatone, 2011, p. 587) and,
in some places, very long periods of time for some students to complete
8 In the Shadow of Bologna: Teaching and Learning Outcomes … 157
their degrees (Hahm and Kluve, 2016, p. 4).1 These effects were felt differently
in various countries, because (not surprisingly) each country was responsible for its
own education. Control over education might even be more local than that, as in
Germany, where education was (and is) a state matter. When the European Union
was created, it received only very limited authority over education (Van der Wende
2000).2
One of the goals of the European Union was to facilitate free movement of people
within the Union, but this was complicated by the difficulty people might experience,
moving from one country to another, in establishing the validity of their credentials.
Because each member of the European Union determined its own education policy,
there was no standard understanding about educational achievement within degrees.
Degrees might take three or four years, and while most institutions converged on five
years of higher education (in total) for a master’s degree, there was no consensus about
a doctoral degree (Van der Wende, 2000). In Germany, there was an apprenticeship
system, which did not exist elsewhere, so that it was more difficult for workers to
show their qualifications when moving from one place to another, and there was also
lower participation in higher education (Hahm and Kluve, 2016). It was this situation
that gave rise to the Bologna Declaration.
8.2.2 The Bologna Declaration and the European

Institutional Scene
The Bologna Declaration was preceded by a number of meetings to discuss the inte-
gration of higher education in Europe. A decade before the Bologna Declaration,
European universities gathered, also in Bologna, to agree on academic principles. In
1997, the Council of Europe issued a declaration in Lisbon that laid further ground-
work for integration of European higher education (Lisbon, 1997). This was then
followed by the Sorbonne Declaration in 1998, signed by the education ministers of
the UK, France, Germany, and Italy. Then in 1999, 30 countries signed the Bologna
Declaration, which created the EHEA. By 2001, 33 countries had signed the accord,
with the number rising to 40 in 2003, 46 in 2007, 47 in 2010, and 48 as of 2014.
It is difficult to calculate the number of higher education institutions recognized
by the 48 member nations of the EHEA. The most recent implementation report does
1 Hahm and Klube point out that when the Bologna Declaration was signed, the median German
first-degree graduate was 28 years old and had studied for twelve semesters.
2 Van der Wende (2000), p. 306. ‘Unlike what many people from other regions in the world may
think, the role of the European Union in the field of higher education—and in that of education in
general—is extremely limited. The limitation relates to the so-called Subsidiarity Principle, which
implies that in the areas which do not belong to the exclusive competence of the community (e.g.,
education), community policy will only be developed in areas in which national policy-making
is insufficient (Article 3b of the Maastricht Treaty). In the case of education, the result is that
community action will contribute to the quality of education by encouraging cooperation among
the Member States and by supporting and complementing their actions if necessary.’
158 L. Shopkow
not give an overall figure; data is not available for some of the signatories. While a few
members have fewer than ten such institutions (such as Luxembourg), most (26) have
between 11 and 100, seven have between 101 and 200, and four have more than two
hundred, with Russia listing 900 (European Commission/EACEA/Eurydice, 2015, p.
36). In 2011 and 2012, there were 37.2 million students enrolled in higher education
in Europe. This figure includes students at all levels and at all types of institutions,
including professional programs. Most students attend institutions deemed public
(because most of the funding comes from the various states, even if the institutions
were privately founded and if some of the funding also comes from private sources,
including the student’s own funds or those of the student’s family). Only three sig-
natories have only public institutions. Median funding for higher education in the
EHEA in 2011 was 2.7% of GDP (European Commission/EACEA/Eurydice, 2015).
In short, the institutional landscape in Europe is extremely complicated.
The original concerns of Bologna were employability, internationalization, a com-
mon system of credits, quality assurance, and harmonizing the shape of degrees.
There was no reference in the original declaration to teaching and learning out-
comes at all. The Tuning Project began shortly thereafter in 2000. The term ‘tuning’
was chosen explicitly to make clear that different institutions would arrive at differ-
ent frameworks, based on their mission and culture (Tuning, 2006). References to
qualification frameworks appeared in the Bologna documentation in 2003 after the
Berlin conference, and members were urged to ‘elaborate a framework of compara-
ble and compatible qualifications for their higher education systems, which should
seek to describe qualifications in terms of workload, level, learning outcomes, com-
petences, and profile. They also undertake to elaborate an overarching framework of
qualifications for the European Higher Education Area’ (EHEA, 2003, p. 4). These
frameworks were linked in that communiqué to quality assurance, with agencies to
be in place by 2005. The Bergen communiqué of 2005 had further things to say
about qualifications frameworks, as the EHEA formally adopted the Tuning process
at that meeting (EHEA, 2005). In other words, departments would develop their lists
of learning outcomes or exit attributes of graduates or competencies as part of an
overall framework that would describe what a student had done to receive a degree.
So while the structures the EHEA embraced governed all of the signatories, the actual
creation of TLOs occurred at the level of the department.
As of 2015, 47 of the 48 signatories had harmonized their degree structures, so that
students pursuing a baccalaureate degree take the equivalent of three full-time years to
complete it, with a master’s taking an additional two years, in a semester system. This,
along with the doctoral degree, is known as the three-cycle system. Most students
in most countries are now enrolled in this system. For a baccalaureate degree, most
students must take between 180 and 240 European transfer credits (ECTS) (European
Commission/EACEA/Eurydice, 2015). The holdout is Britain, which has a modular
system and a one-year taught master’s degree (like many American universities),
and which will probably not harmonize given the recent BREXIT vote. As a general
rule, however, across the EHEA at least half of the credits a student is required to
take toward a first degree in history will have history content. Some programs may
require languages as part of the program, as at the University of Paris (University of

Paris, 2016) or may offer other elective or methodologically related requirements.
At the same time, most Western European countries had completed the process
of developing their qualification frameworks. One of the criteria for completion is
providing the information about the qualification framework on a public Web site
(European Commission/EACEA/Eurydice, 2015). The European Credit Transfer and
Accumulation System (ECTS) User’s Guide (ECTS Guide, 2015) further specifies
that the Course Catalogue should be available in the national language of the insti-
tution and in English. However, there is no requirement that an institution list such
requirements on an easily accessible or obvious page and some of the sites I found
that did give such information on a site easy to locate did so only in the national
language. The three Swedish and Norwegian institutions I looked at (Lund, Bergen,
and Oslo) all had learning outcomes listed on a history department Web page (in
the national language), but easily found, although since all offer some degrees in
English, this might be problematic for some students. This was also true for Warsaw.
With some difficulty, I was also able to locate history learning outcomes for the Uni-
versity of Paris (in French), Humboldt University in Berlin (in German; Humboldt
University, 2016b), and University of Bologna (in Italian) in materials available on
the Web giving degree information to students, but not independently available and
available only in the national language. Universities in the UK do not list their teach-
ing and learning outcomes on their individual Web sites, because they subscribe
to the Quality Assurance Association (QAA) national history benchmarks for the
honours history degree (Quality Assurance Association, 2014). I have tabulated the
contents of these learning outcomes (along with learning outcomes from some US
institutions) below.
In other words, it is reasonable to suppose that most European institutions have
complied with the requirement that they have a qualification framework and that
this framework is made explicit and is somewhere available to students, both on a
departmental Web site and, as in the case of Great Britain, on a national site, and
also in the diploma supplement each student may request from the institution that
granted her or him a degree. These qualifications are then available to employers,
who may see the diploma supplement. In section four of this chapter, I will discuss
some of these qualification frameworks, but I will do so in connection to the TLOs
developed in the USA. First, I will offer some remarks to put the American situation
in its context.
8.3 The US Scene
8.3.1 The Institutional Scene
The American picture is rather different from the European situation, in which most
institutions function under the auspices of cities and states. There are slightly over
160 L. Shopkow
half as many students enrolled in higher education in the USA as in Europe. The
estimated total number of students enrolled in higher education in the USA for 2016
is 20.5 million students (National Center for Education Statistics, 2016b). In the
USA, there are many private institutions, although because the state college and uni-
versities systems are so large and because they have traditionally been inexpensive
compared to private education, the vast majority of students attend public institu-
tions.3 In 2011–2012, there were just over 7200 institutions whose students were
eligible for federal student aid (in other words, their standing as educational institu-
tions was recognized by the federal government) (National Center for Educational
Statistics, 2014). Most institutions are relatively small, with a few very large ones
in the mix (Center for Post-Secondary Research, 2015). While a few very wealthy
institutions have large endowments to support needy students and the US federal
government offers some student aid, public institutions depend on tuition dollars for
their budgets, which means that in European terms, American public universities are
actually predominantly private.
Most private US institutions of higher education are nonprofit institutions, but
there has been a growing (and often troubled) sector of for-profit education. Within
the public sector, there are a variety of institutions of different types—tribal col-
leges, special focus institutions (e.g., technical colleges, health professions schools,
engineering schools, some of which may only offer associates degrees), commu-
nity colleges (two-year institutions), baccalaureate–associates colleges (offering a
few four-year degrees), baccalaureate colleges, master’s colleges and universities,
and doctoral universities. Some of these are replicated in the private nonprofit and
for-profit sectors (Center for Post-Secondary Research, 2016). The US constitution
gives states authority over education, which means that the states can and have dic-
tated some aspects of education. These may be general education requirements or
requirements for particular degrees in which the state might be deemed to have a
special interest, such as teacher training (in the case of private schools, this control is
exerted through credentialing). Each American state has its own public institutions of
higher education, over which they have considerable say, even though the percentage
of funding coming from the states has decreased substantially over the years; it is
currently on average 23% of the costs (Douglas-Gabrielle, 2015).
However, the states do not accredit institutions of higher education. American
colleges and universities seek accreditation from accrediting agencies recognized by
the US Department of Education, which are mostly regional: The ability of these
schools to collect federal student aid hinges upon their accreditation (National Cen-
ter for Education Statistics, 2016a; Kelderman, 2016). The accreditors, however,
are private nonprofit entities, composed of consortia of member institutions. The
accrediting agencies require institutions to provide learning goals for their students
and to demonstrate that students meet those goals. For example, the Higher Learning
Commission requires that
3 National Center for Education Statistics 2015 lists about 13.5 million undergraduates in public
institutions and just under 4 million in private ones (which would include for-profit institutions).
The institution articulates and differentiates learning goals for its undergraduate, graduate,
post-baccalaureate, post-graduate, and certificate programs (Higher Learning Commission,
2016).
These goals are to be articulated from the perspective of the mission class of the
institution—that is, each institution’s publicly articulated and documented policies
and purposes—rather than being universal for all the institutions examined by the
accreditor. The few understandings that generally apply across mission classes are
that each institution is to serve the public good and recognize its place in a diverse
society; that different institutions serve different constituencies; and that institutions
must prioritize education over other considerations such as politics and profits. In
other words, despite being a single nation, the educational environment in the USA
is nearly as diverse as within the EHEA.
There are, however, some important commonalities. Most colleges and univer-
sities adhere to the concept of post-secondary education as a ‘liberal education.’
This means that students are expected to have well-rounded programs with a vari-
ety of courses in different disciplines, while specializing in one or more fields and
majors. While different disciplines require different numbers of courses to complete
the major, this is generally a much lower number than the total number of courses a
student requires for a degree from the institution. A typical number for history majors
is ten semester-long courses or twelve quarter-long courses or a little over a year of
full-time study at most four-year institutions. Some institutions cap the number of
courses in a discipline that can be applied toward degree credit. At Indiana University,
for example, students are required to take thirty hours (ten courses) in general edu-
cation (which may include courses that may be used toward a major)—this is a state
requirement—and may take no more than forty-two credit hours (fourteen courses)
for degree credit in a discipline (Indiana University, 2016). Since a baccalaureate
degree requires 120 credits, students may take no more than just over a third of their
credits in the discipline of their choice.
8.3.2 Before the Tuning Project
In the USA, the question of learning goals or outcomes cannot be disentangled from
the assessment movement. Although many people think of assessment as grading or
marking student work, the American assessment movement was not aimed primar-
ily at grading, but at using student work to measure what students were learning at
various institutions, whether that work was assigned a mark or not. An exemplary
product of the assessment movement are the American Association of Colleges and
University’s VALUE (Valid Assessment of Learning in Undergraduate Education)
Rubrics, general rubrics for measuring student mastery of cognitive moves, indepen-
dent of grading (VALUE, 2016). Assessment of this sort can be approached from two
directions, either as a process of inquiry, taking student work and figuring out what
students appear to be learning from it or deciding what students should be learning
162 L. Shopkow
and creating assignments from which one can measure whether and to what degree
they have learned it.
Some discussion of assessment arose in the USA in the wake of the upheavals of
the 1960s. Daedalus, the journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences,
published two special issues on the future of higher education in 1974 and 1975.
While the focus was in part on the content of education and institutional function,
at least one of the articles addressed assessment (Allison, 1974). Well-known in
some academic circles, but not so well-known outside of them, is the continuing
experiment Alverno College began in 1973, in which the program of the college was
entirely restructured to be a
performance-based, outcome-oriented approach to liberal arts education. To earn a degree,
a student demonstrates eight broad abilities: communication, analysis, problem-solving,
valuing in decision-making, effective interaction, global perspectives, effective citizenship,
and aesthetic response at increasingly complex levels. (Loacker, 1991, 5)
Students at Alverno receive feedback, but no grades.

However, for most institutions assessment emerged in the early 1990s, when a
national assessment movement developed in Higher Education. While colleges and
universities did not necessarily institute systematic learning goals in all departments
at that time, many did establish offices of assessment. Still, faculty continued to see
assessment (and hence learning goals) as an imposition from administration rather
than an expression of a department’s mission (Andersen et al., 1991). A lot of faculty
held their breaths and hoped that assessment (as opposed to assignment grades)
would go away, and for quite a while it did.
For historians, however, the need to define history and defend its value began
to provide considerable incentive to think about the teaching of their discipline.
Although the raw number of undergraduates seeking history degrees climbed until
2013, the percentage of students seeking such degrees peaked in the early 1990s and
has been falling since with a brief reversal around 2007 (Townsend, 2013; Brookins,
2016). Whether this decline in majors and concern over it caused historians to begin
thinking about the important concepts in the discipline or not, North American his-
torians began to define various concept inventories for history, often based on work
done from the 1980s in British schools (Calder and Steffes, 2016).
8.4 The Tuning Project and the Degree Qualification Profile
This is the American context into which Tuning was introduced. The discussion
that follows draws largely from the account of Dan McInerney, one of the leaders
of the project for the American Historical Association (AHA) (McInerney, 2016).
The Lumina Foundation underwrote a project run through the American Historical
Association to introduce Tuning to the historical profession in the USA, after they
had embarked upon an initial effort in three states (Utah, Minnesota, and Indiana),
to which Kentucky and Texas were later added. Several disciplines were involved,
not just history.4 To date, some 120 institutions have been involved in the AHA’s
Tuning Project, which is ongoing and which has produced a document outlining the
discipline core created by the directors of the project (American Historical Associ-
ation, 2016). The goal of the project was to put faculty in charge of determining the
core elements of their discipline that would define their own programs; to follow
students who completed majors to see where they gained employment; to consult
with employers and other stakeholders; to refine the core; and to put it into practice.
The idea was that faculty would follow the European Tuning Process by determining,
at the department level, what learning outcomes students should achieve by the time
they graduated. Participation, however, and the degree of participation have been
voluntary. Some of the institutions involved have been very active, while others have
been relatively peripheral. How active they have been has depended in part on how
strong institutional and departmental support has been for the project and the status
of the individuals involved within their departments. Where a departmental chair
or an individual with administrative support has led the effort, the department has
generally been more active.
One notable feature of the American Tuning Project, however (from my perspec-
tive as a participant), is how few research-intensive universities joined in the game.
Although there were representatives from a few of these institutions (University of
California at Berkeley, Indiana University, and University of Wisconsin at Madison)
in the initial Tuning Group, the vast majority of participants came from institutions
with a stronger teaching orientation. Part of the problem is that in research-intensive
universities, research is what counts, and research usually means the scholarship of
discovery in the USA (in Europe, the scholarship of integration is also part of the mix
(Elen and Verburgh, 2008)), so there has been little incentive for faculty from these
institutions to get involved. In contrast, a substantial number of the participants have
come from community colleges (two-year institutions offering associate degrees),
where permanent faculty are often vastly outnumbered by contingent faculty. Where
this project will go in the many institutions that are working on it or something like
it (perhaps not under the official auspices of Tuning) is not entirely clear.
Unlike the Bologna Process, whose signatories must make their TLOs public,
there is no such requirement as part of Tuning and relatively few departments have
put such information on their departmental Web sites. Alverno College, always a
leader, has done so (Alverno, 2016). Utah State University, part of the consortium
of institutions in the state of Utah which were at the forefront of Tuning, does as
well (Utah State University, 2016). Most participants (and even non-participants)
do make general statements about what students will learn often expressed as goals
of the major (e.g., Carleton College, 2016). The History Department at Indiana
University has a curriculum map containing TLOs, but these have not been publicly
posted (Indiana, 2015). When I inquired of the American Tuning community why
4 The Lumina Foundation (founded in 2000 and renamed the Lumina Foundation for Education in
2001), a private foundation with a billion-dollar endowment, has been very active in promoting
certain directions in higher education both through its current activities, including the sponsorship
of Tuning, the Degree Qualification Profile, and the National Institute for Learning Outcomes
assessment (Lumina, 2017).
164 L. Shopkow
participants had not posted their TLOs, some simply did not put many resources
into updating Web sites, while one respondent said that the administration of his
institution simply had not acted on his recommendation. I suspect in many cases, it
simply had not occurred to the departments in question to do so.
This is something that will presumably be addressed by the newer project launched
by the Lumina Foundation, the Degree Qualification Profile (DQP) project. Lumina
is working with the National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment (NILOA),
which was founded in 2008 and the Institute for Evidence-Based Change (IEBC)
(Degree Qualification Profile, 2016). As NILOA’s involvement suggests, assessment
is once again firmly on the American table.
8.5 Comparisons
8.5.1 TLOs in Action
So teaching and learning outcomes are probably here to stay in Europe and in the
USA, whatever these are called (learning outcomes, core competencies, learning
goals, exit attributes, degree qualifications). Where they exist, they have been gener-
ated at the department level, except in the UK. They are a required feature of history
programs among signatories to the Bologna Declaration, but are not yet required by
accreditors in the USA at the level of the department. In Europe, they must be made
public (although they were often extremely difficult to find), but because there is no
requirement in the USA that history departments even develop such programmatic
learning outcomes, there can be no requirement that they be published. However,
pressure from potential employers may push matters in that direction as may the
DPQ project. With that said, it now makes sense to look at some of these documents
in a comparative way.
Because of the large number of institutions in the EHEA, because many of their
TLOs are not available in English and my linguistic abilities are limited, and because
many of the American history departments that have created TLOs have not made
them public, it is not possible to do a systematic or comprehensive comparison
based on all of the standards that have been enunciated. I tried to make sure that
I had examples from a variety of countries, although the institutions in question
have tended to be highly notable ones. However, given the prestige of some of these
institutions (Bologna, Paris, and Berlin), it is likely that these outcomes have had
some influence on what has been offered by other universities in each country. In
the American case, I searched the institutions participating in the Tuning Project for
publicly posted examples, although, as I have said before, most participants have not
posted their TLOs. I have included the ECTS guidelines for history, as these most
likely reflect a general—if somewhat banal—consensus in the EHEA about what
history students ought to learn.
These TLOs, therefore, should not be taken as somehow comprehensive or rep-

resentative of either Europe or the USA as wholes. Rather they simply show some
of what has been done in both places. However, the commonalities I have found in
them strongly suggest that they define the ‘horizon of expectations’ of history TLOs.
This is not surprising because in both the USA and Europe TLOs were almost uni-
versally developed by professional historians within their departments. The British
benchmark standards were not developed within individual history departments, but
they were developed by historians from many institutions and therefore reflect the
views of the discipline. My point here is that these outcomes arose from disciplinary
practitioners rather than educationalists, a point I will return to later. These lists of
TLOs, however, are not identical. While there is a fair consensus in both regions
about the essential competencies and habits of mind of the historian, there are some
interesting variations. It is clear that there are both national traditions of historical
practice that are reflected in TLOs and also, because they were mostly developed at
the departmental level, local cultural emphases.
I have provided some tables showing the points mentioned in the TLOs I looked
at (including the sample offered by the ECTS Guide, 2015), but because a particular
point is not checked off, this does not mean that the department in question does not
teach or value that TLO. For instance, while many departments mention source crit-
icism explicitly, others do not. Yet students in all those departments are presumably
expected to analyze sources, and criticism is part of this. The faculty may simply see
source criticism as part of learning to work with historical evidence (the term ‘source
criticism’ is generally not used in the USA). Differences of focus and expression, in
other words, may have obscured some things actually taught and valued. I have also
had to extrapolate from what has been said, so these tables are based on my read-
ing of each set of TLOs. Others may interpret the evidence somewhat differently.
For instance, the ECTS guide (ECTS Guide, 2015) says simply that students should
know and be able to use the basic techniques of historical research. I have expanded
that in the chart to include most of the items under ‘constructing histories.’ In addi-
tion, the documents may address somewhat different audiences—some departments
clearly see them as directed at students (and so avoid technical language) and some at
employers. Finally, within the EHEA and also probably in some departments of his-
tory in the USA, there are often two levels of TLOs, the more general public version
and a more detailed and specific version, which may or may not be publicly available
(see ECTS Guide, 2015). This, together with the different potential audiences for
TLOs, may explain why some of these documents are more detailed than others.
For example, the TLOs given by University of Bergen (University of Bergen, 2016)
are fairly general and succinct (also true of Bergen Community College (Bergen
Community College, 2016)), while the teaching and learning outcomes of Univer-
sity of Bologna (University of Bologna, 2016) are quite extensive and detailed, as
are the UK benchmark standards statement (History Benchmark Standards, 2014).
The TLOs of Alverno College (Alverno College, 2016) are fairly succinct, but also
show how history outcomes are related to the general outcomes desired for all of the
students in the college across disciplines.
166 L. Shopkow
The TLOs vary notably on the degree to which there is reference to particular
subject matter. Not all programs specify subject matter of any particular type, but
even in cases where specific subject matter is mentioned, only a very small part
of the whole set of TLOs are devoted to it. In general, these content requirements
either refer to some mastery of national history or require that students specialize in
one or more content areas without specifying which those ought to be. This move
away from specifying precisely what content knowledge students should master
seems to be a general feature of European and American historical instruction, with
one or two exceptions. However, it is worth noting that specific content knowledge
may nonetheless be expected in the form of required courses, without that being
incorporated into TLOs (Table 8.1).
An area of considerable consensus similarly exists around working with primary
and secondary sources (see Table 8.2). Nearly all of the institutions mentioned that
students should be able to work with primary sources (although not all used the
expression ‘source criticism’).
It would not be correct to assume, however, that if specific features of working
with primary and secondary sources are not mentioned, for instance, the ability to
critique a secondary source, that the department does not value this competency.
The department may simply see this competency as one that is demonstrated when
students produce their own historical accounts, for instance, when they analyze and
interpret historical evidence, which would certainly in most cases include evidence
from secondary sources (see Table 8.3). Nearly every institution included this com-
petency explicitly in the outcomes they expected, also true in the case of collecting
evidence, producing arguments, and writing the results. In other cases, individual
departments seem to have expressed local priorities. Some, although not all, want
their students to be able to deliver historical accounts orally. A few stressed the impor-
tance of historical causation or wanted students to be able to account for historical
significance. Again, these differences may be as much differences of emphasis rather
than actual divergence.
Alternatively, the department might see the ability to critique a secondary source
as part of the conceptual competencies students need to develop, for instance as part
of mastery of the appropriate methodologies of history (see Table 8.4). Departments
were, in general, much more random in their enunciation of learning outcomes of
this type.
Most departments also made some reference to habits of mind that might or might
not be specifically historical. While many departments highlighted the importance of
student awareness that multiple perspectives exist in the world, only a few stressed
the ability to maintain critical distance, the ability to update one’s ideas based on
new information, or the ability to cope with ambiguity (see Table 8.5).
Finally, some TLOs link history accomplishments to work readiness (such as the
ability to collaborate with others), while others do not, although those departments
may well do so in other places in their materials. Some include general competencies
not specifically related to the discipline of history. Others referred to the mastery of
competencies in related disciplines, such as sociology, where appropriate, reflecting
a truth generally accepted by historians that historians frequently borrow their theory
Table 8.1 Content knowledge
Institution Bergen Bergen Oslo Lund Sorbonne Humboldt Bologna Benchmarks Indiana Alverno U Utah ECTS Warsaw
(Nor) (NJ) U-Bloomington Missouri- State Guide
Kansas
City
Knowledge of X X
local or national
history
General content X X X X X X
knowledge
Make historical X X
comparisons
between different
regions/world
Specialize in one X X X X X X X
or more areas
Describe changes X X X X X X
and continuity
over time
Be familiar with X X X
8 In the Shadow of Bologna: Teaching and Learning Outcomes …
different
historical foci
(e.g., political,
social history)
Be familiar with X X X
the
historiography of
a field
167
168
Table 8.2 Working with primary and secondary sources

Kansas
City
Be able to do X X X X X X X X X
source criticism
Be able to work X X X X
with a variety of
types of primary
sources
Critique X X X X X X
historical
representations
Separate facts X
from
interpretations
L. Shopkow
Table 8.3 Competencies related to constructing histories
Kansas
City
Formulate X X X X X X X X
historical
questions
Collect historical X X X X X X X X X X X
evidence
Organize X X X X X X X X X
historical
evidence
Analyze and X X X X X X X X X X X X X
interpret
historical
evidence
Synthesize X X X X X X X X
historical
evidence
Evaluate X X X
significance
Engage in X X X X X X
perspective-
taking
Recognize/create X X X X X
historical context
Work with large X X X
quantities of
evidence
Explain X X X X X
historical
causation (in
complex ways)
(continued)
169
170
Table 8.3 (continued)

Kansas
City
Construct X X X X X X X X X X X
historical
arguments
Produce X X X X X X X X X X X X X
historical writing
Observe X X X X X X
conventions of
historical
documenta-
tion/professional
standards
Deliver historical X X X X X X X X
material orally
Revise work X
based on new
evidence
Write for X X X
different
audiences
Make an original X
contribution
L. Shopkow
Table 8.4 Conceptual competencies
Kansas
City
Be able to use X X X X X X X
appropriate
historical
methodologies
Possess X X X X
theoretical
knowledge and
be able to apply
it
Recognize X
differences
between
historical writing
and other sorts of
writing
Recognize X X
differences
between history
as a discipline
and other
disciplines
Be aware of X X X
historical
complexity
Be aware of X X X X X X X
multiple
perspectives
Be able to X
explain how
history produces
knowledge
171
172
Table 8.5 Mental Dispositions

Kansas
City
Be able to work in X X
new areas
Be aware of X X
historical
complexity
Understand the X X X X X X X
influence of the
past on the
present/think
historically in the
world
Be aware of X X X X X X X X X
multiple
perspectives
Transfer historical X X
understanding to
other fields/be open
to other fields
Carry out a project X X X X X X X
autonomously
Carry out a project X
with support
Maintain critical X X X
distance
Tolerate ambiguity X
and messiness
Keep up to date X
with the pertinent
historical literature
L. Shopkow
and methods from other disciplines (for instance, University of Bologna, 2016 and
University of Paris, 2016) (Table 8.6).
It seems probable that the personalities in a given department and the particular
concerns of individuals have influenced both how these matters are framed (this was
the case in my own department, where the TLO specifying that students be able to
explain how history as a discipline creates knowledge grew out of the work of the
History Learning Project—see Shopkow et al. 2013). Some are focused more on the
practical aspects of producing histories than others are. Most of the learning outcomes
listed by University of Warsaw fall into this category (University of Warsaw, 2016).
Overall, however, there are some emphases that appear to be cultural/national.
The US TLOs often mention historical context very explicitly. Again, it is likely
that all history departments would say they teach students to understand and weave
historical context, just as most say explicitly that students will understand multiple
viewpoints. However, contextualization has been something particularly stressed in
the educational psychological writing on history in the USA by people like Wineburg
(1999), and so it may have particular resonance to American historians. Similarly,
some European programs stress the importance of linking the past and the present
and addressing lay audiences as well as audiences of historians, which the US TLOs
and British history benchmarks do not do; they are more likely to stress maintaining
critical emotional distance from the past or taking the perspective of the past. Sim-
ilarly, the US and British standards emphasize the complexity of the past and the
need to tolerate ambiguity in a way not generally found in the European TLOs. These
differences also very likely reflect the stances of the historians in different countries,
as Mangset found in her research on British, Norwegian, and French historians. That
the University of Paris does not mention students learning to make historical argu-
ments may reflect her finding that French historians see their discipline as scientific
(Mangset, 2008, 2009).
8.5.2 The Problem of Progression
If one looks at just two of the institutions in the chart, however, a problem emerges.
If we consider the TLOs of Bergen Community College (NJ) and the University of
Bergen (Norway), chosen partly semi-facetiously because of the fortuitous coinci-
dence of name, and partly because they represent two very different sorts of insti-
tutions, one a two-year college (NJ) and the other a prominent research-orientated
university offering a full range of degrees (Norway), one sees that there is consid-
erable overlap in the contents of the TLOs. Both expect students to be able to do
source criticism (Bergen, NJ does not use that terminology which is predominantly
European); both expect students to be able to critique historical representations done
by others; both expect the analysis of historical evidence; both expect students to be
able to write historically, with appropriate documentation, and to deliver historical
ideas orally; both say students will be able to construct historical arguments. This
confluence is what we might expect, from my remarks above. However, Bergen, NJ,
174
Table 8.6 Auxiliary skills and competencies

Kansas
City
Collaborate X X X X X
professionally
with others
Foreign X X X X
languages and
databases
Know X ? X X X X
methodologies of
adjacent fields
where
appropriate
Self- X X X X
discipline/self-
regulation
L. Shopkow
is a community college, where specialists in history take a minimum of five courses,

worth 15 credits (out of the 60 comprising the degree). University of Bergen requires
its students to take a minimum of 90 credits out of a degree requiring 180. This means
not only do students in Norway spend a much greater percentage of their university
career studying history and related historical competencies (like languages) than do
students in New Jersey, but they spend much more time overall immersed in history.
So what does this similarity in TLOs mean?
On one level, it is reassuring, because it suggests that historians in these two
quite different institutions of higher education are agreed on essential historical
competencies their graduates should have. On the other hand, it is highly unlikely
that the students at Bergen (NJ) will on average have achieved the same level of
competency as the students at Bergen (Norway). Without disrespect to the teachers
at either of these institutions, they must have differing expectations about what their
target level of competency looks like. However, it is not possible to tell this from the
TLOs alone. I like to call this the ‘two-Bergen problem.’
The problem is compounded in the USA, because of increasing pressure in some
state systems to encourage students to begin their studies at community colleges,
which are generally considerably cheaper than public four-year schools. They then
can transfer to four-year institutions for the remaining two years of their programs.
The US public four-year colleges and universities generally have extensive articu-
lation agreements with the community colleges in their states to ensure that credits
transfer seamlessly. In Indiana, for example, the community colleges use the same
numbers as the courses in the four-year colleges in the Indiana University system. If
we compare Bergen Community College with my own institution’s TLOs, one finds
that once again they are quite similar. However, if students at Bergen transfer to a
four-year school like mine, they will take at least six more courses in history (while
all the credits will transfer, only four courses will be transferable for credit toward a
history major). Presumably they will develop greater competency in whatever four-
year program they transfer to, and yet this is not reflected in the TLOs. Finally, if
we compare European three-year degrees with each other and with US four-year
degrees, we see the same similarity, and yet, as I noted above, the courses of study
are not comparable.
This brings up two problems. The first is the issue of progression. Is what a
student achieves in a community college in his or her five courses in history different
only in degree or depth from what a student will have achieved after eleven history
courses for an American degree or 90 credits for a European degree or is there a
qualitative difference in the competence of the student? What do we mean when
we say that a student can use historical evidence in an appropriate way after five
courses? After ten or eleven courses? After 90 credits worth of courses? Are there
predictable way stations on the way to mastering this use of evidence (Shopkow and
Díaz, forthcoming)?
Progression in historical thinking has been studied, even as it has been recognized
as problematic. Peter Lee and Denis Shemilt, for instance, in discussing progression
models, mapped out a potential progression in students’ thinking about the issue of
reliability in regard to historical evidence (Lee and Shemilt, 2003). However, they
176 L. Shopkow
warn that students skip over steps, get stuck at steps and that models for progression
need to be developmental and that for them to work, teachers have to find them
useful. Although this article primarily discusses history in secondary education, the
issues are quite similar from primary through tertiary education.
The other important issue in relation to progression is differentiation, or ‘the dif-
ferences in terms of academic challenge that are incorporated from level to level
within these programmes’ (Timmins, Vernon, & Kinealy, 2005, 39). This issue has
generally been addressed in terms of what Lee and Shemilt call ‘substantive con-
cepts,’ namely the content matter of history (Lee & Shemilt, 2003, 14 (Fig. 1)). Quite
a lot of programs have broad courses at the initial stages of a degree, after which
students progress to more focused material. In a European context, where students
walk through the sequence of a program in order, this is less problematic than in an
American context in which history courses may well be organized and numbered in
that fashion, but students may choose to take the courses in any order they see fit,
often with only the limitation that they must take certain courses before doing their
capstone course.
The distinction between surveys and more focused and specialized courses is a
relatively simple way to differentiate courses. It is a more difficult proposition to
differentiate courses using second-order concepts, the habits of mind, and metacon-
ceptions that permit the treatment of the content as an historian would. What would
be the ‘junior version’ of historical thinking that might benchmark (to use the British
phrase) what might be expected of a first-year student, a second-year student, and so
forth? University of Missouri at Kansas City has a rubric that contains progression
implicitly, by scalar evaluation of various student competencies in history. And yet,
as Drew Bergerson, who led their faculty through the Tuning project, told me in a
personal communication, many faculty have chosen not to use these rubrics in their
classes to follow their students’ progress and there is no requirement that they do so
(Bergerson et al., 2016).
This disconnect may have arisen because teaching and learning outcomes were
not, by and large, developed out of knowledge of what the cognitive psychologists
working on history learning had to say about how people come to think historically,
but out of historians’ own sense of what was necessary.5 As the research team to
which I belong (the History Learning Project; see Díaz et al., 2008) found, most
historians do not remember the stages they passed through on their way to thinking
historically or remember what it was like not to be able to do so. To determine these
stages would require significant research on how students actually learn or at least
more attention to some of the fine research that has already been done. And TLOs
would have to be used to develop and assess curriculum. The same situation pertains
in Europe, where departments have been offered a generic template to guide their
enunciation of learning outcomes (see Tuning Educational Structures, no date, 60).
The hope clearly was that TLOs would drive curricular reform, and Lindberg-Sand
5 Infact, in the first meeting of the American Historical Association Tuning project, participants
were explicitly told that all the old work would be thrown out and participants would start afresh,
an attitude that has, fortunately, vanished as the work progressed.
(2012) reports that in Sweden this has happened. It is not clear, however, that it has
happened elsewhere in a systematic way.
8.5.3 The Problem of Implementation: TLOs Embraced,

Given Lip-Service, Ignored, and Rejected
Lee and Shemilt also advise that ‘progression models must be capable of being
applied in the ways and to the extent that teachers find useful’ (20). This is probably
the weak spot with respect to history TLOs in general. It seems quite likely that
some teachers are quite serious about designing courses around the TLOs. However,
some undoubtedly believe that they are already teaching these competencies in their
classes (which is certainly possibly the case) and have unreflectively included these
outcomes in their syllabi, while others have refused to do so or claim that these
competencies cannot be measured and indeed should not be measured. Since so
many of the TLOs offered by history departments are general, the departments have
to define what these mean.
For TLOs to be meaningful, student achievement has to be assessed and the means
by which it is assessed have to be shared at least among the faculty of a department
and, for transfer, with the institutions to which students transfer. Assessment is the
weak link in both the European realm and the American realm. For many faculty,
assessment still means grading and grades indicate achievement. However, grades,
even meaningful ones, are a composite measure, and differences in the mastery of
learning outcomes exist within most individual students. For instance, a student might
be excellent at collecting evidence and not so good at analyzing it, or might excel
at discerning and critiquing the positions in the secondary historical literature, but
not so adept at formulating his or her own historical arguments. In a lengthy piece
of work, such as a thesis, it is probably possible to tease out these individual strands
using a separate instrument or instruments, provided that the department chooses to
do so, which is what the University of Missouri—Kansas City instrument does. But
it is more difficult to pull apart the shorter assignments American students typically
do or examinations, which may test recall as much as mastery of historical skills.
To address these issues, teaching would really have to be ‘community property’ as
Lee Shulman has argued (Shulman, 1993). TLOs would have to drive a structured
curriculum with at least heuristic way stations or goals along the way. Right now,
however, many teachers still function as solo practitioners rather than as part of a
team with a common goal. While it is widely accepted that the content of curriculum
ought to be planned, the notion that students’ cognitive route should be planned and
coordinated as well has not hitherto gained much traction.
There has also been active resistance to the implementation of TLOs in both
Europe and the USA. Humboldt University, for instance, has instituted what it is
calling ‘bologna.lab.’
178 L. Shopkow
The bologna.lab is a cross-faculty teaching and learning laboratory of HU and reports directly
to the Vice President for Academic and International Affairs. It serves as an organizational
umbrella for seven projects aimed at promoting self-guided, independent learning formats
which create scope for individual development and contribute to the implementation of
needs-oriented academic curricula. In this way, the bologna.lab responds to criticisms which
view the Bologna Reform Process as the root cause of a tendency toward ‘spoon-feeding’
curricula in higher education. (Humboldt University, 2016a)
While this venture is probably exciting to participate in and educationally worth-

while, it also appears to bypass the Bologna Process by shifting to interdisciplinary
project-based learning. In addition, this kind of education, aimed at by research-
intensive universities, may represent a desire to protect faculty research time as much
as to promote student learning, suggesting problems in the link between research and
teaching (for discussion on this relationship, see Elen and Verburgh, 2008, chapter
2). And it seems to point to a resistance to what are seen as American forms of edu-
cation, which a German academic in a conversation with me called an ‘assignment
culture.’6
Some of these concerns have also been voiced in the USA, although there are
others as well. Assessment of student learning has often been seen as a form of ‘alien’
knowledge (Perkins, 2008), whose methods and purpose are imposed from without
or from above, that is, by people from education departments who do not understand
or care about disciplinary knowledge or by administrators who want to appease
accreditors. But some of the concerns also reflect the USA’s own political moment.
When Tuning came to the USA, it was under the auspices of the Lumina Foundation
(which is still involved in learning outcomes through the Degree Qualification Profile
initiative). This raised considerable suspicions in some quarters because of groups
Lumina had previously sponsored and also because of fears that it, like other wealthy
private foundations such as the Gates Foundation, which has funded the ‘Big History’
movement (Big History, 2016), intended to take charge of the direction and content
of American education, once again bypassing the people who really understand the
disciplines. Furthermore, given the absence of an overall authority like the EHEA
or a national quality assurance framework, matters are more or less left up to the
initiative of the institutions involved, which for most means not getting involved at
all. There has been further pushback in both regions because these movements can
be seen as an attempt to please employers rather than to provide a rich and authentic
education for students (Karseth, 2008; Calder & Steffes, 2016). Finally, as Lindberg-
Sand (2012) points out, classification systems are deeply embedded in social systems
and may provoke considerable resistance when they are altered.
In other words, TLOs have become entwined with a number of highly emotionally
charged issues, even though all the parties would say they heartily endorse the goal
of providing excellent post-secondary education to students. The arguments over
6 Notall responses have been negative, however. Hahm and Kluve (2016) have concluded that
the Bologna Process at Humboldt succeeded in getting more students to attain university degrees,
and while their performance overall was worse (what in the USA would be called the grade-point
average), they have argued that students are not necessarily worse prepared in the end, because their
grades include courses left out of the old calculation system.
assessment and TLOs, over ‘spoon-feeding’ and ‘assignment culture’, are proxy
battles over who will define the nature of universities in the twenty-first century and
over the status and roles of those who will teach in them. Henry Adams, reflecting
on his life at the beginning of the last century, wrote, ‘What could become of such
a child of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when he should wake up to find
himself required to play the game of the twentieth?’ (Adams, 1983, p. 723) Faculty
at institutions of higher education are situated on similarly shifting terrain, educated
in traditional ways going back to the nineteenth century, but required to function in
the twenty-first, feeling, as Daniel Seymour recently put it, that ‘Higher education
has lost control of its own narrative.’ (Seymour, 2016)
But even where learning outcomes are embraced the absence of an assessment
structure coordinated with the TLOs renders them inscrutable and thus makes it
impossible to tell whether faculty are paying attention to them or not and equally dif-
ficult to tell whether students are actually achieving the goals set for them (Lindberg-
Sand, 2012). The EHEA is aware of the problem of non-implementation and has
plans to deal with it (EHEA Advisory Group on non-Implementation, 2016). This is
clearly also true in the US system, although there have been some attempts to rectify
the situation. The National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment (NILOA)
has been involved in assignment charrettes, workshops where history faculty sub-
mit assignments and develop new ones better suited to assessing student learning.
There have been some optimistic evaluations, ones that even suggest that the USA
will institute national frameworks (which seems highly unlikely to me) (Crosier &
Parveva, 2013). However, it remains to be seen whether these developments will
gain traction and what it will mean for the social systems of universities or other
institutions of higher education if they do.
8.6 Conclusion
Writing in 2008, Berit Karseth suggested that quality frameworks could go one of
two ways: They could shape a conversation between students and the institutions they
study at and between those institutions and employers about the kind of education a
student’s degree represented, or they could be a structure for top-down control which
would advance the corporatization of the university. If education is a commodity, the
traditional relationships between faculty and students break down. If it is a process
and if TLOs facilitate that process, the relationship is strengthened.
At the heart of the issue is faculty identity and roles in a changing university.
If medieval universities began as unions of students and/or teachers, they have not
been that for a very long time. Still, faculty expertise and autonomy are cornerstones
of the identities of those lucky enough to find permanent positions in institutions of
higher education. Many faculty still think of themselves essentially as researchers, at
least at the research-intensive institutions. And clearly some feel that they are being
sidelined. The language of stakeholders, which appeared in the 2005 ministerial
report of the EHEA, the report that also stressed quality assurance, situates a number
180 L. Shopkow
of parties as having an interest in educational outcomes. While this is correct, it

creates a false equivalence between faculty, who have to carry out any project of
education, and others, who simply have a stake in that process. The faculty fear
is always that they will be told what to do by others who do not understand the
process (see McInerney, 2016; Calder, 2016; Spiegel, 2008). Add to this problem
the increasing use of contingent faculty in both Europe and the USA, people who,
although they are often well-trained historians, have little or no voice or status in
the departments in which they teach, and there is the real possibility of qualification
frameworks becoming a top-down imposition rather than a tool used by faculty to
ensure that they know what their students have learned and are able to do.
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Retrieved September 25, 2016 from http://history.usu.edu/files/upload/Learning_Objectives.pdf.
VALUE. (2016). American Association of Colleges & Universities. VALUE rubrics. Retrieved
March 5, 2017 from https://aacu.org/value-rubrics.
van der Wende, M. (2000). The Bologna declaration: Enhancing the transparency and competitive-
ness of European higher education. Higher Education in Europe, 25(3), 305–310.
Chapter 9
Leadership: Enabling Leadership
in the Teaching and Learning of History
in Higher Education
Adele Nye and Jennifer Clark
Leadership matters
Alan Booth
Abstract This chapter considers the importance of leadership in creating an envi-

ronment in which history teaching can flourish and evolve. It argues that ‘enabling
leadership’ is a way to support individual and collegial endeavour that reinvigorates
professional commitment within the context of the managerial revolution.
9.1 Introduction
If the adage is true that we tend to teach as we ourselves have been taught, then
in the interests of the next generation there is a grave imperative for us all as
academic historians to ensure that we model excellent teaching for our students.
It is no longer acceptable or advisable simply to teach by habit rather than design.
We must embrace reflective practice in order to evaluate our current methods,
develop innovative techniques, appreciate the potential offered by new technologies
and engage students in active and authentic learning experiences. Ultimately, we
must not be afraid to commit to our students in the face of increasing challenges
from unsympathetic government policies, restrictive budgets or indeed, unfamiliar
pedagogies. We need to ask ourselves how and what to teach so that our students
A. Nye (B)
J. Clark

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0047-9_9
186 A. Nye et al.
will be as well-prepared as possible for an uncertain and insecure future. Although

the ontological expansiveness of the history discipline invites us to be adaptive
and imaginative, at the same time, we are faced with increasing regulation over
and within universities that challenges academic professionalism and holds us all
to account. How can we, and by extension our students, be open to new ideas not
yet on the horizon and at the same time teach and learn within the frameworks
of sector regulation such as discipline standards? Academic historians today need
intellectual space to engage with the apparent contradictions of working in both a
highly regulated environment and one that rewards unique achievement in a rapidly
evolving discipline. They also need leadership—specific, strategic and tailored.
In his latest work, History Teaching at its Best, Alan Booth describes the passionate
teacher as the one who is likely to be the most effective (Booth, 2014, p. 44) He argues
there, and subsequently in his chapter in this book, for the imperative of nurturing
and encouraging passion for the discipline of history within the university. To that
end, he says:
Leadership matters, for without it passionate lecturers will find it hard to commit the energy
required to take risks and imagine new things or sustain a continuing commitment to their
own development as teachers. Departmental leaders must actively nurture a culture for teach-
ing that enables and encourages colleagues to reflect, investigate, experiment and explore
creatively and in an informed fashion. This involves not only genuine commitment to reward
and recognition for excellent teaching but also the provision of spaces where historians feel
able to talk in an open (and increasingly informed) fashion about their teaching lives.
If we are to do as Booth suggests and give ourselves the chance to think creatively
and teach imaginatively, while also responding to the multiple demands of govern-
ment, students, the workplace and our own disciplinary evolution, then we should
look carefully at what SoTL can offer, what opportunities the TLOs can provide for
curriculum renewal and what institutional and collegial help we need. Perhaps it is as
Sean Brawley has suggested, we also should look at uncoupling history from the BA
and respond to the demand for more content breadth. Perhaps Alan Booth is right, in
that whatever structure we operate in we need to make provision for the exercise of
passion, and that alone will make a difference. For us, the key imperative is enabling
leadership that prioritises the normalisation of effectively embedded frameworks to
support generative practice in history teaching in higher education.
9.2 The Lone SoTL-Active Faculty Member
In the past, how to teach was something many academics were expected to know
by instinct, and improved by casual engagement with observation, memory and
experience. Commonly, there was literally no support or guidance even around the
most basic aspects of the teaching exercise at the university level. One historian
described it as learning ‘on the fly’ (Nye, 2013). The longitudinal data (Nye, 2016)
indicates that in the past decade there has been a steady shift in both attitudes and
the availability of SoTL opportunities for history staff. What is less clear is how
9 Leadership: Enabling Leadership in the Teaching and Learning of … 187
systematic, effective and sustainable these changes are and how they can reflect the
imaginative and critical project that Barnett would have us strive for in his conception
of the university as a ‘feasible utopia’ (2011, p. 90).
The traditional isolation of the teaching experience is reflected in much of the
SoTL literature which alludes to a lone innovative individual who takes an interest in
researching their teaching and then begins to share ideas with colleagues (Bernstein,
2013, p. 36). Put simply, the individual informs oneself, verifies within a group
and disseminates new knowledge to the wider academic community. The difference
that SoTL brings to the teaching experience is the last element, that of sharing.
Instead of improving individual practice as an end product in itself, the Scholarship of
Teaching and Learning demands that the outcomes are disseminated to inculcate the
professionalisation of tertiary teaching. Trigwell and Felton illuminate the potential
for reciprocity and benefit, and specifically highlight grassroots leadership. They see
the process as one of individual activity that typically results in collective benefit
(2011, slide 19). We are less certain of this natural progression and wonder if a more
purposeful approach is necessary. Is grassroots leadership enough and do those who
engage in it need support?
The question is particularly apt if we consider the context and the concerns raised
by some SoTL-active academic staff who have tried to develop or introduce new
ideas. One participant in the Historical Thinking in Higher Education project spoke
of the construction of boundaries within the discipline to defend territories that can
impede opportunities to develop new ideas for teaching. She identified the initial
refusal of her school to approve memory and representation within a history course,
deeming it to belong elsewhere. In recounting the debate, the academic later stated
‘I am an interdisciplinary person and was completely taken aback when people had
such a narrow disciplinary view [of history] as some do, and then to find they want
to defend their boundaries by excluding me, I was completely enraged really’ (Nye,
2010). These types of barriers can force historians to work alone thus restricting the
impact of their efforts, but more seriously they also risk their capacity for innovation
and experimentation being stifled altogether. It was somewhat ironic that the work
regarded with some ambivalence, and even derision in this example, would later
become a point of advocacy for that department. In this case, grassroots leadership
struggles for air.
As another historian noted in the same project, the success of creating a strong
intellectual community within a department depends on cohesion among personnel,
where the purpose of the school or department aligns with the administration and their
structures accompanied by a spatial design that brings staff and students together.
Collective opportunities can be effective. One historian recounted: ‘this has always
been a department that is very concerned about teaching, even with people that I
have little less in common with, you could always have an engaging conversation
about an attempt at some sort of innovation, they have always been pretty committed
to that’ (Nye, 2010).
If we accept that higher education is increasingly competitive and the climate
more regulatory how can we justify waiting for the SoTL-active individual to inspire
discussion and achieve wider impact if they encounter difficulties and barriers from
188 A. Nye et al.
their colleagues. Moreover, Marcketti, VanDerZanden and Leptien (2015, p. 2) in

their American study noted that few educational institutions demonstrated a consis-
tent commitment to ‘embrace the broader vision of scholarship’ despite being aware
of what SoTL can bring to the university. There were examples of staff who found a
lack of cohesion in their institution and had little choice but to work on SoTL on their
own although not all objected; one noted that ‘it was a huge advantage for me that
we had multiple administrators coming and they all defined SoTL completely differ-
ently because then I just ignored them completely and did my own thing’ (Marcketti
et al., 2015, p. 13). The reaction to shifting and inconsistent approaches meant that
staff would ‘ride the tide’ with each new phase (Marcketti et al., 2015, p. 14). How-
ever, such an attitude is ultimately unproductive and quite damning if we advocate a
systematic approach to the professionalisation of teaching and learning.
Booth identified the importance of self-efficacy for teaching staff in their devel-
opment of innovative pedagogical practices. He says they ‘are influenced not only by
personal dispositions but by a variety of contextual factors. These include perceptions
of status and recognition; possibilities for career advancement; rewards available for
teaching well; sense of professional identity; relationships with colleagues in the
academic department, school or faculty; family situation and health issues’ (2014,
p. 140). Studies in educational change similarly confirm the view that self-efficacy
is ‘context specific’ and shaped by opportunities for collaboration, reciprocity and
engagement within a workplace (Butler, Schnellert & MacNeil, 2015, pp. 5–6). This
research reveals the importance of the inter-relational balance of structures and man-
agement on the one hand, and on the other, epistemic, ontological and pedagogical
freedoms. Academics quickly feel the impact of such disparity in that their devel-
opmental work may be thwarted and SoTL progression can become arduous. The
emergent challenge for leadership is therefore to ensure that there is provision for staff
to own their own epistemic and ontological positions legitimately and still operate
within the collective environment including any requirement for compliance.
Promoting SoTL should be more than an afterthought to reward and publicise indi-
vidual work, it should be an embedded discourse, linked to an appropriate strategic
plan for change management within the department, and be supported by leader-
ship frameworks, which may extend to the institution or even internationally. SoTL
should support and encourage the individual to develop self-efficacy but at the same
time embrace a collective culture that is sustainable and consistent. It must also be
flexible enough to encourage individuality and the innovation that brings. The diffi-
culty here is that the normalisation of SoTL within institutional structures will need
to become all things to all people. How is this possible? How can the contemporary
embrace of SoTL make room for the lone researcher, the collective consciousness
and the demands of compliance structures and regulation? What sort of leadership
can embrace diversity and restriction at the same time? Perhaps it will be a new kind
of leadership that, in Barnett’s terms, seeks ‘to imagine, to create, new narratives of
the fullest kind that may serve the university and take it forward’ (2011, p. 90; Eacott,
2011, p. 135). Perhaps it will be that the peculiarity of the university experience will
demand a peculiar leadership form.
At the risk of adding to the list of ‘adjectival leadership’ (Eacott, 2011, p. 142) we
suggest that enabling leadership can build on grassroots activity to help fast track and
incentivise the good idea into accepted practice that aligns with national demands
and international best practice. Enabling leadership can be the lift that takes the lone
researcher to a new level and enhances the effectiveness of distributed leadership
frameworks.
9.3 Purposeful Direction
Providing leadership to a group of historians is inherently complex and multifaceted,

one that Barnett might have us consider as an ‘exercise in imagination’ (Barnett,
2011). Partly, the difficulties stem from the individualistic nature of academic work
generally and the rapidly changing expectations around it. For many years, aca-
demic work has been recognised as increasingly fragmented, less collegial and more
stretched across competing demands (Knight & Trowler, 2000, pp. 71–72). Moreover,
academics believe that their time for classroom teaching and research is increasingly
eroded by tasks created by ‘institutional competition and accountability’ (Currie,
2010, p. 107). In that environment cynicism and resistance to new ideas grows. But
in the midst of angst, allegiance to the discipline remains paramount and sits above
any other affiliation to the school or faculty administrative unit and indeed to the
University itself (Ramsden, 1998, p. 36). If leadership is to be effective it must be
exercised closest to the main ‘activity system’, that is, to where the academics work,
with the understanding of how they work, and with the knowledge of what is impor-
tant to them (Knight & Trowler, 2000, p. 81; Ramsden, 1998, p. 13). If leadership of
historians is to be effective, leaders must understand the dynamic nature of historical
practice and the way in which the edges of the discipline are constantly expanding
to challenge norms.
Each historian has a different approach to teaching drawn from a far-reaching
blend that might be seeded in ancient texts, to the French Annales school, to the post-
postmodernists. Each approach is developed over time, through sifted memories of
their own university learning, moulded by conversations with colleagues, by occa-
sional encounters with history SoTL literature and more recently with disciplinary-
based workshops, conferences on teaching and learning or university-wide initia-
tives, for example, around the implementation of technology-enhanced learning. How
someone leads such an eclectic assemblage is challenging. How can they facilitate
diversity, maximise existing capacity and strengths as well as provide opportunity for
new thinking and experimentation? Leaders, in this case especially heads of depart-
ments, face the dual bind; how to allow and make space for this very individual,
philosophical and ontogenetic process as well as guide staff towards compliance and
effective practice that is shaped not only by institutional restrictions such as space,
time and budgetary frameworks but also the professional demands of discipline stan-
dards.
190 A. Nye et al.
Corrigan raises the question: ‘Can a system maintain rigid accountability and
entice the cultural attentiveness, creative energy and industry of teaching profes-
sionals?’(2013, p. 68). Smardon and Charteris (2012) argue these challenges are
encountered by educationalists in all sectors facing a reductionist audit culture of
standards and compliance. They suggest that teachers need to have the space and
agency to be critically reflective. Decentering power argues Smardon and Charteris
is the key to building trust and provides openings for the development of new ini-
tiatives (2012, p. 31). Interestingly, in the Historical Thinking in Higher Education
project the particular history department with the most diverse collective was also
notable for the cohesion with which the department operated. (Nye, 2010). The head
had clearly made space for differences in teaching and learning operations so that
very divergent teaching philosophies and methods comfortably operated side by side.
Creating such an environment relies on the employment of empowering leadership
models.
9.4 Distributed Leadership
Given that distributed leadership focuses on collaboration, undefined boundaries and

allows for emergent development (Zepke, 2007, p. 303), we would argue that it offers
a means to address the history head’s dual bind. Whereas leadership has traditionally
focused on one person driving a vision, distributed leadership is not attached to roles,
but rather encourages a more democratic approach that can open up opportunities for
all to exercise leadership within a group. Although not specific to education, this type
of leadership suits academics desirous of maintaining both a sense of collegiality and
professionalism that they often complain is disappearing in the broader corporatised
university (Currie, 2010, p. 111). Distributed leadership offers a means for dealing
with change while maintaining a balance of control and autonomy (Davison et al.,
2013; Woods, 2004, p. 6).
Rethinking history SoTL in a department in light of regulatory changes can be
done through teamwork as a form of distributed leadership. The takeaway messages
for individual staff members should not be prescriptive rather they should recognise
multiple possibilities that can be adapted and ‘unleash creative capacity’ (Woods,
2004, p. 5) while still achieving the collective departmental goal of discipline com-
pliance. The distributed model promotes a system that enhances ‘fluid potential’
(Davison et al., 2013, p. 100) as well as building relationships of reciprocity (Jones,
Harvey, Lefoe, & Ryland, 2014, p. 605). This decentering of power also creates
opportunities for relational agency to prosper among staff, where individuals inter-
act, respond, reflect and draw from each other’s practice (Butler et al., 2015, p. 7).
To maintain a willingness to engage and experiment with SoTL requires sustain-
able structures. One workshop or conference is not enough for systemic change;
SoTL is both complex and reflexive. In particular, it is important to ensure that
there are opportunities for staff to follow up on new ideas. Even the most dedicated
SoTL communities are subject to the whims of managerial or high-level cutbacks
and sustainability can become the primary concern. As one academic stated: ‘They
cut the funding for learning and teaching conferences. There used to be separate
funding, travel funding stream, for teaching conferences’ (Nye, 2016). For this staff
member, the elimination of support for national teaching conferences was sorely
felt. It brought his plans to participate in the SoTL community, to exchange ideas
and to ask questions, to an abrupt halt. It is a challenging role for anyone who wants
to support staff to engage with new pedagogical ideas within the department but
who operates in an institution that has not prioritised teaching and learning. Those
who occupy such roles must turn outwards to encourage greater commitment from
the faculty or the university more broadly.
9.5 Enabling Leadership
At some point, there needs to be a conduit between all historians, even those actively
and effectively engaging with a distributed leadership model, and those who make
the monetary and policy decisions within the university structure. This role usually
falls to a Head of Department or a Head of School. They are in the pivotal position
to enable innovation and enhancement rather than simply acknowledging it when it
happens. They are the ones who are ultimately accountable for quality management,
compliance, expenditure on teaching and learning and staff and student achievement.
Engagement with an enabling leadership model means that these leaders can hear
pedagogical need, judge and interpret the significance of new ideas and advocate for
organisational alignment whether that be, for example, innovative teaching spaces
or online capacity building. The key point here is that in this new era of compliance,
regulation and managerialism, enabling leadership means recognition and supported
implementation. In this context, Eacott suggests the leader recognises the ‘changing
nature of the game’ and works ‘beyond’ mere compliance to ‘develop leadership
strategies which actively promote and support innovation’ across a ‘dynamic and
contested terrain’ (2011, pp. 139–141).
In 1998, when Paul Ramsden wrote Learning to Lead in Higher Education, he
responded to the growing managerialism within universities by saying ‘deep at the
heart of effective academic leadership is an understanding of how academics work’
(Ramsden, 1998, p. 13.) His insight is as important now as it was then, and it is
applicable to practitioners of all disciplines. The successful leader of historians in
the current context is one who appreciates the variety of historical practice and the
way in which it constantly strives to push boundaries. This can make leadership dif-
ficult in that diversity of experience produces equally diverse outcomes, but enabling
leadership must capitalise on such breadth as a strength. Enabling leadership allows
academic historians to feel empowered to stretch and grow pedagogically and in the
end, this is in the best interests of the discipline as a whole. What does enabling
leadership look like in this context?
192 A. Nye et al.
Enabling leadership in history recognises:

1. The importance of collegiality to academic staff and the value of the collegial
experience in promoting good teaching and learning. It is therefore important
to encourage conversation, modelling and collaboration among history staff in
order to strengthen the traditional appreciation of collegiality as an ideal;
2. That different teaching styles and approaches require tangible resources and
advocacy within the university’s administrative structures. It is not enough to
provide verbal agreement alone without the real world support that comes from
lobbying for funds, or genuinely contributing in higher level committees where
policy decisions are made that impact how teaching is done;
3. The need to provide opportunities for staff to explore new ideas and to express
autonomy and agency in their own development of their professional practice;
4. The need to broker across the worlds of the practising teacher and the regula-
tory environment by offering nuanced interpretation that shows pathways above
barriers;
5. The need to help historians to see how the traditions of the discipline can coincide
with new demands and modern ways without losing value;
6. The intrinsic skills of the historian around problem solving, analysis, data acqui-
sition and synthesis so that the features of the discipline and the abilities of
the historian can be capitalised upon for the betterment of the profession. The
teaching research nexus of historians is a largely untapped resource for driving
pedagogical improvement;
7. That the historian’s commitment to their discipline is their greatest asset and
should be harnessed rather than seen as an impediment to change. Teaching and
research are two sides of the same discipline coin; and
8. That learning is lifelong and there is something to offer the teaching community
of practice from students through to emeritus staff. The history community offers
a wealth of knowledge that lends itself to democratic and distributed leadership.
The enabling leader draws them all together.
9.6 Conclusion
The standards can be seen either as unwanted and restrictive regulation or an oppor-
tunity for reflection and evaluation of what we teach our students, how we do it
and how we can retain and instil the energetic imagination that defines history as a
disciplinary practice. It may have once been the case that an isolated history SoTL
paper or book appeared to inspire an audience of history academics, but now those
same people are far more open to reflective teaching practice and research-informed
teaching than ever before. This spread of interest and information was aided without
question in Australia by the ALTC/OLT, whose brief for funding always included
cross-sectorial collaboration, evaluation and sustainable practice. If we want to cap-
italise on the advances made so far then leadership is the key.
We should demand genuine high-level leadership within the administrative struc-

tures of our universities that address macro-teaching and learning issues. Leadership
from the top needs to come in the form of recognition of teaching as a valued part
of academic life rather than something described disparagingly in terms of a ‘work-
load’ calculation that ideally should be minimised or ‘bought out’ with grant funds.
Teaching needs to be viewed positively as an important career choice and less as a
price to pay for research time, and recognised as such with suitable initiatives such
as contracted teaching-focused academics and teaching-related rewards. Teaching
must also be fairly and reasonably represented in recruitment and promotion pro-
cesses, with a set of attainable criteria for proven excellence. Teaching must figure
prominently in the strategic plan of the university as a whole and not sidelined,
undervalued, subsumed by other agendas or worse, ignored (Winslett, 2016).
At the departmental level, where history teaching specifically is addressed rather
than teaching and learning more generically, leadership is needed to encourage teach-
ing staff to look carefully at the demands of a changing discipline within the context
of international, national and institutional demands including those of increasing
regulation. Leaders in history need to integrate history teaching initiatives within the
context of the institutional teaching environment. This requires finessed and nuanced
appreciation of what is possible and what is aspirational. We need a conduit between
new developments in disciplinary practice and new developments in macro-teaching
opportunities within the institution. What must not happen is the stifling of the cre-
ative approach of individuals struggling to identify a place for new ideas within what
may appear to be an increasingly restrictive environment. The two are not necessarily
mutually exclusive. Individual history staff must be open to learn from each other
either within their institution or beyond it so that history teaching both reflects and
informs the professional dynamism of history research. Historians enter academe
to profess their discipline; what better way to do that than through energised and
informed teaching practice that is adaptable to the pressing demands of Barnett’s
‘entrepreneurial university’ but also his ‘feasible utopias’ (Barnett, 2011, p. 89).
Leadership in the context of history teaching should be open and inclusive, gen-
erous and embracing, empowering and enabling, international in focus and local in
application, evolving and responsive, respectful of the traditions of history and recep-
tive to new ideas, visionary and confident, connected across the discipline and the
university, knowledgeable about the big sectorial picture as well as the home-grown
context and as much about listening as it is about guiding. The purpose of this book
is to give us all the intellectual space from which to emerge as more informed and
better prepared leaders in the discipline. We hope each chapter is read simultane-
ously as both a clear collegial voice and the equally valuable voices of individuality,
creativity and innovation.
194 A. Nye et al.
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Part II
Unpacking the Threshold Learning
Outcomes
Chapter 10
TLO 1: Demonstrate an Understanding
of at Least One Period or Culture
of the Past
David Ludvigsson
Abstract Teaching an historical period is both easy and very difficult. Because con-
tent knowledge about past societies, processes, peoples and events is vast, we cannot
cover it all in a single course. Therefore, every teacher must define the central content
to be taught and learned. This chapter discusses principles for selecting content and
suggests that the key question is: what do students need to learn? Considering the
limited number of teaching hours in the modern university, scaffolding remains an
important function of teaching history, helping students to understand central aspects
of the period in question. But equally as important, the classroom should be treated
as an opportunity to engage the students and to entice them into the world of the
past. Drawing on a course on the early modern period taught at a Swedish university,
this chapter suggests a number of ways this could be done including strategies such
as the crafted use of questions, designing learning activities on difficult content and
varying forms for teaching. The aim is to make students active learners.
10.1 Introduction
History educators around the world want to help students learn a body of historical
content knowledge. It is not only a question of being passionate about the subject,
but rather there has been a growing realisation that an overall narrative or a certain
amount of frame-of-reference knowledge is necessary to make it possible for
students to progress with other learning (Shemilt, 2000, 2009). Frame-of-reference
knowledge signifies a less than comprehensive yet practical context that supports
historical orientation in time (Wilschut, 2009). Historical thinking and disciplinary
concepts cannot stand alone (Symcox & Wilschut, 2009, p. 5), or, in the words
of Seixas (2006, p. 2), ‘“historical thinking” only becomes meaningful with sub-
stantive content’. Learning content is a necessary part of any model of progression
in studying history because there is interaction between content knowledge and
D. Ludvigsson (B)
Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden
e-mail: david.ludvigsson@liu.se

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0047-9_10
200 D. Ludvigsson
procedural knowledge. Indeed, Christine Counsell (2000) suggests that knowledge

building can be conceptualised as a layering process. Even if students quickly forget
some of the detailed, ‘fingertip’ knowledge from a specialised period course, the
sense of the period, the perception of institutional structures and cultural values and
a broad chronological awareness will often become a lasting understanding and thus
help students when studying the next course.
As is suggested by the discussion above, content has been variously referred to
as content knowledge, historical knowledge, substantive content and factual knowl-
edge. In this chapter, content includes knowledge of time, place and space, engaging
students in knowing about historical contexts, events, actions and ideas of times
past. Concepts that are clearly connected with specific periods, commonly called
first-order concepts, are also seen as part of content.
The aim of this chapter is to discuss how historical content may be selected and
effectively taught in order to give students an understanding of a period of the past.
Ideally, understanding a period or culture of the past implies having a sophisticated
understanding of a body of historical knowledge, including historiography and con-
cepts related to that period or culture. In order to reach that far, students need to
engage with the topic. This chapter deals with both the planning and implementa-
tion phases of teaching and is divided into two sections. The first section suggests
principles for knowledge selection in tertiary level history courses and draws on my
study of history teachers in higher education. The second section draws on my own
experience with a course in early modern history that I teach at a Swedish univer-
sity. The chapter concludes with recommendations for future lines of research and
classroom applications.
10.2 Principles for Selecting Historical Content
All content knowledge about past societies, processes, peoples and events naturally
cannot be dealt with in a single course. This is a perennial problem, as indicated by the
many debates over coverage versus uncoverage (Calder, 2006; Sipress & Voelker,
2011). A selection must be made and, as shown by Grant (2003), teachers play a
key role in deciding what is taught in history classrooms. However, the context can
have a strong influence on the selection process. In her study of secondary school
history teachers in New Zealand, Barbara Ormond (2016) argues that curriculum
achievement objectives and national assessment place significant constraints upon
teachers’ selection of historical knowledge. What determines their content selection
is not epistemic ascent as much as the topics’ suitability for the standards, resources
available in schools and the teachers’ perceptions of what will engage students. Over
time, Ormond argues, the New Zealand standards have produced a shift from teaching
entire topics to a more selective focus on events and an increased emphasis on factual
detail (Ormond, 2011).
10 TLO 1: Demonstrate an Understanding of at Least One Period or … 201
Harris and Girard (2014) have proposed a framework on instructional significance

for teaching history. Drawing on interviews with practising high and middle school
history teachers and pre-service teachers, they argue that teachers use different criteria
in determining significance for the history classroom and beyond. For the classroom
they find that, in addition to (1) historical considerations, teachers articulate (2)
teaching considerations and (3) student and community considerations. This provides
a useful framework that will be used below in the investigation of the considerations
history teachers in higher education take when determining significance and selecting
content for teaching.
10.3 Interviews with History Teachers
Fourteen historians, all responsible for teaching the early modern period at their
respective university’s history departments, were interviewed about their curriculum-
making decisions. Historians working with first-year students were particularly
sought, as there is often an emphasis upon the acquisition of content knowledge in the
first year. As in the USA (Andrews, 2009), the norm at Swedish universities remains
that history students move from broad acquisition of information towards mastery of
a particular subject; yet each separate course will normally relate to several learning
outcomes. In most cases, the interviewees were responsible for approximately four
weeks of a full-time survey course. The interviewees were all experienced teachers,
their experience ranging from four to thirty-eight years of teaching at the university
level. Several, but not all, had conducted research in the early modern period.
The interviewees were informed beforehand about the study and the key questions:
How do you select content for teaching about the early modern period, and how do
you teach about the early modern period? Interviews were conducted by telephone
and lasted roughly one hour each. A semi-structured form was used, with follow-up
questions focusing on different aspects of selection and teaching. The author took
careful notes during the interview and concluded the interview by summarising key
points. Using the basic categories of historical, teaching and student considerations,
the interview notes were then coded. When referring to specific interviewees below,
pseudonyms are used.
10.4 Historical Considerations
All the participants argued that historical considerations comprised the main factors
when selecting content for teaching. The teachers typically referred to historical pro-
cesses and structural changes that were included in teaching because of their impor-
tance and their consequences for the transformation of people and societies. This line
of reasoning comes as no surprise. There have been several attempts at identifying
what criteria historians use for determining significance. Seixas and Morton (2013)
202 D. Ludvigsson
propose four guideposts, one being that events, people or developments should be
considered historically significant if change resulted. This is precisely the way in
which the interviewees talked about their selected content. It should be noted, how-
ever, that in some cases it was not the views of an individual historian that determined
these guidelines. Maria explained that at her university the history department jointly
produced a course document that identified certain themes that were to be covered
during various epochs regardless of who taught the course in any given year. In her
view the chosen themes were ‘central to the period’.
However, significance can be defined on grounds other than leading to change.
Several participants referred to selected content as being revealing, in the sense that
it shed light on enduring or emerging issues in history. One example, from Harry,
was discussion of life in an eighteenth-century village in rural Sweden, where the
focus would be more on continuity rather than change. A third type of historical
significance raised in the interviews consisted of issues that had been the subject
of historiographical debate. Christopher mentioned that several times during his
course he would point out the different and competing interpretations of historians,
thus referring to ‘classic debates’. Several participants claimed they used examples
from topical research, thus attempting to choose ‘hot’ issues. Doris argued quite
forcefully that at the tertiary level, teaching must connect with research, and the
comments by other participants echoed that view. Eric said his course on the early
modern period had changed its emphasis over time, following the research shift
from historical materialism towards cultural history. This suggests that historically
significant content, at least in his view, is not a stable canon but rather is constantly
changing.
Taken together, the above examples indicate that the participants actively used
historical considerations when selecting content for their teaching. Foremost, signif-
icance was attributed to those processes that had far-reaching consequences in the
past; yet there was also the interesting emphasis by the participants on topical con-
tent. That may be a principal difference between the selection principles of history
teachers in higher education as compared with teachers in secondary and primary
education.
10.5 Teaching Considerations
In addition to historical considerations, participants also discussed issues related to

teaching when determining what content was selected for the classroom. These issues
included the teacher’s own knowledge, interests, textbooks and curricular issues.
While many participants argued for the importance of connecting with topical
research, several of them also referred to their own areas of expertise. This is an indi-
cation that the participants prioritised content with which they felt well acquainted.
This was especially true for those participants who had done research on the period
treated in the course. Doris stated she had a conscious wish to go deeply into subjects
that were then exemplified by issues she had written on herself and where she had
copies of primary source materials she could show to students. Eric claimed that he
basically lacked the ability to distinguish between research and teaching, and dealt
with his research area in a thematic sense when teaching. These examples indicate
that the specialised historical knowledge of the staff affected the content selection
they made when teaching.
Several participants testified that their content selection was affected by their
weaknesses in some areas. This seems to be especially important with regard to
world or global history. Christopher said he was attempting to break loose from
Eurocentric history but was restricted by his own ‘incompetence’. Although he had
read about other parts of the world, he still felt that he lacked deep knowledge about
non-European history. Doris and Maria both mentioned that they had colleagues
with knowledge about non-European history who were entrusted to lecture on such
topics as part of the course. Thus, there were indications that staff availability may
influence the extent to which some content is taught. Yet none of the participants
made similar comments regarding European history, although few of them actually
had research experience in anything other than Swedish history.
Many departments or institutions offer guidance for content decisions that are con-
cerned with thematic or geographic coverage. Some Swedish history departments
state in their course information that emphasis is placed on European history, but
at least three departments offered alternative visions. In the aforementioned case
of Maria’s department, which had decided on what themes should be in focus, the
guidelines stated that comparisons should be made between regions, thus empha-
sising that Europe/Sweden would be treated as one among several world areas. In
the case of Norah’s department, a principal decision had been made to teach not the
histories of separate, more or less connected world areas, but instead global history
with a focus on the dynamics of communication, trade, consumption and similar
patterns. Norah argued that the global perspective made it easier to select content,
but one problem was that some world areas tended to disappear as they were not as
central to the world trade system. Larry referred to a policy adopted by his university
as a whole, which recommended that the concepts of class, gender, ethnicity and age
were to be applied in all courses. He stated that the history department agreed to use
these concepts and therefore made it the central goal of the history survey course to
question a traditional, Eurocentric and male-dominated narrative. This meant reading
list titles were chosen to support a number of different perspectives.
Another teaching consideration that appears to have had some impact on the
selection of content is that of the teacher’s own interests. Talking about his thematic
lectures, Glenn referred several times to his interest in various ‘fascinating’ topics;
he went as far as calling his interest in a certain historical phenomenon ‘perverse’.
Thus, he indicated these topics were chosen due to his personal interests.
Participants made clear they did not teach exactly the content covered in the
required readings. Some participants claimed they would lecture on topics of their
own choice no matter how these were covered in the reading list, yet others instead
said they used their teaching to problematise the textbooks, or to offer an alternative
structure, thus selecting content in a conscious dialogue with the reading list. Few
of them referred to teaching resources other than textbooks when discussing what
204 D. Ludvigsson
content was treated in the classroom. One exception was Glenn who said he would
use one particular database because it had demographic data from the area where his
university was located.
Taken as a whole, it appears that teaching considerations play a big role in deciding
what content is selected by history academics in higher education. The participants
pointed especially to their fields of expertise and to areas they felt they did not
command well enough. There were also indications that many of the participants
actively chose content in relation to how it was treated or not treated in the course
literature.
10.6 Student Considerations
Discussing their selection of content, most participants claimed they would choose
the same content regardless of who the students were. Implicitly, however, the teach-
ers all seem to have adjusted to a specifically Swedish student body. This was demon-
strated primarily by choosing numerous examples from Swedish or Nordic history
and by also using such perspectives when treating global processes, so as to make it
easier for students to connect with the content.
A substantial number of history students at Swedish universities study to become
teachers, and some participants suggested that this particular group of students has
had an influence on the content selected. Glenn said he would include the history of
technology when having student teachers in the lecture hall, because this had been
part of the Swedish school curriculum for some years. Taking the students on a field
trip to an old mining heritage site, he explained, had the aim of both making the
content come alive and offering a didactic example to education students.
Generally, participants testified that they adjusted their teaching to what they per-
ceived to be the students’ level of prior knowledge. Kenneth pointed out that, because
he thought many students had weak prior knowledge, he restrained from adding too
much material to the reading list. In a similar vein, Bo said he actively adjusted to the
students’ prior knowledge. He asked the students to complete a diagnostic test, and
regularly checked with the students to make sure he was pitching his teaching to the
right level. None of the participants said that content was selected in dialogue with
students as co-creators (Lindquist, 2008, p. 29). To a certain extent, however, the
content is always shaped in dialogue with the students because they pose questions
and thus influence content as a result. Some participants referred to students wanting
‘coverage’ of the topics or period rather than engaging in the problematising of the
history. The teachers claimed that such reactions did not make a difference to the
content they selected.
While most participants denied any real student influence on their selection of
content, it appears the student body in certain minor ways did influence what content
was selected for teaching. It should be noted that none of the participants referred to a
concern for citizenship education. By contrast, the US historian Elisabeth Perry wrote
some years ago that, when selecting material, she would ask what students needed in
order to function ‘as informed citizens’ (Kornblith & Lasser, 2001, p. 1416). Neither
did the interviewees discuss their selection of content in terms of the existential ori-
entation of students, or an aim to develop historical consciousness, which is an aspect
of history education that has long been emphasised in the Swedish school curriculum.
10.7 Guiding Questions for Selecting Content
From the interview data, Swedish history academics in higher education do not select
content for any grand purpose such as citizenship or what the student must know to
be an educated person. Rather, interviews suggest that academics pragmatically con-
sider competing priorities when deciding what historical content to teach. Historical
considerations are a major factor, but teaching considerations also have a significant
influence on what is selected. Based on the interviews, student considerations seem
to play only a limited role in content selection. Undoubtedly, teachers make adjust-
ments for their students which may be conscious or unconscious. But the overriding
question when selecting content for a course should be what the students need to
learn. I would argue that, in order to make the principles for content selection more
conscious, it is reasonable to ask a number of guiding questions:
1. Did the phenomenon, event or development have profound consequences for
many people over a long period of time?
2. Does the topic shed light on key issues in the course?
3. Which are my areas of expertise and which topics am I passionate about?
4. How might the cultural background of the students shape their view of the past?
5. Do I need to support students’ learning about a particular aspect of the past?
The last of the questions above is a reminder that one’s principles for content
selection must be connected with the implementation phase, when the academic
selects activities to lead students to a successful learning experience (cf. Byrom
& Riley, 2003). Thus, what is perceived to be the students’ learning needs should
contribute to content selection.
10.8 Teaching for Students’ Understanding of the Early

Modern Period
The following section discusses strategies to help students develop an understanding

of a period in the past; ultimately, it is about what might be done in any classroom.
It refers to a course on the early modern period for first-year students at the author’s
university. It is only one step on the way to a more sophisticated understanding of
that period, because the curriculum at this university is designed so that students will
later have ample opportunity to go deeper by doing individual research projects using
primary sources. This course has the important function of laying the foundation for
206 D. Ludvigsson
such work and thus serves as a useful example for a discussion about strategies
for teaching content. In practical terms, the number of teaching hours is limited
by the economic restraints imposed by the university; twenty teaching hours are
allotted during a four-week period. With a large group, 70 students, group dynamics
in some ways limits teaching choices. A number of lectures are given that try to
include student-active elements, and, in addition, the large group is broken down
into smaller units for seminars and a field trip. Furthermore, students are divided
into learning groups that are scheduled to work together on certain issues without a
teacher present.
The early modern period is not completely new to the students as they would
have learned about this era in their earlier school years. However, studying in
higher education means they will deal with the period in much greater depth than
previously, reading about various aspects and empirical areas they have never before
encountered. A big adjustment for students at university is their need to process
extensive secondary and primary sources which requires learning a new way of read-
ing (Neumann, 2015; Nokes, 2013). Students may find it difficult to recognise what
content is truly important. This is a significant problem because students must learn
most content by studying on their own. How should the limited number of teaching
hours be used? What activities can lead students to a successful learning experience?
In brief, four strategies are proposed for helping students learn historical content:
1. questioning to direct students into a problem-oriented study of course materials;
2. scaffolding;
3. devising learning activities to help students work actively with difficult content
and
4. varying teaching forms to create involvement and to cater to different learning
styles.
10.9 Questioning
There is a difference between the memorisation of facts and gaining an understanding

of a period or process, the latter representing a more structured knowledge about the
past with facts organised in themes, stories and contexts. For students to develop their
knowledge in this direction, questions can be used to organise study and to help them
think like historians. Questions are commonly used as vehicles to assess learning but
questions can also be used throughout the course as a structuring element in lectures,
in the instructions for reading and study groups, as well as in the final written exam.
That means, for example, not simply lecturing on the story of the Protestant and
Counter Reformations, but rather asking ‘Why the Reformations?’, thus trying to
emphasise interpretations of how processes are linked together. Questions can be
engaging because they make students wonder what the answer will be, possibly also
causing them to feel a little apprehensive because answers are not always clear cut.
Content is one component of the cognition model and therefore an important part
of history assessment. Yet some forms of assessment tend to check the memorisa-
tion of disconnected facts (Charap, 2015). Question-driven essay writing offers a
reasonable opportunity for students to demonstrate their understanding because the
form requires that students use historical reasoning and thus provide acceptable evi-
dence of deeper understanding. Another important argument for using students’ own
writing for assignments has been provided by Sundberg (2006), namely that essay
writing on exams is actually beneficial for content learning in history.
Two strategies can be recommended to prepare students for the final written exam.
The first is modelling in class how to answer a specific question that could, in princi-
ple, appear on the exam; such modelling is in the vein of the Decoding the Disciplines
approach (Pace, 2012). Using a ‘think aloud’ presentation demonstrates for the stu-
dents how they might construct their answer and what elements might be included.
This model answer would typically emphasise the need to structure the answer care-
fully in paragraphs, to include elements of argumentation, to use precise language,
to include relevant first and second order concepts (i.e. historical terminology), to
be precise about time and place, and to use appropriate examples and evidence. It
should also be pointed out that there may be more than one plausible interpretation
or explanation of a historical phenomenon. Therefore, there is a need to present argu-
ments for why one interpretation or explanation is more reasonable or probable than
another. There is also an opportunity to point out what stance different scholars have
taken on the issue. This modelling leads to a better awareness among students of the
written exam. Modelling functions to show students how to bring questions to their
reading.
Secondly, it is common at Swedish universities for students to be divided into
learning groups and encouraged to engage in cooperative learning. Learning groups
can be organised in different ways, with or without a peer leader, and may be free to
set their own agenda. However, in order to stimulate group work the group seminars
are scheduled and the students are expected to meet without a teacher present. A
list of broad questions is provided for such learning group seminars. The questions
are designed to facilitate their processing of the required readings and to help them
focus on important historical processes. Some of the textbooks commonly used in
Sweden for such courses (for example, A History of World Societies by McKay, et al.)
provide a battery of questions that can be used, but in order to focus student work on
certain processes it is better to construct one’s own questions. The students should be
informed that these are the types of questions they will see on the exam paper, which
should function as a strong incentive for them to work together formulating answers
to these questions. Following modelling in class, the learning group seminars provide
opportunities for the students to practise answering similar questions, thus helping
them to organise their understanding of the course content. They also learn to give
and take peer feedback.
208 D. Ludvigsson
10.10 Scaffolding Tools
Scaffolding is intended to provide an instructional structure to support students in

their learning. How much scaffolding is needed generally depends on how proficient
the students are and the degree of difficulty of the learning challenges. When it
comes to history, scaffolding can be done in a number of different ways, including
pre-teaching historic vocabulary or adapting historical texts to the students’ reading
level (Graves & Avery, 1997; Vacca & Levitt, 2011). When teaching the early modern
period, it is possible to use a number of scaffolding tools such as graphic organisers,
pre-teaching vocabulary, time to talk and process new information, tapping into
students’ prior knowledge, and thinking aloud to model a historian’s thought process.
The following discussion will exemplify how some of these devices can be used.
One primary scaffolding device is to start the course by giving an overview lecture,
familiarising the students with the general content of the period and introducing a
number of questions and themes. The starting point for the first lecture can be a
discussion about periodisation. In a Swedish context, the early modern period is often
interpreted as roughly from 1500 to 1800 AD. This deviates from the more established
international 1500–1700, and in fact, it would not be difficult to find colleagues who
argue for a different periodisation. For practical, analytical or historical reasons,
courses at different universities use different breaking points, some starting this part
of the chronological survey around 1350 and others ending around 1750 or even 1900.
Of course, every attempt at periodisation is a way to generalise historical experiences
and processes. This is an important point that students should reflect on in order to
initiate a critical view of historiography.
Suggested classroom activity

Start the discussion of periodisation by asking the students why this part of
history is viewed as a distinctive period. The students are asked to discuss
the starting and end points of the course in pairs for a few minutes, then to
turn and talk with the pair in front or behind. Finally, their responses and
arguments will be noted on the left and right sides of the whiteboard. They are
then asked what problems they see and are again provided with some thinking
time. Depending on which processes and shifts the students suggest, work
out a number of other possible breaking points, noting continuity along some
thematic lines and changes along others. Finally, take a vote on the plausibility
of using certain years as breaking points for the periodisation of the course.
There are several points to be made about the above scaffolding exercise. First, it
functions as an introduction to a critical attitude towards historiography. The exercise
makes clear to students that not all scholars and/or historical literature follow the same
periodisation principles, because priority is given to different geographical areas or
different themes. Secondly, the exercise also serves specifically to introduce a number
of major themes such as globalisation and state formation that are highlighted in
the literature. Thirdly, with this approach students start being active, engaging in a
dialogue about history and talking to one another. Especially when the class is large,
structured talking time is a way to prepare and to embolden students to dare to make
oral suggestions and pose questions. Structured talking time also offers important
opportunities to process new and sometimes complex information. The fourth point
is that, hearing the students’ own ideas, the instructors can get a better sense of what
prior knowledge this particular group of students brings to the classroom. This can
vary a lot. One reason for this variation in the Swedish context is that the school
curriculum in the decades preceding 2011 gave a high degree of freedom to teachers
to select the content. Although textbooks helped preserve a canonical version of
history, teachers in higher education still cannot be certain exactly what empirical
areas the students have covered in the past.
Maps and other visual aids provide another way of scaffolding the teaching of
content. Maps are absolutely indispensable, as many students have a rather vague
knowledge of geography. Other graphic organisers that may be useful include time-
lines, flow charts and Venn diagrams. These organisers help clarify the relationship
between historical actors, events or concepts, not least cause and effect, multiple
causality and the chronology of things. For example, flow charts are very useful in
helping to visualise the geographical discoveries around 1500 and the developing
globalisation of the period (cf. Montanero & Lucero, 2011). A principal reason for
using graphic organisers, maps, political cartoons and other images is that we learn
by means of various senses and that diverse learning styles flourish among students.
Another is that many students find history abstract, and translating concrete infor-
mation into more abstract relationships in class is one way of helping them bridge
the gap to abstract historical understanding. The act of organising content, whether
by using figures, overlapping shapes or arrows is also in itself a process that helps
students to sort and connect information.

Ask students to explore multi-causal explanations by constructing a graphic
organiser. For instance, students of the early modern period could be asked to
go through their textbook on global history and list factors that seem to have
influenced the changing power over trade in the Indian Ocean in the sixteenth
century. Ask students to distinguish between causal conditions, events and
historical actors. Then ask students to create a graphic representation where
the various factors are linked to each other by arrows indicating causal or
intentional relationships. Different shapes such as circles, rectangles, lines
and dotted arrows can be used to give more or less emphasis to factors and
relationships. Once students have produced their graphic representations, these
can be discussed in class.
Establishing links to their prior knowledge makes it easier for the students to
sort new information into the right box. Connections with their prior knowledge or
210 D. Ludvigsson
with their own experiences will simply make the new content seem more meaningful
(Ammert, 2015). This is why it is important to connect with certain reference points
that students provide during the first overview lecture and why dialogue is essential
throughout the course. The absence of reference points makes it difficult for students
to learn material about new areas. The fact that different developments were possible
in any period of the past may appear confusing. For example, in the early mod-
ern case France followed the path towards absolutism but Britain the path towards
constitutionalism. Therefore, establishing some reference points before heading into
the historical action, such as noting actors or historical titles on the whiteboard can
provide very useful scaffolding. Guided notes should make it easier for the students
to follow and to develop notes on their own.
10.11 Learning Difficult Content
Sometimes students experience barriers to their learning of history. Scholars have

worked to identify the procedures and concepts that hinder students’ progress, and
suggest that teachers should strive to make explicit the operations that students must
master to get past bottlenecks to learning. Preferably students should be allowed
to practise these skills (Pace, 2012). There is historical content that students find
difficult to learn and for which ordinary scaffolds may not be enough. Therefore,
the teachers need to identify potential barriers to learning and to design learning
activities that encourage students to work actively with the content in question. A
favourite method is to bring in primary source materials.
Historical content is difficult to learn for a reason. One common problem is when
content deviates from the students’ preconceptions or cultural narratives (Porat, 2004;
Gross, 2014). Students bring prenarratives to class, which may include views on gen-
der, class, ethnic group, or nation. When classroom experiences are not in accord
with students’ expectations, emotional bottlenecks arise (Middendorf et al., 2015).
It can be the case that students unconsciously stick to their prenarrative and are
unable to integrate challenging new content with their prior knowledge. One method
for handling this problem and preparing students to think in new ways is to articu-
late some of the students’ preconceptions and then contrast them with an historical
interpretation.
Some cultural narratives are characterised by a Eurocentric view of history. Due to
Eurocentric narratives, many students seem to expect a natural European superiority
over Asian or African powers throughout the early modern period. The need for
students to obtain a more realistic and less Eurocentric view on history calls for
telling examples. Because students find abstract history difficult, concrete examples
can be used as entry points to these processes. One example is the combined stories
of James Achilles Kirkpatrick and David Baird, two Britons who in the eighteenth
century sought to balance the interests of the British East India Company and those
of its allies in India, but who used completely different strategies. While Kirkpatrick
adapted to local customs in India, cutting his hair, marrying into the royal family and
converting to Islam, Baird did not adapt but instead played a more aggressive part in
the military conflicts that changed the role of the company in India. The examples of
Kirkpatrick and Baird show how power relations started to change in South Asia and
point out specifically that slow integration preceded territorial expansion. A similar
point can be made regarding the small, seventeenth-century European colonies on
the east coast of North America that were surrounded by powerful Native American
peoples such as the Catawba and the Iroquois, especially the short-lived Swedish
colony in present-day Delaware. There are source materials that students can read
and discuss that make the weak, isolated position of the early European colonies
clear; most of the continent was in Native American hands (Sleeper-Smith et al.,
2015).
Another area that many students find difficult to understand is what it meant to live
in another period. Cultural rationalities of the past may seem so alien that students
find them hard to understand. In the case of the early modern period, this includes
the role of religion in politics and in peoples’ mentalities, the limited possibilities
for changing one’s position in society, gender roles and peasant societies of the
past. One reason for these barriers to learning lay in the fact that many of today’s
History students have grown up in a largely secularised and urbanised society, where
individuals have a high degree of freedom. Again, exposing the contrast may be one
way to make students aware of the difficulties of fully understanding mentalities and
life conditions of that other period.

Exposing students to different kinds of source materials can be one way to
help them to understand the mentalities and social conditions of people in the
past. Taking the example of the early modern period and the prominent role of
religion in society and people’s lives, useful source materials can be paintings,
psalms or other written sources. An analysis of Hans Holbein’s painting The
Ambassadors (1533) opens a window to the popular imagination of the early
1500s (North, 2004) and helps to problematise the place of religion in the
minds of people during the early modern period. Secondly, let the class sing
an historic psalm by the religious reformer Martin Luther and then analyse
the ideological message in the lyrics. Had students in northern Europe lived
there during the early modern period, they would have been expected to visit
church every week and attend every religious festivity and they would have
sung this and other psalms with similar messages. Reading letters from an
early modern suitor to a woman (Sjöberg, 1996) provides opportunities for
students to reflect on changing gender roles. Thus, discussing a variety of
source materials and returning again and again to the same theme are useful
strategies to help students process aspects of the past they find difficult.
Analysing source materials can be done in the lecture room or in separate semi-
nars. One useful method is to ask students to study some sources in depth and then
212 D. Ludvigsson
reconcile the historical accounts across multiple source materials. This method is
known to increase students’ content retention (Reisman, 2012). Another strategy to
open students’ minds to difficult aspects of the past is to employ metaphors or role-
play activities, which can be done as exercises in a single class. Powerful metaphors
may be the key that students need to understand complex relationships and positions
of people in the past, and to understand more clearly how everyone was born to his
or her position, and that different groups, such as peasants and nobility, had different
legal rights. This can be difficult for contemporary students to grasp.

Ask students to imagine that they make up the population of a society in the
past. The bulk of them are peasants who hold certain rights, a small number
are priests or burghers, who possess other rights and one or two students at the
front are the noblemen who have superior rights simply by reason of birth. The
teacher—occupying the position of king—would be everyone’s leader. Only
when in church did the king have to listen to the priest’s sermon. Using source
materials, students can read more closely about the positions and arguments of
those different groups and then can be asked to prepare for an historic debate
in parliament or in a tavern (Kornfeld, 1993).
Again, the key to helping students understand difficult aspects of historical content
is to have them work actively with it.
10.12 Varying Teaching Methods
Different students favour different learning styles. Variation is also a strategy to make
learning more interesting, as we try to draw students into the world of the past. Using
art in the classroom is one way to promote variation and engage the senses. It is
useful to discuss paintings whose motifs can be connected with central themes of the
course. In the case of the early modern period, many paintings provide such oppor-
tunities. The work Officer and Laughing Girl (1657) by Johannes Vermeer connects
wonderfully to the globalised trade of its time (Brook, 2008). De Español y Negra,
Mulato (c. 1760–70) by José de Alcíbar can help to open a discussion of slavery,
racism and mixed-race families. Similarly, the paintings of Pehr Hilleström and the
drawings collected by Geraldine Sheridan are useful when discussing gender and
work during the eighteenth century (Sheridan, 2009). These paintings and drawings
help to problematise findings in recent research that have not yet crept into the course
literature. Berry et al. (2008) have argued that emotional images function especially
well as catalysts to engagement and learning, but more traditional paintings can also
serve this function equally well.
Stimulation of student learning through the senses is a motive for taking the
students on field trips. Experiencing a physical locality provides good opportunities
to meet material evidence as well as to visualise historical events, and there are
indications that synthesis, holism and integration of historical subject knowledge are
favourably imparted in the field (Ludvigsson, 2012). Furthermore, research suggests
that students enjoy field trips and that their positive affective responses lead to higher
motivation (Boyle et al., 2007). This is not insignificant. It is extremely important to
create an engaging and positive atmosphere so as to stimulate students to work hard
on their own. Systematically implementing experiential learning in courses (Kroeker,
2015; Selwyn, 2015) offers interesting possibilities for learning and involvement.

Take the students on a historic walk to a historical area near the university.
Prepare for the trip by thinking about the central themes of the course and
then ask yourself how concrete examples could connect with those themes?
For example, every town has its geography of power relationships, buildings
representing the state, the local government, the mayor, the bishop, the military,
or the trade union. There will be traces of a past society in the local graveyard,
industrial heritage site or museum. Decide beforehand exactly what themes
you want to discuss, what route to follow and what places along the route make
the themes most visible. Is there still an old cowshed somewhere near the town
centre that could actualise the persistence of the old agrarian society? Is there
a building where a significant immigrant group used to gather to discuss the
horrors of racism and discrimination, or a square where riots took place? A
town hall where local dignitaries conspired to hinder new state taxes? A girls’
school where local females gathered to discuss the franchise for women? An
old pub that brings issues such as alcoholism and violence to the surface? A
map handout with key places marked on it may be helpful to the students. It
is also possible to have groups of students prepare to do the guiding talk at
various stops along the walk.
Finally, in seminars there is more space for interactive work than in lectures.
Encourage the students to be as active as possible. For example, when student mini-
groups have processed ideas, ask the students to write keywords on the whiteboard
before staging a general big-group discussion. If a student makes a suggestion, it is
easier for other students to suggest alternative or complementary interpretations than
it would be if the teacher-authority in the classroom offered an interpretation. When
students make suggestions there will also be many opportunities for the academic
to display interest in student learning, to offer encouraging words and to stimulate
the group to provide a little more evidence to underpin the suggestions that have
been made. As noted by Sipress and Voelker (2011), it is challenging to persuade
students that historical claims must be judged on the basis of evidence. However, in
214 D. Ludvigsson
an environment where the entire seminar group helps one another to provide such
evidence, students are more likely to understand and willingly participate.
10.13 Conclusion
This chapter has reported on the analysis of the reflections of history teachers in
higher education about their content selection, as well as a discussion of classroom
practice. It is important that academic historians make conscious decisions regarding
content selection. As a means of reaching greater awareness it might be useful to
formulate answers to the questions underpinning historical considerations, teaching
considerations and student considerations and to discuss these issues with colleagues.
Regarding application in the classroom, examples of effective strategies for teach-
ing content have been provided. Among the recommendations are careful analysis
of the prior knowledge of the student group, finding out what barriers to learning
exist in relation to the specific content to be studied, and the development of learning
activities connected with that content. Strategies to support the learning of content
more generally include the use of scaffolding tools, the use of questions to organise
study and the variation of teaching methods.
There is a great need for further research into the area of content selection, content
learning and retention. Since teachers make significant decisions within a specific
sociopolitical context, it would be interesting to duplicate this study of content selec-
tion in other academic communities. With regard to content acquisition and retention,
we need to measure systematically the effects of different teaching methods on stu-
dents’ mastery of historical content knowledge.
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Chapter 11
TLO 2: Demonstrate an Understanding
of a Variety of Conceptual Approaches
to Interpreting the Past
Zora Simic
Abstract This chapter firstly argues that teachers should communicate a well-
guided, yet flexible understanding of what constitutes a ‘conceptual approach to
interpreting the past’ that is able to evolve and deepen as students progress through
their history degree, as well as animate interest in the discipline. Each level of univer-
sity teaching then presents its own opportunities and challenges in terms of introduc-
ing students to a broad range of conceptual approaches. Secondly, through three case
studies that cover three levels of university teaching and three distinct fields of his-
toriography, it is argued that it is easier to embed a variety of conceptual approaches
to the past in course content than to assess students in terms of their capacity to
demonstrate comprehension of these. Nevertheless, with inductive teaching and a
strong conceptual basis for each course, students should be able, by semester’s end,
to demonstrate ‘an understanding of a variety of conceptual approaches to interpret-
ing the past’ in both explicit and implicit ways. As such, the onus is on teachers to
assess student work in a nuanced, course-specific and student-centred fashion, rather
than apply crude measures of attainment.
11.1 Introduction
Prior to writing this chapter, my own use of TLOs was typical insofar there was
a gap between my use of learning outcomes in course guides and the way that
my assessments are devised and marked (Skinner, 2014, p. 362). I saw TLOs as
primarily an institutional obligation, rather than a pedagogical tool. The prospect
of re-designing courses and assessment to maximise the potential of TLOs was
daunting. While an overhaul of curricula is recommended as best practice for properly
addressing the TLOs, the reality of teaching is that individual courses are a perpetual
work in progress and tinkered with incrementally rather than radically revised. At the
most basic level, teaching a variety of conceptual approaches to the past ‘suggests a
Z. Simic (B)
University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
e-mail: z.simic@unsw.edu.au

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0047-9_11
218 Z. Simic
teacher may follow a text and teach students to identify a history typology’ (Clark &
Nye, 2015, p. 7). In practice, it is rarely (and thankfully) ever so straightforward. Our
field exhibits both a ‘history-specific’ skill-set and porous borders. We cross-pollinate
with other disciplines and conceptual approaches and have been increasingly self-
reflexive about what we do since at least 1961 when E.H. Carr posed the question
‘What is History?’. While occasionally discussions about the purported ‘objectivity’
of the historian’s pursuit creep into class discussions, it is generally acknowledged
by both teachers and students that field history is multi-perspectival and the richer for
it. From this angle, the assumption that Threshold Learning Outcomes are ‘already
embedded in our daily practice’ and that students would ‘therefore attain the TLOs
as a natural outcome of existing teaching practice’ is a reasonable one (Brawley
et al., 2015, p. 91), yet as the After Standards project outlined in their findings from
a trial accreditation audit, ‘no history program would have passed’ (Brawley et al.,
2015, p. 95) using existing assessment and progression to test the attainment of the
eight TLOs. However, while the team identified several reasons for this outcome,
including some issues with the TLOs themselves such as phrasing and overlap, the
wider problem here is a more general one—how do we make more explicit what
it is that we do? The TLOs encourage a more purposeful and self-aware approach
to teaching. More specifically, they offer the opportunity to re-evaluate our existing
assessment and if necessary to refine accordingly.
However, having now conducted a self-audit on my teaching practices and current
assessment, in tandem with relevant teaching and learning scholarship, I now more
clearly see the ways in which I already teach with TLO 2 in mind and also how my
own teaching and assessment can be improved not only to align more productively
with TLOs, but to further motivate student learning. The assessments described here
I have chosen from my existing suite because they are the most relevant to TLO 2
and also because they are tried and tested, having received positive student feedback
for some years now, albeit delivered in potentially unreliable forms, i.e. voluntary,
end-of-semester student evaluations, over email and in classroom discussions. These
assessments are introduced as, and understood to be, conceptually focussed to varying
degrees; that is, students are instructed in assessment descriptions to engage with
conceptual approaches to history and assessed, in rubrics and other forms of feedback,
by their capacity to demonstrate they have understood different and/or particular
approaches to interpreting the past.
Within the larger context of the course, each assessment is scaffolded by con-
tent (lectures, tutorial readings, course design) that showcase different approaches
to interpreting the past and in tutorials where students are given the space to further
develop their understanding of these approaches in dialogue with others and through
various inductive strategies. These include historicising conceptual approaches in
terms of ‘paradigm shifts’, a teaching strategy that encourages students to compre-
hend different approaches to history as dialogical and accumulative rather than a
succession of approaches in which one orthodoxy supplants another. Some tutorials
are also dedicated to unpacking a concept or conceptual approach, e.g. what do his-
torians mean when they argue that ‘sexuality’ is a historical category? Or what does
the twentieth century look like when approached as environmental history?
11 TLO 2: Demonstrate an Understanding of a Variety of Conceptual … 219
Getting the right balance between content delivery and active learning is crucial
to students attaining TLO 2. As Alan Booth has influentially described, the teaching
as transmission model—‘which regards content…as a knowledge base that can be
transferred to students in a process akin to pouring liquid from one container to
another’ (Booth, 2003, p. 59)—is limited by its capacity to recognise different styles
of student learning. More preferable is teaching that facilitates student learning by
creating contexts in which students can ‘engage actively with the subject matter in
order to make understanding possible’ (Booth, 2003, p. 62). In practice, many of us
move between these approaches and both have their role to play in the attainment of
TLO 2. Inevitably, some students will be more drawn to the more analytical side of
historical study than others. Accordingly, assessments such as those described below
are ‘threshold’ assessments that ensure all students engage in some way with different
historical interpretations and approaches in any given semester. Multi-choice forms
of assessment—choosing from a list of essay questions for instance—can include
options focussed on historical interpretation for those students keen to go deeper.
In the next section, I expand on how a ‘conceptual approach’ to interpreting the
past can be defined and understood. Perhaps inevitably this was a more challenging
task than I initially anticipated. A rudimentary definition that breaks TLO 2 down
into ‘different approaches to history’ and ‘history as interpretation’ is both useful
and vertiginous given the plethora of different conceptual approaches to the past.
Indeed, according to Retz, the proliferation of different ways of doing history has
produced ‘disciplinary disquietude and dissimilitude’ (2015, p. 2) and has arguably
made it harder rather than easier to communicate what it is that historians do. Still,
we should hardly despair about history’s ever-expanding conceptual range. Rather,
our job is to help students comprehend and demonstrate understanding of some of
those different approaches and to be explicit about which ones wherever possible.
Enthusiasm about history’s interpretative possibilities is a great place to start.
The bulk of this chapter focusses on concrete examples, elaborated in the
Sects. 9.3, 9.4 and 9.5, from my first-year survey global history course ‘The History
Matrix: The Making of the Modern World’ and two thematic courses, ‘The History of
Sexuality’ and ‘Migrants and Refugees in Australian History’. Each of these courses
has its origins in a particular conceptual approach to the past and each also contains
within them diverse historiographies and field-specific debates about teaching and
research in the area. Each course also sits within my own research areas, particularly
the latter two, so I am able to share with students insights from my own trajectory
and occasionally, some of my work, thus ‘modelling’ historical thinking. In addition
to details about TLO 2 aligned assessments, I also share more general strategies
and suggestions from my teaching practice and assessment design that I have found
helpful in engaging students with various interpretative frameworks.
220 Z. Simic
11.2 What Is a ‘Conceptual Approach to Interpreting

the Past’?
Good practice material designed for teaching first-year history describes TLO 2
as encompassing ‘second-order concepts’ that can be applied to ‘first-order factual
knowledge of the past’. ‘Second-order concepts’ are ‘essential tools in helping histo-
rians interpret periods and cultures of the past’. Potential student barriers to learning
include preconceived ideas about the past as ‘ready to be tripped over and “found”
like a nugget’ and the relative difficulty of thinking in the ‘abstract’ and/or ‘about the
effects of context’. With these potential obstacles in mind, teachers are encouraged
‘to explicitly model how historians use concepts to help construct meaning about the
past’ and to demystify the more arcane aspects of our discipline, including jargon
and the rationale behind footnotes (First Year Learning Thresholds, Good Practice
Poster, 2015). This is useful advice, but here ‘second-order concepts’ is purposefully
and no doubt necessarily left broad: it is up to individual history teachers to specify
the conceptual approaches most relevant to the history that they teach, as well as
to induct students more generally into thinking about history as an interpretative
practice.
The teaching of ‘conceptual approaches’ is, in the first instance, focussed on
introducing history as a discipline in which different interpretations, including of
the same evidence or theme, are not only possible but inevitable because historians
ask different questions of the past and because the contexts in which they pose
these questions shift. What constitutes ‘evidence’ has also expanded interpretative
frameworks, or approached from the other direction new questions and concepts
(for example, where are the women?) have demanded new evidence and/or new
interpretative methods. I have found it helps to ask students to think and talk about
why historians might choose the topics that they do, including for political and/or
personal reasons. This can be tricky—one of the most common obstacles I have
found in encouraging students to engage with history in these terms is the enduring
ubiquity of the term ‘bias’—yet discussions about why ‘bias’ has no real place in a
critical vocabulary are often enormously productive, as are the introduction of new
terms that are more useful for analysing history as an interpretative exercise, such as
‘presentism’ and ‘revisionism’.
Having established history as an interpretative discipline—which in my expe-
rience a significant proportion of incoming first-year students already comprehend,
given the increasingly sophisticated approach to history at year twelve extension level
and perhaps prior exposure to historical debate in popular culture and the media—we
can then both expand and refine what a ‘conceptual approach’ can entail. A ‘con-
ceptual approach to interpreting the past’ is both a generic and multivalent term
that can refer to an interpretive framework explicitly stated (‘cultural history’ or
‘social history’); or the emphasis can be on the sort of evidence that is generated
or privileged (as with oral history); or on the theoretical frame deployed (a Fou-
cauldian genealogy for instance); or more often than not, a combination of these
approaches (as with women’s and gender history, where the theoretical and political
impulse demands a new approach to evidence).
Histories of phenomena or concepts previously outside the purview of mainstream
history (such as sexuality or the environment) also qualify as different conceptual
approaches to the past and can be put to terrific use in survey courses, as well
as provide strong conceptual coherence to stand-alone thematic courses. Further, to
properly grasp a particular conceptual approach is to historicise how and why such an
approach emerged, including for political reasons. With this in mind, the emergence
of ‘new’ and ‘newer’ histories in the latter twentieth century can be part of how the
history of that century of social transformation is taught. However, those historical
approaches most often associated with mainstream or ‘old’ history—political history,
military history, national history and so on—should also be explicitly flagged as
conceptual approaches, undergird by methodological and ideological imperatives.
Our potential entry points are vast in number: we can spotlight the work of particu-
lar historians and key thinkers; identify schools of history and influential approaches
and encourage students to think more about the basic organising principles of what we
do—such as periodisation—through the lens of a conceptual approach. For instance,
what are the major turning points in the twentieth century if viewed through the lens
of sexuality? In this example, the introduction of the contraceptive pill in the 1960s
eclipses the First World War. De-familiarising or de-centring taken-for-granted or
assumed centres or units of history—such as Europe or the nation-state—can also
encourage the kind of critical thinking that is vital to attaining TLO 2. Another
avenue for multi-perspectival engagement with history is to follow up an overview
lecture on a particular historical theme with one focussed on competing historical
interpretations of the same period or event. When I was an undergraduate student, the
radical simplicity of this teaching method employed in what was then called ‘Late
Modern European History’ was one I found so interesting I soon switched my major
to history. Another memorable assessment as I was progressed through my history
degree was the application of a particular historical approach to a historical topic: I
wrote a feminist history of Australian communism, an essay that sowed the seeds of
my doctoral research.
Another way of teaching history conceptually and critically, best suited to my
experience of third-year level history, is to foreground the writing of history. As the
editors of recent SAGE Handbook of Historical Theory argue, it is writing that ‘invites
and even requires extra theoretical discussion’ (Partner & Foot, 2013, p. 2) about how
‘knowledge is constructed, assembled and presented’ and thus accounts for the rise
of historical theory since the later twentieth century. When I was an undergraduate
student in the 1990s, the much debated ‘linguistic turn’ and the contested influence of
postmodernism informed the history that I was taught. The question of the ‘truth’ of
history and relatedly the ‘limits of representation’ drew explicit attention to history
as narrative construction. To get students thinking critically about history, it is still
important to do this, for instance by posing to undergraduates Curthoys and Docker’s
question ‘Is History Fiction?’ (2005). It is a question that opens up discussion on
a number of levels, including differentiating history from historical fiction (as evi-
denced in the debate generated by Kate Grenville’s 2005 novel The Secret River)
222 Z. Simic
while also drawing attention to the ‘doubleness’ of history as rigorous scrutiny of

sources and as part of the world of literary forms. As Curthoys and Docker argue, it
is perhaps this ‘doubleness’ that is the ‘secret of history’s cunning as a continuous
practice, an inventive, self-transforming discipline’ (Curthoys & Docker, 2005, p.
11).
Given the ‘self-transforming’ nature of the discipline and the wide range of dif-
ferent conceptual approaches—and I only skimmed the surface above, hopefully
drawing out connections between them and to larger theoretical issues—it makes
sense to identify understanding a variety of conceptual approaches as a threshold
learning outcome. For me, it is also encouraging rather than dispiriting that under-
graduate students surveyed about university history prioritised ‘engaging secondary
sources’ and ‘engaging with academic staff in the classroom’ over locating and
analysing evidence (Nye et al. 2009, p. 73.4). This bodes well for developing the
critical thinking skills necessary to demonstrating an understanding of different con-
ceptual approaches to the past—provided assessments are also designed with this
objective in mind.
11.3 First-Year Global History
In 2009, my institution overhauled the Bachelor of Arts Degree and for historians the
most obvious marker of this change was the introduction of ‘gateway’ courses to all
disciplines in which the emphasis would be on teaching core disciplinary skills. A
selection of first-year history offerings was reduced to two semester-length global his-
tory courses, the first covering the breathtakingly sweeping period from pre-history
to the end of the nineteenth century and the second focussed on the more manage-
able though no less complex period of the twentieth century. Since 2011, I have been
convening the second semester gateway course titled ‘The History Matrix: The Mak-
ing of the Modern World’, which we pitch as ‘global’, in both coverage and intent.
‘Global history’ is introduced as a specific approach to history, which shares with
world history a break from Eurocentricism, while also departing from it in significant
ways, i.e. through a focus on the theme of globalisation rather than ‘civilisations’
(Mazlish & Iriye, 2005). The subtitle of the course also invites the students to con-
sider what it means to be modern. ‘Globalisation’, ‘modernisation’ and ‘modernity’
are identified from the outset as contested and uneven historical developments that
historians interpret in different ways, depending on their definitions and criteria for
these phenomena, and the sources that they use.
Relatedly, periodisation is introduced as a question of historical interpretation,
in the first instance by showcasing the arguments made for casting the making of
the modern world from 1780 to 1914 (Bayly 2004); or re-thinking modern history
by dislodging the ‘long nineteenth century’ in favour of two periods, 1600-mid-
nineteenth century, followed by 1850 to the present (Stearns, 2012); and finally,
through the influential periodisation of Eric Hobsbawm, with his long nineteenth
and short twentieth centuries. As Stearns has argued, in making a case for ‘globali-
sation’ as an abiding theme in twentieth century survey courses, tracing this process
historically does encourage a ‘review of past periodisation and of previous geo-
graphical categories—a review which really constitutes the essence of the historical
perspective we so often evoke (Stearns, 2003, 154)’. A twin discussion of globali-
sation and periodisation also helps dislodge prior assumptions students already hold
about the twentieth century, that is to defamiliarise a period known to them through
the framework of war-depression rise of fascism–war–Cold War and so on.
Given other imperatives in teaching first-year history, we necessarily use the
category ‘global history’ rather loosely. Students are introduced to different con-
ceptual approaches to interpreting the past in other ways. The twentieth century
is presented as the century in which historical practice itself was transformed, for
instance, because unprecedented events such as the Holocaust demanded new inter-
pretive frameworks and because various social movements prompted ‘history from
below’. The course is also designed to showcase the work and upper-level courses
of historians on staff, most of whom work in specialist areas and do not therefore
self-identify as ‘global historians’. The convenor/s provides coherence by delivering
the first lecture of the two-hour lecture slot each week in which chronology, and the
‘global’ theme are maintained and elaborated, leaving the second hour free for more
idiosyncratic takes on course themes. In these ways, students encounter environmen-
tal, feminist and postcolonial history, among others. Further, guest lecturers are also
encouraged to share with students how they came to be historians, what drew them to
their research areas and if possible, to provide an example of how they ‘do’ history;
for instance by identifying a light bulb moment in the archive that sparked a research
project or change of research direction.
As most of the students would have already taken the semester one course—the-
oretically at least, because ‘The History Matrix’ also attracts newcomers who are
sampling history rather than consciously pursuing a major—we spend less time on
basic skills such as locating primary material and referencing, and more on address-
ing what is it that historians do with their primary evidence, including via assessment
that requires students to break down how historians have built up an argument and/or
applied a particular conceptual approach to the primary material. To this end, there
are two of what we call ‘text exercises’, assessments staggered in the lead up to the
late semester research essay and designed to be integrated into tutorial discussion
to encourage students to share their preliminary appraisals of the material and the
assessment itself. The tutorials dedicated to these exercises are always among the
most animated and productive of the semester, not only because they are indexed to
assessment, but also because of the nature of the assessments and the discussions
they encourage.
In the first text exercise, students are set a primary source, a segment of Mohan-
das Gandhi’s, ‘Indian Home Rule’ (or Hind Swaraj), first published in 1908 as a
radical declaration of Indian nationalism that also took the form of a denunciation
of modernity. They must also read the work of two historians, Judith M. Brown
(1999) and Robert A. Young (2001), both of whom draw on Hind Swaraj, and
other writings by Gandhi, to come up with different though not necessarily unop-
posed interpretations of Gandhi as critic and product of modernity. While ostensi-
224 Z. Simic
bly the historians may seem in disagreement—Young presents Gandhi as a figure

of ‘counter-modernity’, while Brown traces his western influences via a series of
‘imperial encounters’—closer reading reveals each historian understands Gandhi’s
politics as syncretic and indebted to multiple traditions, including modernity. It is
hoped students grasp this—aided by class discussion prior to the submission of the
assessment—when asked to answer the set question in 500 words, with reference to
both primary and secondary material: Why and how did Gandhi’s politics merge the
traditional and the modern? By including the primary source, students are implicitly
invited to share their own interpretation and a significant minority do, with some
denouncing Gandhi for what they perceive to be a hypocritical stance insofar as his
actions did not always match his polemic. Some selectively draw on Young to fore-
ground Gandhi’s anti-western politics, while others focus more on Brown to present
him as somewhat of an imperial networker. Whatever the case, in feedback and
tutorial discussion, we aim to impart to students that the same source material can
produce quite different interpretations without necessarily contradicting each other
or one being more ‘correct’ than the other that ‘not all historians are the same, nor
are the methods they used to reach their conclusions’ (Clark & Nye, 2015, p. 7).
For some first-year students, the aforementioned assessment may perhaps be too
subtle in its intentions. First years are often eager to read explicitly opposing his-
torical interpretations, particularly of contested historical themes such as genocide
or dictatorship. The second assessment, elaborated below, satisfies this desire to the
extent that students are exposed to two radically different explanations of why some
Germans participated in the Holocaust; namely Christopher Browning’s ‘ordinary
man’ thesis and Daniel Jonah Goldhagen’s ‘Hitler’s willing executioners’ argument.
However, instead of asking students to explicitly compare and assess these histori-
cal interpretations, we ask them to test the theses with the aid of a primary source
and through close attention to how historians develop and support arguments. While
this historical debate may be somewhat out of date to teachers of university history,
the assessment continues to survive multiple course revisions as it engages students
on a number of levels and often very deeply. It is also recommended that teachers
introduce the primary material with sensitivity given the contents include the indis-
criminate killing of Jewish people, recorded in the diary of a middle-ranked Nazi
official.
Test exercise 2
Daniel Jonah Goldhagen and Christopher R Brown have two very different
interpretations of what caused Germans to participate in the extermination of
Jews in Nazi Germany. To what extent was Felix Landau (see Ernst Klee, Willi
Dressen and Volker Riess (Eds.), The Good old days: the Holocaust as seen by
its Perpetrators and Bystanders) a ‘willing executioner’ and/or an ‘ordinary
man’?
There are two parts to this assignment:
First, you must choose either Goldhagen or Browning and formulate a thesis
statement (no more than three or four sentences) or a description of their
argument. Then, list three clear sub-arguments found in the source in support
of the thesis statement (just bullet points).
Note students are provided with excerpts from the primary and secondary
sources.
11.4 The History of Sexuality
In early 2017, conservative magazine The Spectator singled out history of sexuality
courses as a pernicious sign of the influence of a ‘new breed of historian’ stalking
Australian universities. In such thematic courses, argued the journalist, students are
taught a ‘flashcard’ version of history which left them ‘completely bereft of the
broader historical developments or wider historical contexts’ (d’Abrera, 2017). Now
while such a rant against contemporary history teaching is business as usual for
conservative publications, what is interesting to note is that no mention was made
that history of sexuality courses have been taught in Australia for at least two decades
and that Australian universities were among the vanguard in nurturing the field as
the legitimate topic of historical and contemporary inquiry at tertiary level. The
1990s, for instance, saw the launch of the interdisciplinary Australian Centre for
Lesbian and Gay Research in 1994, one of only three such centres in the world
at the time (Wotherspoon, 2016, 244). It was also in the 1990s that the Humanities
Research Centre at the Australian National University invited some of the field’s most
exciting scholars working in sexuality studies at the time—including historians John
D’Emilio, David Halperin and Martha Vicinus—for a research residency; a move that
some radical feminists protested against as ‘anti-feminist’, given the controversial
presence of anthropologist and sex radical Gayle S. Rubin (2010, 34–35).
I set Rubin’s deservedly canonical essay ‘Thinking Sex’ (1984) in week one
of my own course, introducing it historically, as a primary source drawn from the
field’s own exciting history, and conceptually, via Rubin’s theoretical engagement
with the emergence of sexuality studies, her intellectual and political debt to Michel
Foucault in particular and her own theoretical interventions such as the notion of a
‘sex hierarchy’. In the first lecture, I provide details about its origins as a paper given at
what became known as the ‘Barnard Sex Conference’ in 1982. This was a conference
that accelerated, if not inaugurated, the ‘Feminist Sex Wars’, a seemingly endless
conflict between ‘pro-sex’ and ‘sex negative’ feminists in the US that we examine in
closer detail later in the course. One of the great pleasures of teaching the history of
sexuality then is the opportunities it provides to engage student interest through the
historiography itself, not as distant and somewhat arcane, but as part of the history
of sexuality itself, and as relevant to their own lives. On this last point, it helps that
226 Z. Simic
the course begins each year in either the week before or after the Sydney Gay and
Lesbian Mardi Gras Parade, not far from where the class first meets.
With its memorable examples, handy graphs and accessible prose, Rubin’s essay
is an easier sell than a chapter from Foucault’s History of Sexuality: Vol. 1, which I set
in tandem with Rubin, ostensibly to flag his challenge to the ‘repressive hypothesis’
as a key intervention in the field, but also to demonstrate more generally his endur-
ing legacy. Again in the first lecture, and aided by some of the many eye-catching
and pithy Foucault memes that circulate on the internet, I sneak preview Foucault’s
influence on other historians we read in the course, including Judith Walkowitz and
Thomas Laqueur. I explain that the chronology and organisation of the course are
also broadly Foucauldian, insofar as I intend to reinforce his central thesis that sex-
uality is a historical category. And lest I scare them off forever, I reassure students
that all of this will make more sense as we go along and that the course is equal parts
post-Foucault, given the field is no longer so wedded to those formative debates and
questions and has an equally strong social history tradition, evidenced in the exciting
batch of recent histories that have emerged in Australia over the past decade. I also
offer other, earlier starting points to the field’s social constructivist turn, to emphasise
the multiple origins to fields of historical study, including from non-historians.
The third reading I set for week one—running counter to studies that recommend
a cautious approach to content or that tell us students never read these days—is the
introductory chapter from Stephen Garton’s historiographical survey Histories of
Sexuality (2004). When I began teaching the history of sexuality in 2010, this was one
of the key texts that informed my practice and course design, and much of its utility in
the classroom is a result of Garton’s own teaching. Without making impossible claims
to definitiveness, Garton instead frames his study as a product of ‘classroom trial and
error’ (Garton, 2004, xii). The debates and developments canvassed within are mostly
those that engaged student interest. By reading Garton’s broadest chapter, ‘Writing
Sexual Histories’ (which includes nuanced and clear summaries of Foucault, of social
constructivist and essentialist approaches more broadly and of feminist scholarship),
students are then able to comprehend from the outset that the history of sexuality is
a rich and contested field, marked out by often radically different approaches to the
same evidence. Garton’s introductory chapter also emphasises two tendencies in the
scholarship that remain pertinent and provide further prompts for critical discussion
with students throughout the semester. The first is the tendency for some historians to
examine the past through a presentist lens in order to intervene in the sexual politics
of the present, and the second is the habit of separating the history of attitudes to sex
from a history of sex itself, i.e. on the assumption that sex itself has not changed.
I have laboured here how I use the beginning of this particular course to introduce
students to different conceptual approaches to the past. By doing this, I seek to get
students thinking conceptually from the outset, and while some students are more
drawn to historiographical issues than others, each student at some point demon-
strates an understanding of different conceptual approaches to the history of sexu-
ality through one assessment in particular: the tutorial responses exercise, detailed
below. At present, the tutorial responses exercise is submitted in two batches over the
course of a semester, allowing students time to reflect on and refine their responses,
but it is highly adaptable, including to flipped classroom formats.
Another assessment, the research essay, offers additional opportunities for those
students so inclined to focus on, for example, the contribution of urban history to the
history of sexuality; different approaches to comprehending Victorian-era sexualities,
or recent histories of colonialism focussed on intimate lives and/or sexual and racial
stratification. The capacity and willingness of students to engage with such questions
(and they are popular choices) flow on from the conversations we begin in the first
week.
Tutorial Responses Exercise

Details: two responses due end of week 5, two responses due at the end of
week 13, 200 words each. The first submission answers two questions from
two different weeks, from week 1–5. The second answers four questions from
four different weeks, from week 6–13.
Each week four questions are set relating to the set readings and week’s
theme/lecture. There are a mix of questions each week, with at least two
relating to one or more of the conceptual approaches to the topic, ensuring
that over the course of six responses, the students will answer a conceptual
question, either explicitly describing an approach or approaches (e.g. What are
‘essentialism’ and ‘social constructivism’ in relation to the history of sexual-
ity?) or by assessing competing approaches to the past (compare the different
approaches Boswell and Halperin bring to the history of homosexuality. Which
is the more compelling?).
Some questions also encourage students to assess documentaries screened in
the course according to how the creators have represented sex and sexuality
and in this way recognise film as a particular conceptual approach to repre-
senting the history of sexuality. For example, ‘How does the William Yang
documentary Friends of Dorothy represent his own sexuality in relation to
wider society?’
11.5 Migrants and Refugees in Australian History
As a third-year course, Migrants and Refugees in Australian History since 1945 is

taught with the assumption that students have done some prior Australian history
and are cognisant of debates and developments in the field. We are soon disabused
of this notion—annually, at least half the cohort hitherto avoided Australian history
at tertiary level, and each year, at least as many students tell us they had no idea
Australia had a White Australia Policy for over seventy years. What often attracts
students to the course then is its self-evident relevance to contemporary events,
228 Z. Simic
and more often than not, the semester is punctuated with bad news stories about
a war-related refugee crisis, the poor treatment of asylum seekers in mandatory
detention or a resurgence of anti-migrant and refugee sentiment, sometimes targeted
at a particular community. My co-teacher Ruth Balint and I welcome discussion
of these stories in class—with a seminar format there is time to do so—but from
the outset encourage students to think about how media discussions of migrant and
refugee issues sometimes contain within them ‘bad history’, including persistent
misrepresentations of Australia’s history of refugee policy as, at least until recently,
motivated primarily by humanitarian concerns.
The course is conceptualised along a number of axes that we return to habitually to
ensure constant critical engagement with the material presented and in order to expose
students to a variety of conceptual approaches to the past. Broadly, migration and
refugee histories are categorised as political and social histories, with some scholars
more concerned with one kind over the other, or as we put it, people or policies or
both. Each week primary evidence consists of both a personal or people-focussed
piece of evidence, and policy-related evidence, including parliamentary debates.
Students are also encouraged to reflect on popular narratives of Australia’s migrant
history, particularly two persistent tropes—the successful multicultural nation on the
one hand, and the anxious, sometimes xenophobic nation on the other. These popular
narratives can also be found in scholarly work, most notably John Hirst and James
Jupp, whose work we set in week one as (we hope) persuasive counterpoints.
We introduce the field as relatively new and/or under-researched in Australian
history, at least until recently. As the focus is on the post-World War II period, the
course is necessarily interdisciplinary given that social scientists pioneered the study
of migrants and refugees in Australia. Indeed, the work of sociologists and demog-
raphers such as Jean Martin and Charles Price performs double duty in the course, at
times presented as primary material, at other times as secondary. Relatedly, students
are given wider context about how post-war migration created new forms of exper-
tise and instantiated migrants and refugees as objects of knowledge, a phenomenon
that was both challenged and reinforced with the shift towards official multicultural-
ism in the late 1970s. The theme of others speaking for and about migrants is further
examined via immigration debates, including the one launched by historian Geoffrey
Blainey in the 1980s. Despite being well-combed over as a controversial episode in
Australian history, many students (most of them born well after the controversy) are
compelled to analyse it further in a dedicated research essay on immigration debates,
most often by utilising anthropologist Ghassan Hage’s thesis in his influential book
White Nation (1998) that participants in immigration debates are rarely migrants
themselves and that such ‘debates’ are therefore most meaningfully understood as
enactments of white entitlement.
As researchers in the field, Ruth and I introduce some of our own work to students
as not only informing our teaching but emerging from it. For instance, Ruth’s work
on European refugees in the post-war period is global and diasporic in orientation,
running counter to a more pronounced tendency in Australian historiography for
localised or nation-based studies. I introduce my own work on the lived effects of the
gendered aspects of the post-war migration scheme as originating from a gap I iden-
tified in the historiography, having taught migration history on and off for a decade. I
also identify it explicitly as feminist history. More generally, we share our own family
histories of migration and the personal and political motivations for our research and
teaching. In these ways, we model historical practice for them, including the creation
of an archive, the conceptual approaches we favour and how we develop arguments.
Moreover, we hope to encourage reflexivity, wider historiographical engagement
with Australian history and its preoccupations and perhaps most importantly, for
students to develop their own confidence to contribute to the field.
Given the frameworks described above that we introduce early on, then reiterate
throughout the course, and the advanced level of study, we make it clear that
we expect students to demonstrate critical engagement with different conceptual
approaches in all assessments, an expectation we embed in assessment criteria
for the 1000-word tutorial paper and the 3000-word research essay. Questions are
designed accordingly, with the tutorial papers primarily focussed on assessing the
different ways particular scholars have, for example, accounted for the origins of the
post-war migration scheme, traced the demise of the White Australia Policy (e.g.
through a focus on social protest or political history) or approached the history of
child migration from Britain. The research essays require some primary research, so
we make it clear in the assessment description that students should reflect however
briefly on how the evidence and the conceptual approach inform one another. Some
questions also explicitly require attention to multiple approaches to understanding
the past, consistent with the course’s dual emphasis on people and policies, and the
critique encouraged of particular representations of Australia’s migration history. For
example: ‘To what extent can the Displaced Persons Scheme be described as ‘human-
itarian’? Discuss with reference to government policies, Australian society and the
experiences of DPs’. Another: ‘Write a short history of mandatory detention. Draw
on official policies, humanitarian critiques and inside accounts, including from staff’.
The course also includes a group presentation focussed on the history of a
particular migrant community, an assessment that Ruth and I have refined over the
years to showcase making history through the use of different conceptual approaches
to the past, including political and social history. The assessment involves both
primary research and historiographical engagement and is designed to encourage
students to think of their collaborative history as contributions to the wider field
(therefore, providing a history of a less documented group is encouraged). Time
is allocated in class on a fortnightly basis to develop the project and for teachers
to provide guidance and suggestions. Most tasks are clearly designated, and we
work with the groups to determine who is best suited for these tasks (which may
include developing a power-point, interviewing a member of a particular migrant or
refugee community or compiling a literature review). Some tasks are also explicitly
identified by us as constituting a particular conceptual approach to understanding
the past. As the assessment is ongoing over the semester, culminating in a half-hour
presentation in the closing weeks for each group, students are able to absorb the
different approaches to migration history that unfold in the course and to incorporate
them into their own presentations. Without any prompting for us, most groups
also usually bring in ‘ethnic’ cuisine, enhancing the joyous atmosphere of the
230 Z. Simic
final weeks of semester. The food is also often explicitly introduced as another
conceptual approach—food history—and sometimes even critically assessed by
students according to the critical concepts of ‘gastro’ or ‘cosmo-multiculturalism’.
As teachers, we usually leave satiated and satisfied that our job is done.
Group Presentation Assessment

Task: early in the course, each seminar group will be divided into groups of
approximately four students. Drawing on a list of migrant communities and/or
suggestions from within the group, the collective will choose a migrant com-
munity to historicise. Throughout the semester, the group will develop their
project in class and outside of it (i.e. over e-mail and/or through external meet-
ings). The aim is to present a thirty-minute presentation in week 12 or 13 on
the past and present of the designated migrant community. The history should
approach the topic from a number of angles: history of policy/politics (law
and policies, debates); local/diasporic history (places and patterns of settle-
ment) and social history (personal experiences, oral history, media coverage if
applicable). The presentation should utilise primary sources and demonstrate
an awareness of different historical interpretations/approaches to this group.
Where to start: Jupp. J (Ed.) (2001). The Australian people: An encyclopedia
of the nation, its people and their origins, Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press. It contains many essays on specific migrant groups.
Rationale: this assessment offers the opportunity to apply the broader themes
and interpretive approaches of the course to a specific case study.
11.6 Conclusion
Burrowing down into this topic was a fresh reminder that history teachers should stay
abreast of recent developments in the historical fields in which they teach, not only
those in which they research. At the same time, given the myriad possible approaches
to any historical topic, it is imperative to prioritise the teaching of particular concep-
tual approaches in a systematic and realistic fashion across the length of a course.
Ideally, the focussed teaching of specified approaches to interpreting the past becomes
a transferrable skill, enhancing the student’s ability to identify and analyse different
approaches as they progress through their history degree. Impoverished would be
the student, and weak the teacher, who was taught or who communicated only one
way of doing history. At its best, TLO 2 allows teachers to ‘introduce students to
the complexity of historical thinking’, including infinite interpretative possibilities
as ‘new approaches are always possible’ (Clark and Nye, 2015, 7), including their
own.
References
Bayly, C. A. (2004). The birth of the modern world 1780–1914: Global connections and compar-
isons. Oxford: Blackwell.
Booth, A. (2003). Teaching history at university. London: Routledge.
Brown, J. M. (1999). Gandhi-a Victorian gentleman: An essay in imperial encounter. The Journal
of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 27(2), 68–85.
Clark, J., & Nye, A. (2015). ‘Surprise me!’ The (im) possibilities of agency and creativity within
the standards framework of history education. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 1–13. https:
//doi.org/10.1080/00131857.2015.1104231.
Curthoys, A., & Docker, J. (2005). Is history fiction?. Sydney: UNSW Press.
d’Abrera, B. (7, January 2017). A new breed of historian. The Spectator. http://www.spectator.co.
uk/2017/01/new-breed-historian/.
First Year Learning Thresholds, Good Practice Poster. (2015). http://www.
firstyearlearningthresholds.edu.au/resources/history-tlo2-good-practice-poster/.
Garton, S. (2004). Histories of sexuality: From antiquity to sexual revolution. London: Equinox.
Hage, G. (1998). White nation: Fantasies of white supremacy in multicultural society. Sydney: Pluto
Press.
Mazlish, B., & Iriye, A. (Eds.). (2005). The global history reader. NY and London: Routledge.
Nye, A., Hughes-Warrington, M., Roe, J., Russell, P., Peel, M., Deacon, D., … & Kiem, P. (2009).
Historical thinking in higher education: Staff and student perceptions of the nature of historical
thinking. History Australia, 6(3), 73.1–73.15. https://doi.org/10.2104/ha090073.
Partner, N., & Foot, S. (Eds.). (2013). The SAGE handbook of historical theory. London: Sage
Publications.
Retz, T. (2015). The structure of historical inquiry. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 1–12.
https://doi.org/10.1080/00131857.2015.1101365.
Rubin, G. (1984). Thinking sex: Notes for a radical politics of sexuality. In Carol Vance (Ed.),
Pleasure and danger: Exploring female sexuality (pp. 267–319). London: Pandora.
Rubin, G. (2011). Blood under the bridge: Reflections on ‘thinking sex’. GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian
and Gay Studies, 17(1), 15–48.
Skinner, K. (2014). Bridging gaps and jumping through hoops: First-year history students’ expec-
tations and perceptions of assessment and feedback in a research-intensive UK university. Arts
and Humanities in Higher Education, 13(4), 359–376.
Stearns, P. N. (2003). Treating globalization in history surveys. The History Teacher,
36(3), 153–160.
Stearns, P. N. (2012, July 25). Rethinking the long 19th century in world history: Assessments
and alternatives. World History Connected, 9(3), 34 pars. http://worldhistoryconnected.press.
illinois.edu/9.3/forum_stearns.html.
Young, R. J. C. (2001). Postcolonialism: An historical introduction. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.
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Chapter 12
TLO 3: How Historians Influence
the Present and Future
Gareth Pritchard
Abstract TLO 3 requires students to explore the relationship between historians and
wider society. In order to achieve this goal in the classroom, teachers can usefully
employ concepts and methodologies that have emerged in the field of memory studies.
Academic history is a particular type of ‘collective memory’. The history classroom,
and the texts that are written by historians, are sites where collective memory is
negotiated and contested. Moreover, the production and teaching of academic history
are inherently political because the organisation of knowledge about the past always
has implications for the distribution of power in the present and future. Using these
concepts as a starting point, this chapter recommends five classroom activities which
can help students to improve their understanding of the nexus between historians and
society. All five activities are illustrated with examples drawn from the history of
World War II in Europe, but they could all be adapted to the teaching of any period
of the history of any continent.
12.1 Introduction
The original wording of Threshold Learning Outcome 3 required students to demon-

strate ‘how historians influence the present and future’. The Australian Historical
Association (AHA) subsequently revised TLO 3 to: ‘Show how historians influence
their contemporary world’. In either iteration, TLO 3 is rarely taught in university
history courses, and incorporating it into the curriculum is a challenge (Brawley
et al., 2015). Nonetheless, TLO 3 is the most exciting—and potentially the most
radical—of all the Threshold Learning Outcomes in terms of its implications for
classroom practice.
But TLO 3 is also flawed. It focuses solely on the influence of historians on society
and ignores the flip side of the coin—the ways in which the work of historians is
shaped by the societies in which they live. This is a serious oversight. TLO 3 asks
G. Pritchard (B)
e-mail: gareth.pritchard@adelaide.edu.au

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0047-9_12
234 G. Pritchard
students to listen to only one half of a conversation, and a conversation that is only
half heard is often misunderstood. Therefore, the first step towards implementing
TLO 3 is to broaden its scope so that it takes account of the dialogical nature of the
relationship between historians and society. I would suggest the following wording:
‘How historians both influence and are influenced by their contemporary world’.
In this chapter, I shall discuss how this revised version of TLO 3 might be achieved
in the classroom. I shall make five suggestions, all of which I shall illustrate with
examples drawn from one of my own fields of interest—the social history of World
War II in Europe. All my recommendations, however, could be applied to the teaching
of any period of the history of any continent.
12.2 Incorporate Methodologies and Concepts Drawn

from Memory Studies
In recent years, there has been growing scholarly interest in the nexus that connects
history, memory and identity. New academic journals and university programs have
been established in the burgeoning field of ‘Memory Studies’. Numerous monographs
and edited volumes have been published on memory, many of which are interdisci-
plinary. According to Jay Winter, an historian who has focused on the memory and
commemoration of World War I:
Memory is in the ascendancy these days. In virtually every corner of intellectual life, there
is evidence of a sea change in focus, a movement towards the analysis of memory as the
organizing principle of scholarly or artistic work. Whereas race, gender and social class were
foci of earlier waves of scholarship, now the emphasis is on a set of issues at the intersection
of cultural history, literary studies, architecture, cognitive psychology, psychoanalysis and
many other disciplines besides. What they have in common is a focus on memory. (Winter,
2006)
There are many theorists in the field of memory studies on whose ideas we can
draw in order to teach TLO 3 in the classroom. One of the most important of these
is the sociologist Maurice Halbwachs (1877–1945), who pioneered the concept of
‘collective memory’. According to Halbwachs, it is impossible for people to process
their memories without being influenced by the social environment. Memories are
thus collective as well as individual. Consequently, they are continually reconstructed
by society to meet the needs of the present (Halbwachs, 1992). Another key figure in
Memory Studies is the historian Pierre Nora (born 1931), who in the 1980s and early
1990s published a series of edited volumes entitled Les Lieux de Mémoire (The Sites
of Memory). Bringing together the work of leading scholars in the field, Les lieux de
mémoire explores the ways in which collective memories are embodied in museums,
public architecture, street names, national symbols and so forth (Nora, 1997). Crit-
ically, for our purposes, sites of memory do not have to be located in geographical
space. Novels, films, books, even the Internet are also Les Lieux de Mémoire where
understandings of the past are continually reconstructed and renegotiated.
12 TLO 3: How Historians Influence the Present and Future 235
One particular concern of scholars in the field of memory studies is the role of
the state in the construction of national narratives. Since the nineteenth century,
all modern states without exception have demonstrated a keen interest in moulding
their citizens’ sense of identity. The dominant organising principle has been the
concept of ‘nation’. Citizens are encouraged by the state to invest their own sense
of personal identity in a wider, shared sense of nationality, which binds individuals
and elites into a single ‘imagined community’ (Anderson, 1991). What gives these
communities cohesion are shared languages, cultural practices, the illusion of shared
values, and—above all—governing narratives and myths (Bell, 2003). As Homi
Bhabha points out, the nation is first and foremost a narration (Bhabha, 1990).
The insights of Halbwachs, Nora, Bhabha et al. are useful in terms of TLO 3
because they can help students to see the writing of history as a social process that
is embedded in its contemporary world. This point is of fundamental significance.
Historians do not write in a vacuum but are always engaged in a dialogue with
the world around them. The cognitive frameworks of historians, the character of
their discourse and their political assumptions are all conditioned by the societies in
which they live. This in turn affects the way that historians write about the past. But
historians also play a crucial role in shaping the self-understanding of wider society.
Indeed, no other discipline can rival the importance of history as a foundation of
social identity. This is because the academic discipline of history is a special kind of
collective memory. It is bound by particular conventions and methodologies. Because
of the professional status of its practitioners, it has a particular kind of authority.
Nonetheless, like any other kind of collective memory, academic history is always
influenced by the needs of the present. It has its own lieux de mémoire, such as journal
articles, monographs, textbooks and undergraduate classrooms.
As is the case with other forms of state-centred collective memory, a central point
of reference in academic history is the nation. History books in university libraries
are organised in national categories, as are course offerings in history departments.
Historians often describe themselves and each other as Australianists, Germanists
and so forth. As I shall argue below, the language of nationality and nationhood
saturates the writing and the thinking of professional historians. So dominant is the
nation as the organising principle of historical enquiry that the majority of historians
do not seem to question their own core assumptions. They certainly do not encourage
students to do so.
The intimate relationship between academic history and nationalism is determined
historically. From its origins in the nineteenth-century Europe, history as a university-
based academic discipline was above all focused on constructing the backstory of
the nation-states which were emerging at that time. Historians such as Leopold
von Ranke, Heinrich von Treitschke, Thomas Macaulay and G.M. Trevelyan put
themselves forward as the narrators of the nation. They were the prophets of the new
secular religion of nationalism. According to Ronald Suny: ‘History as a discipline
helped to constitute the nation, even as the nation determined the categories in which
history was written and the purposes it was to serve’ (Suny, 2000, p. 589). In a
similar vein, Akira Iriye argues that in the nineteenth century: ‘History was a study
of how a nation emerged and developed’ (Iriye, 2013, p. 2). With the advent of the
236 G. Pritchard
global European empires, this nationalist and étatist approach to history was exported
around the globe (Nairn, 1994). Local nationalisms emerged in colonised territories
which imitated the conceptual structures of European nationalist thought, at the heart
of which was the narrative of the nation. As Berger and Conrad (2015) demonstrate
in their monograph on national identity and historical consciousness, the nation-state
has remained the central preoccupation of historians ever since.
At this point, many historians would raise the objection that academic history is in
the process of transcending national categories. Comparative and transnational his-
tory, they would argue, is now very fashionable. Yet in most comparative and transna-
tional history, the basic unit of comparison remains the nation. Two of the foremost
advocates of comparative history, Haupt and Kocka (2012), explicitly declare in the
introduction to their landmark book on the subject that the purpose of comparison is
to analyse ‘national differences’. Nor does transnational history offer any easy escape
from the nation, since it takes as its focus the relations between nation-states. When
historians use the word transnational it is often very difficult to tell whether they
mean trans-state, trans-governmental, trans-cultural or trans-economic. Moreover,
the very concept of transnationality can only be appropriately applied to relatively
modern history, since nations and nation-states did not exist before the nineteenth
century.
It is true that, by focusing on the history of connections, circulations and transfers
between populations, transnational approaches can open up new perspectives, espe-
cially when the segue into regional and global approaches (Saumier, 2013, pp. 1–12).
The flourishing of Atlantic history is an example of the kind of progress that can be
made when historians put aside their preoccupation with the nation-state. Nonethe-
less, national history of one kind or another is alive and well in most universities, and
the nation-state is still the primary point of reference. As Ther (2003, p. 47) points
out:
history has remained very national in its orientation. This is reflected by the structures of
most history departments in the Western world, which as an optimum have been neatly
divided into American, British, German, French and other national histories within Europe.
Usually ‘one’s own’ national history clearly dominates the departments.
The continuing grip of national categories is perhaps rather surprising. After all,
most of the scholars who study nationalism have long since concluded that the nation
is socially constructed and historically contingent (Bell, 2003; Kramer, 1997). It is
nationalism which creates the nation not the other way around (Gellner & Breuilly,
2006). Nations are fictional and can only exist as a result of an act of faith on
the part of those who believe in them (Hayes, 1960). There is a country called
Germany, a German state, a political ideology called German nationalism, and a
Germanic dialect called ‘High German’ which is used as a state language (though
many German citizens do not speak it as their first language). But there is no such
thing as a German nation except in the imagination. Germans do not exist except
as a mythological construct. It is legitimate for historians to study the evolution and
character of these categories because even mythologies have a history. But historians
should not employ mythology as an analytical tool.
Since we are interested here in the connection between historians and society,
it is worth noting that xenophobia is embedded in the national mode of thinking
that is disseminated by historians. If we ask the question, ‘what does it mean to be
German?’, one possible answer is that a German is someone who possesses a German
passport. But, if we adopt this definition, we are not talking about nationality at all,
but about citizenship. By contrast, if we answer (as most people probably would) that
‘Germanness’ consists of German citizenship plus something else (language, culture,
identity, heredity, etc.), it follows that some German citizens are more ‘German’
than others. Even in countries like the USA, where nationality is not linked overtly
to ethnic identity, it is still almost universally believed that ‘Americanness’ derives,
not just from citizenship, but from certain shared ideas or ‘core values’. American
citizens who do not share these ideas or values are thus ‘un-American’ and not true
members of the national community, as Samuel Huntingdon recently argued in his
controversial book (2004) on American identity.
The concept of the nation is thus to the twentieth and twenty-first centuries what
the related concept of race was to the nineteenth. We can see now, looking back,
that race was a fabricated construct with no basis in material or biological reality
(Hannaford, 1996). Though historians legitimately study nineteenth-century racist
ideology from the outside, no historian today would think of using race as a category
of analysis. Yet historians continue to use the idea of the nation, which is every bit as
mythological, as their primary analytical tool. Even if historians are not explicitly or
self-consciously nationalist, they can be described as ‘nationist’ in the sense that they
‘think with nations’. This is the foremost problem of our discipline as it is currently
practised. TLO 3 gives us an opportunity explicitly to address this problem with
students.

There are plenty of short texts available which summarize the major trends in
the field of memory studies and the study of nationalism. Use one or more of
these as the basis for discussion in tutorials or seminars. Discuss with students
the implications of Halbwachs, Nora, Bhabha et al. for the study of the period
on which students are focusing. For instance, students of World War II could
be asked to identify the ways in which the collective memory of the war is
embodied in lieux de mémoire such as public monuments, museums, novels,
television shows, films, the Internet, computer games, as well as history books
and classrooms. Students can be encouraged to consider how the lieux de
mémoire of historians differ from other forms of collective memory—and
what they have in common.
238 G. Pritchard
12.3 Encourage Students to Read Secondary Sources

as They Read Primary Sources
Understanding the centrality of nation to the world view of modern historians is

essential if we are to explore their relationship with the contemporary world. But
how can this be done in practice? How can the theories of Halbwachs, Nora, Bhaba
and others be applied in a way that is accessible to undergraduate students?
The single most important tactic is to train students to interrogate secondary
sources as they do primary sources. The distinction between primary and secondary
sources is central to the way that history is taught in schools and universities. Yet the
validity of this distinction is rarely questioned. The following statement is typical
of the uncritical manner in which the primary/secondary dichotomy is presented to
students:
When historians read primary documents, they read at many different levels. They simultane-
ously pay attention to argument, purpose, context, content and credibility. Too often students
will read a primary document as if it is a textbook. Students need to learn that reading a
primary document is a different reading process and involves understanding the main point,
but also contextualizing and asking skeptical questions about that point. (Faithfull, 2010)
The author of this quotation blithely asserts that primary sources require a different
reading process to secondary sources. In fact, the opposite is true. Reading primary
and secondary texts does not require different skills at all. It requires the same skills.
Students should be encouraged to pay attention to the argument, purpose, context,
content and credibility of secondary sources in exactly the same way as we currently
train them to do for primary sources.

Alongside more traditional primary sources, give the students excerpts from
history books that were published during the period that they are studying. For
example, monographs written by historians in Germany under the Third Reich,
or school textbooks produced by the Vichy regime under German occupation,
will clearly reveal the narratives and conceptual paradigms on which both
Nazism and Pétainism were constructed. By looking at past examples of the
connection between the discipline of history and the political context, students
will become accustomed to the idea that all historical texts have a dual nature:
they present a version of the more distant past, but they are also windows into
the mentalities of the period during which they were produced. Indeed, almost
nothing tells us more about the mentalities of a particular society than the way
it organised knowledge about the past.
12.4 Place Secondary Texts in Their Historical Context
If students are to learn to treat secondary sources as they do primary sources, they
will have to be taught how to contextualise them. For example, it is normal for history
teachers to ask their students to do some research on the authors of their primary
sources. We tell the students that, in order to evaluate the nature and credibility of
the testimony, it is helpful to know something about the witness. Exactly the same
principle applies to secondary sources. Students should always be encouraged to
find out something about the historians on whose texts they are relying for their
assignments. As E.H. Carr pointed out in What is History? (1987, p. 23), in order
properly to contextualise a secondary text, one has to understand something of the
circumstances and intentions of the historian who wrote it.
For if, as Collingwood says, the historian must reenact in thought what has gone on in the
mind of his dramatis personae, so the reader … must re-enact what goes on in the mind
of the historian. Study the historian before you begin to study the facts. This is, after all,
not very abstruse. It is what is already done by the intelligent undergraduate who, when
recommended to read a work by that great scholar Jones of St Jude’s, goes round to a friend
at St Jude’s to ask what sort of chap Jones is, and what bees he has in his bonnet. When you
read a work of history, always listen out for the buzzing.
In the case of the historiography of the Nazi empire, which is highly politicised,
it is all the more important for students to know something about the authors whose
books they will find on the shelves of the library. Tom Behan, for instance, was a fine
historian of the Italian resistance, and his works can be recommended to students
with confidence. Nonetheless, students should be aware of the fact that he was a
Trotskyist and a member of the Socialist Workers Party in the UK. It is therefore no
surprise that Behan (2009) wrote in very positive terms about the left-wing Italian
guerrillas (though not about the Italian Communist Party). Richard Lamb, by contrast,
another author whose work on the Italian resistance is likely to fall into the hands
of undergraduates, was a British intelligence officer in Italy during the war. As an
active member of the British Liberal Party, who on many issues stood on the right of
the party, Lamb (1996) took a much dimmer view of the partisans. Claudio Pavone,
author of the seminal monograph A Civil War: A History of the Italian Resistance
(2013), was a politically engaged left-wing intellectual. The influential historian of
Italy in the 1930s and 1940s, Renzo De Felice, was an Italian nationalist and a fierce
critic of the post-war political system in Italy which, he claimed, was built on a
myth of the resistance (Baldissara, 2002). Most historians who have written about
the social history of World War II have had overt political agendas, and even those
who have not have been influenced by their political inclinations and, in particular,
by nationalism (Bosworth, 1996). Students who rely on the works of these historians
need to know this.
It is not enough to ask students to look at the individual historians. We should
also encourage them to consider the context in which historians were writing. To
this end, teachers should also explicitly discuss with students the evolution of the
historiography of the subject which they are studying in the classroom, as well as the
240 G. Pritchard
social and political changes which shaped that evolution. For example, the historiog-
raphy of European society under Nazi rule developed in phases, each of which was
closely connected to changes in the political climate. At the height of the Cold War
in the 1950s and the early 1960s, most historians in Western Europe wrote accounts
of the war which were patriotic, conservative, and which systematically downplayed
the collaboration of elites and of large sections of the European population with the
Nazis. In the more radical climate of the late 1960s and 1970s, a new generation of
historians began to question the shibboleths of the preceding generation of scholars
and to study the everyday history (Alltagsgeschichte) of social groups which had
previously been neglected, such as women, workers and young people (Drapac and
Pritchard, 2015). Since the collapse of the Soviet Bloc, a strident nationalist histori-
ography has emerged in almost all the former Communist countries of eastern Europe
and the Balkans—and also parts of western Europe—which seeks to rehabilitate war
criminals and fascists (Bechtel, 2008, 2010; Himka, 2008; Radonic, 2009; Rudling,
2006). Any student who picks a book on World War II from the shelves of the library,
but who is not aware of the political affiliations of the author, and the political context
within which the book was written, is likely to accept in an uncritical fashion the
claims that are made in the text.

Give students exercises in class that explicitly require them to place the sec-
ondary texts in their historical and political context. For example, students in a
course on Europe in World War II could be divided into groups, each of which
is tasked with researching a seminal monograph, the biography of the historian
who wrote it, the context in which it was written and the reasons why it made
such an impact on its publication. The groups could then pool their findings
in order to compile a timeline of the evolution of the historiography alongside
a timeline of the major political events which both shaped, and were shaped
by, the evolution of the historiography. The resulting map could be used in
classroom discussion to explore the relationship between history and politics.
What, for example, was the connection between the student protests of 1968
and landmark texts that challenged orthodox narratives of World War II, such
as Fritz Fischer’s Griff nach der Weltmacht (1961)a and Robert Paxton’s Vichy
France (1972)? What was the relationship between the rise of Silvio Berlus-
coni in Italy and new interpretations of the Italian resistance such as Claudio
Pavone’s Una guerra civile (1991) and Giampaolo Pansa’s Il sangue dei vinti
(2003)? Only by placing historians such as Fischer, Paxton, Pavone and Pansa
in their contemporary context can their claims about the 1940s be properly
evaluated.
a This book focuses, not on World War II, but on the war aims of the German government in
World War I. However, its publication had major implications for our understanding of the
causes of World War II.
12.5 Discuss the Role of Historians as Public and State

Officials
Historians occupy a specific sociological location. The overwhelming majority of

them do not live on the sales of books; they live on their salaries. They are pay-
roll historians. They are minor officials in large bureaucracies and, in most cases,
their livelihoods depend directly or indirectly on the state (Vincent, 1996, 79–80).
Accordingly, the primary function of historians is to serve the interests of the modern
nation-state through the construction of nationist and nationalist discourse. Histori-
ans have performed this role ever since history became as a university-based subject
in the nineteenth century. For doing so, they have been rewarded with comfortable
salaries, pensions and academic titles that distinguish them from the common run of
humanity.
In many countries, the alignment between the interests of the state and the self-
interest of professional historians is still unmistakable even in the twenty-first century.
In contemporary Eastern Europe, for instance, post-Communist governments are
actively sponsoring a new generation of strident nationalist historians as part of the
project of nation-building. A prominent example of this phenomenon is Volodymyr
Viatrovych who, in 2008, at the age of 31, was appointed as director of the archives of
the Security Service of Ukraine. Shortly after the overthrow of President Yanukovych
by armed paramilitaries in February 2014, Viatrovych was elevated to the even more
prestigious position of Director of the Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance.
As an historian, Viatrovych publishes copious works of historical revisionism which
lionise Ukrainian nationalists who fought against the Soviet Union in the 1940s. What
makes his work so controversial is that many of these nationalists also collaborated
with the Nazis and participated in acts of ethnic cleansing and genocide (McBride,
2016). Even so, Viatrovych continues to flourish in contemporary Ukraine, and his
meteoric career is a perfect illustration of the benefits of serving the nation-state.
Any student who came across a text by Viatrovych would be well advised to find out
something about his career background before quoting him in an essay.
In democratic countries such as Australia and the UK, the degree of alignment
between the careers of historians and the requirements of the state is less obvious.
Nonetheless, Australian and British historians work in an institutional environment
which shapes their activities in myriad ways. Moreover, over the last three decades
the professional environment of historians has been subject to increasing control both
by the state and by university management.
The key point here is that there is stark disjuncture between the work that we do
with students in the classroom and our own lived experiences as professional histo-
rians. On the one hand, it is a routine part of jobs to assign readings to students, or
to present them with bibliographies for their assignments. The vast bulk of the texts
that we recommend were written in the last three decades by historians who work at
universities. On the other hand, we tell the students next to nothing about the insti-
tutional environment within which these texts were produced. Most students know
little about research assessment exercises, competitive funding applications or the
242 G. Pritchard
relentless pressure on academics to publish. They know little about the hierarchical
and status-driven research culture of modern academia, or the metrics that are used
to measure the ‘quality’ and ‘impact’ of academic research. All academics know that
the modern research environment influences the kind of work that we do, and the
way we do it. According to a study by Chubb and Watermeyer (2016), the ‘hyper-
competitiveness’ of higher education has resulted in ‘the corruption of academics
as custodians of truth’. Yet, we never mention any of this to the students. Essential
contextual information thus remains a guilty professional secret.
Historians may be beholden to the institutional hand that feeds them, but the rela-
tionship between the state and historians is not entirely free of conflicts of interest.
There once was a time, at least in democratic countries, when historians enjoyed
a substantial degree of professional autonomy. This fostered a sense of guild con-
sciousness which lingers into the present. Most historians still feel that they have
a professional duty to ensure that the past is not instrumentalised too blatantly in
the service of politics. This in turn can occasionally lead to friction. In 2013, for
instance, the then Secretary of State for Education in the UK, Michael Gove, pro-
posed a new national curriculum which would place much more emphasis on the
teaching of British history. According to Gove, schools should return to a more
traditional pedagogical mode by focusing in chronological sequence on the study
of monarchs, politicians and ‘great events’. Gove’s intervention was roundly con-
demned by the institutions that represent professional historians, including the Royal
Historical Society, the Historical Association, the higher education group History UK
and senior members of the British Academy. As a result, Gove was forced to retreat
(Guyver, 2013). Similar skirmishes have been fought between governments and his-
torians in Australia (Taylor, 2013) and many other countries and, in a surprising
number of these memory conflicts, it is the historians who emerged with the upper
hand.
That historians can still, even today, serve as ‘custodians of truth’ is demonstrated
very clearly by recent work on the history of Eastern Europe during World War
II. Just as historians like Viatrovych and their sponsoring governments are seek-
ing to rehabilitate war criminals and fascists, other historians—such as Per Anders
Rudling, Delphine Bechtel and John-Paul Himka—are trying to stop them (Bechtel,
2008, 2010; Himka, 2008; Rudling, 2006). In some cases, historians have continued
to take a stand against nationalist myth-making even when it leads to unpleasant per-
sonal consequences. In 2012, for example, the German–Polish historian Grzegorz
Rossoliński-Liebe embarked on a speaking tour of Ukraine. His subject was the life
and career of a prominent wartime Ukrainian fascist called Stepan Bandera. Because
Bandera is an iconic figure to Ukrainian ultranationalists, Rossoliński-Liebe’s tour
was dogged from the outset by angry protests and threats of violence. In the end, the
level of harassment was so great that Rossoliński-Liebe was only able to give one
of the planned lectures—under police protection in the German embassy. Across the
border in Poland, a libel probe was launched in 2015 against Polish-born historian
Jan T. Gross after he had pointed out that ethnic Poles probably killed more Jewish
people than German soldiers during World War II. In April 2016, Gross was grilled
for five hours by state prosecutors on the grounds that his claim may have ‘insulted’
the Polish nation.
Clearly, then, the professional position of historians is ambiguous. Paid by large
institutions and subject to ever greater bureaucratic scrutiny, most historians play the
game according to the rules that are imposed on them. This is the environment in
which most historical writing is produced, and it is this environment which shapes
its character. In the words of John Vincent, the ‘disconnection’ of payroll historians,
their ‘want of rootedness, their poverty of commitment, are those of the minor official
class the world over’. Sociologically, professional historians of today are ‘deeply
encased in something, some form of stability and predictability and also limitation’,
in a way that defines their habits of thought (Vincent 1996: 80). Yet, historians also
retain certain professional standards and obligations in the defence of which they
can occasionally take a stand. Historians help to construct and disseminate national
myths and a nationist mindset, but they can sometimes do the opposite.
If we accept the principle that any text is shaped by the context in which it is
written, then it surely follows that students should know more than they do about
the ambiguous professional status of the payroll historian. Without this contextual
information, how can we expect students to evaluate with rigour the books and articles
that we place on their reading lists?

There now exists a substantial literature on the impact of research metrics and
funding arrangements on the professional behaviour of academics (see, for
example, Chubb & Watermeyer, 2016). As preparation for a tutorial, ask the
students to read an article that gives them some insight into how the modern
research environment actually works. In the tutorial itself, present students
with a list of current historians with whose scholarly works they are already
familiar. Ask the students to go online in order to find out as much as they
can about the career trajectories of these historians. News articles that mention
the historians are also of relevance. In the case of World War II in Eastern
Europe, students will find numerous news items, blogs and even YouTube clips
that mention historians such as Volodymyr Viatrovych, Per Anders Rudling,
Grzegorz Rossoliński-Liebe and Jan Gross. After the students have reported
their findings to the class as a whole, initiate a general discussion of how the
published academic work of these historians may have been influenced by their
role as public and state officials. Whose interests do their texts serve? Whose
agenda benefits from their publication?
244 G. Pritchard
12.6 Encourage Students to Pay Close Attention

to the Language Used by Historians
Many of the assumptions of historians are so deeply entrenched in their modes of

thought that they are probably not even aware of them. However, underlying concep-
tual structures can often be identified if we look closely at the language that is used
in the secondary sources. Classroom activities that require students to look critically
at how historians use language are an effective way of exploring the relationship
between historians and wider society.
For instance, the texts that scholars write about World War II are saturated with
the language of nations and nationality. Nations are reified, and written about as if
they were individual human beings with agency, thoughts, feelings and memories.
Below, I list seven typical examples of the kinds of statements made by historians
about World War II which reveal the pervasiveness of thinking with nations. In the
first four sentences, the authors conflate the state and the people who lived under that
state, and gloss over the vast differences of experience that depended on class, gender,
ethnicity, political affiliation, personal attributes and luck. There was no ‘French’ or
‘Italian’ experience of World War II, and to suggest that there was is delusional.
1. ‘France, the Netherlands and Belgium were indisputable losers of 1940’ (Lagrou,
2003, p. 528);
2. ‘In the summer of 1943, Italy was a nation in crisis. … Fed up with the war, the
Italians longed now for liberation from the German/Fascist yoke’ (D’Amelio,
2001, p. 127);
3. ‘The second issue that clouded Italy’s psyche was the period 1943–45’ (Consonni,
2011, pp. 220–223); and
4. ‘Every nation that participated in the Second World War has its own version
of events. Britons and Americans, Germans and Italians, French and Dutch,
Russians and Poles, Jews and many others, all accentuate the experiences of
their own people’ (Davies, 2006, p. 11).
The most problematic consequence of thinking with nations is that historians
blur the distinction between citizenship and ethnicity. In the language of historians,
citizens of the dominant ethnicity in a particular nation-state are linguistically con-
structed as normative. Thus, historians routinely write that the ‘Germans’ invaded
Poland in 1939, France in 1940 and Greece in 1941. But when they write ‘Germans’
they are certainly not referring to German Jews or Communists, who are thereby lin-
guistically excluded from the category ‘Germans’. In just the same way, historians
write about relations between Jewish people and the ‘Germans’, ‘Italians’, ‘Poles’ in
whose midst they lived. Historians make these distinctions despite the fact that these
Jewish people were German, Italian and Polish citizens too, with an equal claim to
membership of these imaginary national communities.
The following quotations illustrate clearly the problems of using an ethnicised
construction of the nation as a category of analysis. All three concern the anti-Semitic
pogroms that were carried out by Baltic nationalists after the Nazi invasion of the
Soviet Union in June 1941.
5. ‘Not only were the Germans trying to stir up hatred between the Lithuanians
and the Jewish community … but also between the Lithuanians and the Vilnius
Poles’ (Budreckis, 1968, 63–4).
6. ‘In the case of Latvia the focus on the relatively recent past, particularly the
Holocaust, sometimes displays a tendency to insinuate that the relations between
Latvians and Jews in the past have been bad. Furthermore, there is also a propen-
sity to believe that this at least to some extent might help to explain the often
strained relations between Latvians (and Balts in general) and Jews. However,
this premise is largely unfounded, and the reasons for the problems must be
sought elsewhere.’ (Reinsch-Campbell, 2004, p. 7).
7. ‘The speedy advance of the German troops, who entered Lithuania on June
22, 1941 and occupied it within a week, had devastating consequences for the
Jews. Whereas the Lithuanians, who had lost their national statehood, saw the
Germans as liberators from the communist yoke and indulged in the illusion that
the new conquerors would restore Lithuanian independence, the Jews regarded
the Soviets as a salvation from Hitler’ (Bankier, 2011, 24–5).
Budreckis (Quote 5) was a Lithuanian nationalist, so it is hardly surprising that he
excluded Lithuanian citizens of Jewish or Polish ethnicity from the category ‘Lithua-
nians’. Anette Reinsch-Campbell (Quote 6) likewise makes a distinction between
‘Latvians’ and ‘Jews’, as if the two categories were mutually exclusive. The logic
of his kind of language is that one can either be Latvian or Jewish but not both.
David Bankier (Quote 7), by contrast, was a skilled historian, and the text from
which this quotation is taken is exemplary in many ways. However, even Bankier
conflates nationality and ethnicity and linguistically excludes Lithuanian Jews from
the category ‘Lithuanians’, despite the fact that there had been a Jewish community
in Lithuania since the thirteenth century.
That historians of the calibre of Pieter Lagrou (Quote 1), Norman Davies (Quote 4)
and David Bankier (Quote 7) reify the nation is symptomatic of the grip of national
categories on the minds of modern historians. In their published texts, their pub-
lic discourse and their work as teachers, historians legitimise and disseminate the
national mode of thinking. Since the emergence of the academic discipline of history
in the nineteenth century, this has always been and remains the most important way
in which historians influence society.

Distribute to students a selection of excerpts from history books and articles on
the topic that they are studying. Ask the students to underline all the words and
phrases in these texts that denote nationality. Now ask the students what the
authors actually means when they use these words in their texts. For example,
when Lagrou writes that ‘France, the Netherlands and Belgium were the indis-
246 G. Pritchard
putable losers of 1940’, to whom or what is he referring? Does he mean the

French, Dutch and Belgian states? Is he talking about politicians and elites?
Does he include the many French, Dutch and Belgian people who, through
the collaboration with the Nazi authorities, improved their position in society?
What about all those people, especially in rural areas, whose lives were rela-
tively untouched by the invasion, and who benefitted economically from the
rising prices for the food that they were selling to the towns? Such exercises
will allow students to explore the ways in which historians conflate the state
and the people over whom the state claims sovereignty, and the ways in which
historians blur citizenship and ethnicity. Students can be asked to consider
both the causes and consequences of the nationist conceptual structures that
are embedded in the work of historians.
12.7 Conclusion
Historians influence the societies in which they work by writing narratives which,
because of the professional status of historians, are usually regarded as more author-
itative than other kinds of collective memory.
Sometimes, historians write narratives that challenge the prevailing ideas of soci-
ety. When they do this, the work of historians can help to disrupt existing power
relations and empower subaltern groups. In the late 1960s and 1970s, for instance,
radical historians in Western Europe challenged the myths about World War II on
which the post-war political order had been constructed. They exposed the degree to
which European elites, and large swathes of the European population, had colluded
with the Nazis. Such historians also emplotted into their narratives the experiences of
groups which had hitherto been excluded from historical accounts, including women,
young people and workers.
Most of the time, however, historians write narratives that legitimise existing
power structures and serve the interests of elites (as well as their professional self-
interest). Often they do this quite deliberately. After World War II, historians through-
out Europe played a central role in constructing the myths on which the post-war
political order was established. In large parts of contemporary Europe—and espe-
cially in the Baltic States, Hungary, Ukraine, Russia and Italy—nationalist histo-
rians are peddling a revisionist version of World War II that is based on evasions,
distortions, half-truths and untruths. This new nationalist version of World War II is
instrumentalised in the service of politicians such as Silvio Berlsuconi, Viktor Orbán,
Vladimir Putin and the nationalist rulers of Ukraine after the uprising of February
2014.
Even when historians do not write with a deliberate or conscious agenda, their
work is influenced by all kinds of assumptions. Hegemonic ideas in society are
absorbed and unconsciously disseminated. So, for example, before the 1960s, very
few historians of World War II in Europe felt that the experiences of women, young
people and workers were worthy of serious attention. This reflected the socially con-
servative atmosphere of the post-war years. But even those historians who challenged
the prevailing narratives did not break from the preoccupation with the nation as the
primary category of analysis. Radical historians from the 1970s onwards simply pro-
duced different, more inclusive but still national stories that focused on ‘German’
workers or ‘Italian’ women. To this day, the historiography of World War II is still
permeated with nationalist and nationist thinking. This is abundantly clear when we
look at the language of historians.
If we are to encourage students to think critically about the relationship between
historians and society, we cannot escape the fact that systems of organising knowl-
edge are related to systems of power. Historians always write in a specific political
context, and—because of the authoritative status of academic history—their work
always has implications for the distribution of power in society. Therefore, when stu-
dents consider the claims made by historians, they must always ask the same kinds
of questions of secondary sources that we train them to ask of primary sources: Who
wrote the text? When and in what context? For what audience and for what purpose?
Above all, whose interests does this text serve?
By asking such questions, students will learn to think about history and the work
of historians in a more sophisticated way. They will learn to be more sceptical of the
claims made by historians—including the ones who are standing in front of them in
the classroom. TLO 3 thus has the potential to subvert the way that history is taught
to undergraduates. Such an outcome would be in the interests both of the students
and of the discipline. Let all the secrets of our profession, especially the guilty ones,
be revealed to students. Let the curtain be torn aside so that Dorothy can see how the
Wizard has been manipulating the levers.
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Chapter 13
TLO 4: Identify and Interpret a Wide
Variety of Secondary and Primary
Sources
Adrian Jones
Abstract This chapter addresses the fourth Australian Threshold Learning Out-
come (TLO) for university studies of history: ‘identify and interpret a wide variety
of secondary and primary sources’. There are equivalents in the European Union
Tuning and in the UK Quality Assurance Agency. Notions of primacy in ‘sourcing’
are at stake in this TLO. It is about finding and interpreting evidence. But what is a
source? And what makes one primary, and another secondary? These notions reflect
authorial orderings of authority when communicating about history. My key points
are that these notions have changed. They have a history. A hypothesis is tested: dif-
ficulties encountered by students in relation to ‘sourcing’ echo past thinking about
what ‘authority’ and its associated sense of ‘evident-ness’ might amount to when
communicating about history. This chapter places the pedagogical literature on bar-
riers to student learning beside the history of history writing and research, and in the
light of studies of the epistemology of history.
13.1 Introduction
Finding sources and appraising sources are core to the agenda of an advanced-level
education in history. University studies of history chiefly train novice historians to
find and evaluate the primary sources, looking for and into ‘the horse’s mouth’, so
they say. Assessment processes and study and discussion seminars in university-level
studies of history also devote lots of attention to sources (the better to distinguish pri-
mary from secondary) and to sourcing (in the name of research and critical thinking)
(Britt & Angliskas, 2002).
This training often succeeds. History publications of a scholarly nature bloat
with referencing, preferably in footnotes, defaulting to endnotes. Non-devotees often
think historians are footnote fetishists. The fourth Threshold Learning Outcome
(TLO) for history reiterates a commonplace: university-trained students of history
A. Jones (B)
La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia
e-mail: adrian.jones@latrobe.edu.au

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0047-9_13
252 A. Jones
must ‘identify and interpret a wide variety of secondary and primary sources’. This
TLO is in a domain of learning labelled ‘research’, or die Geschichtsschreibung in
the German shaping contemporary academic historiography (Droysen, 1868, §16;
Ankersmit, 2012, p. 60).
This chapter explores how and why these capacities are emphasised in the pro-
fessional training of historians. Staff and student concepts, heritages and misconcep-
tions about ‘sourcing’ are its focus. I am influenced by the prologue to Jean-Pierre
Faye’s Théorie du Récit (Faye, 1972), a study of ‘langages totalitaires (totalitarian
or totalising renderings)’:
Parce que l’histoire ne se fait qu’en se racontant, une critique de l’histoire ne peut être exercée
qu’en racontant comment l’histoire, en se narrant, se produit. (9)
Because histories are only made by their own narrating of something, any critique of history
writing can only be run as an account of how histories, in narrating something, produce
themselves.
Faye was right. Everything we know about how students learn and profess a discipline
like history is partial, provisional, perspectival and embedded in practices. Imitating
Faye, the issues in this chapter’s discussion of the advanced education of student
historians about how to treat sources and ‘sourcing’ therefore contrast philosophies
of history with classroom applications.
What are the issues at stake when considering sources and ‘sourcing’? First, there
is the agenda of a discovery of something informative. This is a professionalising
expectation of a capacity to discover sources in the senses of searching online, in
library catalogues and through references cited in texts and footnotes. It also means
looking to privilege whatever might be primary. In the fourth TLO, this is the task ‘to
identify’ (i.e. to uncover). Entdecken was the verb in the nineteenth-century German
scholarship establishing current academic models of study of history. This academic
model of trained historiography was once called Historicism. Germans originally
called it Historismus. Heidegger also invented another word for the professional-
ising expectation: ‘dis-closed-ness (der Erschlossenheit)’ (Heidegger, §44; Willer,
2006). This first agenda emphasising discovery in undergraduate study serves to
model rigour and originality in historical research. It shows the ongoing influence
of the Prussian educational reformer, Wilhem von Humboldt’s model of Bildung
(Sorkin, 1983): a research–teaching–learning nexus (Elton, 2005; Habermas, 1989;
von Humboldt, 1970).
Second, there is also in the fourth TLO another professionalising expectation of a
capacity to make sense of sources. This is the ‘to interpret’ bit. It is Friedrich Schleier-
macher’s die Hermeneutik (1838), with an eye to what is ‘secondary or primary’.
The agenda is understood as really being about continuity and change. Its educa-
tional corollary sets students to prefer sources that are first- rather than second-hand:
‘the horse’s mouth’. This agenda challenges novices and masters alike. It challenges
because it is both conceptual (i.e. about schematic primacies) and proximal (i.e.
about standpoints) (Greene, 1994). Furthermore, there are different ways one can
sense-make: gendered or philological, conjunctival or cultural, etc.
13 TLO 4: Identify and Interpret a Wide Variety of Secondary … 253
These two Germanic capacities to ‘identify and interpret’ came to be seen as

fundaments of rigour in modern historical inquiries (Baiser, 2011), and even in other
forms of intellectual inquiry. Students exhibiting this TLO are also now seen as
‘becoming’ independent learners (Booth, 2014, pp. 79–82; McLean & Barker, 2004)
and thereby ‘becoming’ professionals (Barnett, 2009). The research competencies in
this TLO to ‘identify and to interpret’ are seen to build professional capacities of meta-
cognition (Schön, 1983, Chap. 2). Students who can demonstrate these competencies
as ‘identifiers and interpreters’ are seen to have matured intellectually: they can not
only find and sort grains, they can also separate wheat from chaff.
The history of the writing and teaching of history, however, reveals this source-
mindedness was not always privileged in the research ways enshrined in this TLO.
In olden days, primary and secondary factors enabling and enhancing authority in
communication were seen to function through thrall and sway (enargeia in Greek;
auctoritas in Latin; i.e. it functions rhetorically). Nowadays, however, they are seen
to function more than through the forensic, point-worthy clarity and punctiliousness
of this TLO. This contemporary construct of ‘sourcing’ in the discipline frames an
agenda of substantiation of lines of argument. This is what Jean-Pierre Faye called
‘totalising language (langages totalitaires)’.
One of my key points is that this model should not be the only agenda for an
advanced study of history. We should also consider issues of genre and scope for
the students’ narrative imagination (Jones, 2016; Kelly, 2013). This chapter explores
these ideas of authority as achieved by indications of source primacy. These notions
shape higher education in history. A line of argument is put in this chapter that
the sense of primacy, and thereby quality, in historical scholarship has shifted from
classical and medieval (implicit) notions of rhetorical sway to academic historicist
(explicit) notions of balance and researched evidence, but at the cost of straitjacketing
other forms of student self-expression of historical understanding.
My key point is that this shift privileging totalising historicist notions of the
importance of lines of argument, balance and research evidence is not obvious to
novices. This mismatch between student expectations and professionalising agendas
is a source of the problems in history pedagogy. Many students still think of authority
in communication as functioning more from the thrall of a voice. These students
assume their university education in history continues to invite them, as of old,
to enunciate their preconceptions. These students presume that the only change at
university will be that their preconceptions should be explored in more detail and with
more demands for clarity (Limón, 2002; Limón & Carretero, 1998). These students
misconstrue the ‘evident’ bit in evidence and sources as functioning solely through
their voice, or their opinion (Jones, 2016), not yet seeing any need to query and to
discipline their responses through chastening researches amid ‘a variety’ of sources.
These novices are blind to novelist E. M. Forster’s more sober and more modern
model of authority in communication (1927, p. 97). He noted that the modern model
of ‘authoritative-ness’ functioned less by simply ‘being shown’ (passive accumu-
lation), and more from ‘questioning’ (a venture of author-led active research and
interrogation) (Halldén, 1993, 1994; Paxton & Wineburg, 2000).
254 A. Jones
One key difference in education in history in higher education compared with

schooling is the greater degree of earnest concern about sources and ‘sourcing’
at university. The differences have consequences. Students vary in their degrees
of appreciation of open-mindedness: whether in the questions asked, and/or in the
particular primary sources taken up. Less is mandated at university. More is to be
questioned at university. Fundaments of the known are in focus at university. Yet
the novices may still think, by contrast, that research is serendipity burdened by a
deadline, and their key heuristic might still be whichever shortcut minimises their
effort (Baron, 1990; Maeyer & Talanquer, 2010; Shah & Oppenheimer, 2008).
Good Teaching Practice regarding ‘Sourcing’: primary sources can be dif-

ficult for novices to understand because the language is archaic and/or the
concepts are unfamiliar. Students may respond with effort-reduction heuris-
tics: glossing over difficult and quirky passages, or just ignoring the pri-
mary sources as too difficult to use. Students may prefer to read secondary
sources. Good teaching practice models explicitly how we use primary and
secondary sources as artefacts of interpretation in themselves and not sim-
ply as repositories for students to mine. Try investigating a primary source
in a class by rolling mock dice. The six faces of the dice could be labelled:
Who? When? What? Where? With whom? How? Alternatively, the dice could
be labelled appropriately for other approaches you may wish to take to the
sources, e.g. concepts, groups, gender etc. When interrogating a source, heuris-
tics such as this help to identify an evaluative process for students to follow
and debate. The modelling and performing of thinking tricks and question-
ing strategies like this help students to begin to make informed judgments
about sources. (http://www.olt.gov.au/project-renewing-first-year-curricula-
social-sciences-and-humanities-context-discipline-threshold-st: Good Prac-
tice Guide for History.)
By contrast, university has its professionalising orientation. Academics know

something that students may not know yet: all forms of professional life seek out, and
attend to, indeed they relish evidence. Professionals even want to receive contrary and
contradictory evidence. The stock-in-trade of professional life is informed reflection.
Instruction in higher education needs to make these professionalising heuristics
explicit to students. In just this way, Wineburg (1999) described how ‘authoritative-
ness’ in its modern guises can seem oddly provisional, conditional and uncertain.
The novelist, E.M. Forster (1927, p. 97) best described this professional model of
authority in the form of a question he posed, albeit with undertones of disapproval:
‘How can I tell what I think till I see what I can say?’. Novices in the modern modes
of advanced learning of history have to learn that research matters more than their
preconceptions. In historical terms that agenda means getting as close as they can to
the horse’s mouth, (i.e. to the primary sources dating from times they are studying).
Higher education in history in its modern academic (historicist) blueprints func-

tions according to ‘sourcing’ rules of informed opinion, to which is added a modicum
of empathy. In the same vein as Forster’s musing about non-fiction, Wineburg (1991,
p. 510) quotes the conclusion to the first chapter of St. Anselm of Canterbury’s
prayerful meditation (Proslogion, I.93), written in 1077–78: ‘I believe in order to
understand’ (Credo, ut intelligam) (Hopkins & Richardson 1975). Like Anselm,
when modern students approach the primary source, they have to learn to suspend
their beliefs, but not their judgment, the better thence to enter fulsomely and with
respect into someone else’s past world. This relativising challenge may be beyond
some adolescents (Perry, 1970). Academics need to model this explicitly for students.
We begin to glimpse why students find tertiary studies of history to be harder
than academics imagine (Coventry et al., 2006). Students ‘walk backwards into
tomorrow’, as a 13-year-old once put it to Peter Lee (2004, p. 1). The youth explained
how:
Going into the future you can’t obviously see what’s before you, because … you’re walking
the wrong way; you can only see what you’ve been through, and [you can only] try to interpret
that [i.e., teleologically] as the way the path is leading… You can see … fragmented bits
on what’s going on now, but you’ve got nearly the whole picture [sic. – so he thought!] of
what’s gone on before, but tomorrow will maybe still be a bit of a mystery, but at least we
have the freedom to walk into tomorrow.
Multiple difficulties of ‘identifying and interpreting a wide variety of secondary

and primary [non-fiction] sources’ appear in the musings of this adolescent. Futures
enable, but blindfold. Pasts constrain, but disclose. Sources are seen as ‘fragmented
bits of what’s going on’. Yet some people as young as 13 intuit that as authors they can
still influence—a bit—whatever is found when teachers suddenly bid them to ‘walk
backwards’. A paradox unsettles them. A ‘whole picture’ only appears ‘backwards’,
yet they live in contexts when only ‘tomorrow’ seems open. Novices need these
understandings of how narratives can be manipulated, and that narratives are based
on snatched fragments. The teaching challenge is then to enable the student not to
succumb to cynicisms or crude relativisms (Perry, 1970) instead remaining able to
discover, uncover and narrate a topic they’ve been set in spite of all the partialities.
I now propose to explore these issues, in the western tradition, by combining
insights drawn from (1) the history of history writing and research, from (2) the
philosophy (epistemology) of history research methods and from (3) pedagogical
literature exploring barriers to student learning of history. I end by offering a sim-
ile. I liken punting on the horses to ‘identifying and interpreting a wide variety of
secondary and primary sources’. My key points are that the dilemmas currently con-
fronting history classrooms also have a history and have similarities. Current student
conundrums with this TLO about ‘sourcing’ arise from past thinking about thinking
(i.e. I think that current student misconceptions are age-old and quite philosophical)
and from common misconceptions about ways to evaluate any kinds of odds.
256 A. Jones
13.2 Go Beyond the Content of the Source to Focus

on the Historical Thinking
Consider a contrast. The Australian ‘identify and interpret a wide variety of secondary
and primary sources’ has a cognate benchmark statement for history in the June
2014 draft of the UK Quality Code for Higher Education. Its item 3.1 mentions
student abilities ‘to read and analyse texts and other primary sources, both critically
and empathetically, while addressing questions of genre, content, perspective and
purpose’. By contrast, the modest aspirations of the Tuning curricular schema of the
increasingly out-of-tune European Union (EU) expect history concentrators in the
EU to ‘possess general knowledge and orientation with respect to the methodologies,
tools and issues of all the broad chronological divisions in which history is normally
divided’ (CLIOHWORLD Guide II, 2011, 13 benchmarking undergraduate three-
year generalist degrees).
Good Teaching Practice regarding ‘Sourcing’: Students should be introduced

explicitly to the ways in which historians make judgments about sources. Most
classes are not really about ‘the content’; they exist to enlarge thinking. Aca-
demics should show the places where lines of argument appear, where other
scholars’ lines of argument are addressed, and where evidence is deployed.
Students often have limited exposure to a variety of primary and secondary
source types. Students are therefore often unaware of what sources are avail-
able to the historian, and differing purposes they can serve. Students have to
be lured into realising that sources are always problematic; they carry agen-
das; they originated with a (different) purpose and context (than their histo-
rian’s). Explicit discussions of contexts, rhetorics and genres of sources should
accompany extractions of information. Beginning to analyse primary sources,
students should be encouraged to undertake careful readings and to discuss
the originating contexts of the sources. Students often ‘read’ at one pace only,
looking just for a gist, and they do this work too passively. Academics need to
discuss how and why reading for the gist differs from reading to understand, to
critique and to empathise. Academics can use ‘think-alouds’ to show students
how they actually ‘unpack’ a source, and then invite students to attempt much
the same on another aspect of the source. Students who are just coming to
the study of history also find making any sort of judgment difficult. They feel
insecure in analysing, assessing and commenting; they believe they are just
students. As a consequence, they focus on receiving knowledge, endeavour-
ing to avoid practising how to make knowledge. The key task of academics is
therefore to model explicitly how we use primary and secondary sources as
artefacts of interpretation and then to offer chances to practice (Anderson &
Day, 2005b; Lee, 2004; Wineburg & Wilson, 1991). We can conduct reading
activities in small groups on bits of the texts or on aspects of the artefacts, and
we can form glossaries of difficult words and concepts.
Better to focus on didactics, not content (Anderson & Day, 2005b; Lévesque,
2008, Chap. 2; Wilschut, 2009). Better to focus on how academics position students
to learn, not on what they must learn and in what order. The Australian fourth injunc-
tion to students to ‘identify and interpret a wide variety of secondary and primary
sources’, and the more prolix UK view of the same, fit the new bill, but they also
suggest nineteenth-century academic models still apply in the novice-development
domains of supposed under-graduate outcomes of a history education. In spite of the
scepticisms of narrativists (like Hayden White and Frank Ankersmit) and in spite of
poststructuralisms and postmodernisms (such as those of Michel Foucault, Jacques
Derrida, Dominick La Capra and Jean-François Lyotard), this threshold learning
agenda of ‘identifying and interpreting a wide variety of secondary and primary
sources’ still reflects Historismus (Historicism). Ranke-ian foundations of academic
historiography remain (Baiser, 2011). Similar divergences are noted in contemporary
conversations between history teacher trainers and academic historians in the UK
(Counsell, Burn, & Chapman, 2016).
This gift of the nineteenth century to the study of history gradually restructured,
and largely still structures, the credentialing of practices of student learning and
assessment in academic studies of history. Historismus refocused the attention of
undergraduate training away from older universalising frames of narrative about
national and religious identity and synthesis. Historismus initiated essay exercises
of informed inference instead. It tasked students to frame testable lines of argument
amidst contestable evidence. The same historicism created the academic seminar as
the site of discursive practice of these skills (Bourne, 1971). Combining the student
essay and the seminar in turn exposed students to practices of solitary reading and
collective discussion. These two practices added agendas of criticism to comprehen-
sion. Item 3.1 of the UK QAA 2014 benchmarks for history explains this as ‘basic
critical skills: a recognition that statements are not of equal validity, that there are
ways of testing [them], and that historians operate by rules of evidence’.
Over time, this historicist agenda summoned nineteenth-century and twentieth-
century tertiary students of history to step beyond models of history study as mere
marshalling of facts and chronology. The step beyond was tasking students to frame
fit-for-purpose and goal-directed lines of argument. Students now had to do so
through explicit research into evidence that was actually or potentially plural and
contradictory. Evidence now had to be weighed and explained explicitly. Evidence
now should also be found within a variety of sources.
A citizenship model of history education then emerged alongside (Booth, 2014,
pp. 85–92). By the mid-twentieth century, this historicist construction of an under-
graduate history education as building skill sets of disciplined discovery and con-
strained creativity shaped convictions, when applied to schooling as well as univer-
sity, that these were also a preparation for responsible (i.e. critical) citizenship, and
indeed for life in any profession. Thus, item 3.1 in the UK QAA 2014 benchmarks
258 A. Jones
for history viewed ‘basic critical thinking’ as ‘qualities of mind’ about ‘rules of
evidence’ that ‘are also a component of intellectual integrity and maturity’.
13.3 Evidence and Authority in the Past Histories
The current academic quest in this fourth Australian TLO of ‘identifying and
interpreting a wide variety of secondary and primary sources’ emphasises staff
and student rigour in finding and discriminating between sources. When Australian
academic historians set their students to ‘identify and interpret’, the task invites
students to sift and sort between sources. The task is not to weave a rhetorical spell,
but rather to research and write up (Fornara, 1983, pp. 47–48; Meier, 1987; Grafton,
2012, p. 62). Students now have to conduct a personal see-for-yourself (Hartog,
1988, 261) investigation into an aspect of a past.
The more rigorous forms of history research and writing promoted by Thucy-
dides, and later by Polybius, eventually shaped countless student essay topics spread
over the two most recent centuries. (Thucydides’ term for rigour, akribeia in 1.22,
points to precision; Polybius’ emfasis, in 6.5.3, points to vivid narrated authentic-
ity; Kim, 2007) This Thucydidean–Polybian agenda set out to reveal hidden truths,
as outcomes to be achieved through the sieve of impartial investigations (historiē).
The task was conceived as a blend of expertise, study and experience. Until the
fourth-century Christian historiography of Eusebius of Caesarea, the task was sel-
dom conceived, however, as involving explicit discussion of sources. The allure of
the account was then the key, not anything as staid as referencing. These models of
narrated forensic mastery were meant to endow élites in every era with rhetorics of
authority (Thucydides, 1.22.4; Polybius, 9.1.2-5; Marincola, 1997).
Scholars now take claims to greater rigour in sourcing with grains of salt. They
know the élitist claims of Thucydides (1.22; Marincola, 1997, p. 24) and Polybius
(9.1.2-5) to pursue truth with greater rigour were jaundiced about the garrulous
anecdotal approaches of Herodotus (1.95). Scholars now recognise Herodotus was
indeed sifting and sorting sources explicitly before coming to prefer some versions
of events (Murray, 2001; Fornara, 1983, pp. 30–31). And scholars also appreciate
now how Herodotus did not suppress his listeners’ and readers’ appreciation of alter-
native realities (e.g. 1.5, 1.32; Dewald, 2006). Contemporary scholars now admire
the curiosity and open-mindedness of Herodotus more than their predecessors in
the nineteenth century. Thucydides’ claims to greater objectivity, which influenced
European meritocratic intellectuals between the seventeenth and twentieth centuries,
are now doubted (Kagan, 2009).
Nineteenth-century and twentieth-century academic historians re-rendered the
agendas of these ancient historians as templates for undergraduate inquisition and
disquisition. Tertiary educators of history still want their students to hone Thucy-
didean, Polybian and Herodotean capacities (Jones, 2016) when ‘identifying and
interpreting a wide variety of secondary and primary sources’. Academics still
want their undergraduates always to research the primary sources with the rigour
of Thucydides, and with the liveliness and open mind of Herodotus. And we want
them as often as possible to link their studies not only to concepts (i.e. to make
comparisons), but also to their experience, in the manners of Thucydides, Polybius
and Max Weber. The only big shift of emphasis is that, in the vein of Eusebius and
all the Church Fathers who followed, academic historians now want their students
to discuss and cite their sources explicitly. The classical historians left that implicit,
thinking their voice, not their research, was their thrall.
What is to be done about ‘sourcing’?: Enquiry-Based Learning (EBL) The

better to enable student insights, and not merely to script them by lecturing, I
suspect a contemporary re-assimilation of the Herodotean agenda of ‘investi-
gations’ into a past now depends on the framing of open inquiries which link to
larger narratives (Mayer, 1998; Halldén 2009; von Boxtel & van Drie, 2012).
This is ‘Enquiry-based Learning (EBL)’ (Jones 2011) or ‘negotiated learning’
(Peters 2001). Lectured at less, but always after first being intrigued, students
should now be set up to acquire forensics of ‘dis-closed-ness’ (Heidegger,
§44): discover, un-cover, and then narrate. These aims must not be formulaic
or methodologised excessively; both straitjacket students. The explorations
of pasts need to be open in the sense of being restrained, even tactful, in
the manner of Michael Baxandall’s ways of showing how scholarly words
ought to elucidate a source (in his case, a work of art) without smothering
it (Mack & Williams, 2015). Baxandall had in mind his own teacher, the lit-
erary critic, F. R. Leavis: ‘The [“identify and interpret”] problem of critical
method is largely tactical; it is how to convey the force, justice and full sig-
nificance of one’s mature judgment. There can be no coercively demonstrated
conclusions; one works, and hopes, for convinced concurrence’ (Leavis, 1975,
173–174). Tasked ‘to identify and interpret a wide variety of primary and sec-
ondary sources’ the student in the context of EBL has to relativise him or
herself with a host of ‘what ifs’. The sort-&-sift work of historians is a kind
of surrender to the source and its contexts. Whether in their writing or in their
class discussion, this ‘sourcing’ sort-&-sift work requires a certain abnegation
and humility. ‘Coercively demonstrated conclusions’ seldom apply, as might
proofs in mathematics. Tertiary studies of history require students to accept a
provisional, plural and conditional posture that some students are reluctant to
embrace. This is the true agenda of seminars and even lectures. They take a
source and launch trial balloons of the provisional, the plural and the condi-
tional.
Classroom realities are such that many novices are still not expecting uncertainty
(Quinlan, 1999). They are still awaiting the rhetorician to cast them under a thrall.
Past notions of sourcing as rhetoric endure, recurring as novice barriers to learning.
They are residues of obsolete models of ‘evident-ness’. At the onset of their tertiary
studies in history, most students are prone to excesses at each extreme: either to
260 A. Jones
unduly dismiss the value of their experience, or else to overrate their preconcep-
tions. The higher education agenda of ‘identifying and interpreting a wide variety of
secondary and primary sources’ instead tempers experience with study that is open
to contradiction, hoping thereby to enable meta-cognition, those human and histori-
cised capacities to think about (i.e. to relativise) thinking and behaviour (over time,
across gender, class and culture, or in space) (Ashby, Lee & Shemilt, 2005).
13.4 Primary Sources
We can now add the dimension of research into history pedagogies. The sift-&-sort
agenda of ‘identifying and interpreting’ also expects students to find, and then to priv-
ilege, first-hand or ‘primary’ sources. Novices often still yearn for textbooks—and
some teachers and academics still endorse equivalent dissemination and acquisi-
tion models of teaching (Wilson & Wineburg, 1993). The corollary is that these
students then feel they are plagued by academics who only unleash them on perplex-
ing primary sources. Truth claiming in textbooks seems to peddle ‘facts’ to students,
seeming to offer sure ground, but seldom modelling ‘sourcing’ in any detail (Newton
& Newton, 1998; Vansledright, 2004). When student comprehension is tested, few
students discern the references to evidence in textbooks, let alone alternative lines of
argument (Berkhofer, 1993). A fine interview study by Nye et al. (2009) of history
students in universities in Australia confirms the persistence of the pseudo-allure of
such primers. They report ongoing student hopes for a single narrative and one good
grab-all textbook to redeem them from having to research and then having to frame
lines of argument. They are disconcerted when confronted by absences of consensus
in sources. Novices may still expect to be taught a right answer, not standpoints
(Anderson & Day, 2005a; Wiley & Voss, 1996).
The core of the problem is that a student in tertiary studies of history is sud-
denly tasked to appraise the sources of their knowledge. Their training hitherto has
just been focused on acquisition and comprehension. The challenge posed by dis-
tinguishing between primary and secondary sources presupposes student awareness
that knowledge functions according to material and intellectual sorting and sifting,
and that is not just found, like a gold nugget (Holt, 1990, 2–7, 44; Greene, 1994,
91–92). Students have to come to appreciate how silences and omissions also ‘speak’
to historians. Depots and convoys of historical sources exist, bringing the sources to
hand for their historians to mull over, while other convoys and depots might have
been sidetracked, even roadblocked. Sources for history are most often the prod-
ucts of institutionalisation, the sources often functioning according to governmental
processes (i.e. archives), media and economics (i.e. publications for profit) or else
as anachronisms or curious survivals of taste (i.e. collections). All preserve some
sources, and obliterate others.
Good Teaching Practice regarding ‘Sourcing’: History classes at univer-

sity are ‘strange-text’ heavy. Whereas academics recognise their agenda of
research training, students may only discern obscurantism. The convoys deliv-
ering the sources may also not match student preconceptions. Edited vol-
umes of documents and documents delivered online, for example, present
complications. Students working with contemporary history topics are also
easily confused as to what is a primary source. Academics should take
the time to explain explicitly why their students are being invited to tackle
tricky material. Re-positioning the student helps. Use an excursion to an his-
toric building, archive, precinct, rare book collection, or museum to explore
different types of artefacts and primary sources. Use rash generalisations
in secondary sources as part of the excursion preparation and provoca-
tion. http://www.firstyearlearningthresholds.edu.au/history/tlo4-identify-and-
interpret-a-wide-variety-of-secondary-and-primary-sources/.
13.5 The Metaphor of the Turf for ‘Sourcing’ in History
I will conclude with a dodgy metaphor. My way to glimpse barriers to student

understanding of how to sort and sift sources is to venture metaphors derived from
understandings of horse racing. Hayden White (1973) argued the standard sem-
blances evident in modern histories, at least since the early-nineteenth-century onset
of Historismus, are metaphor, not metonym—whether its tropes are comedy, tragedy,
synecdoche or irony. Referring to the (academic) professionals and, by implication, to
the novices whose understandings are in focus in this volume about ways of teaching
history, Hayden White only analysed the writing of histories, not their research-
ing: the artes historicæ in early-modern Latin (Grafton), die Geschichtsforschung
as Droysen framed it in editions of Grundriß der Historik between 1857 and 1882
(Droysen, 1868; Creutz, 2009; Baiser, 2011 Chap. 7). Hayden White’s key point
is that modern forms of history writing chiefly liken something to something else
(typically, by academic means of developing of lines of argument), rather than as a
poetic metonymic renaming, or as a re-enactment (Collingwood, 1993), of a thing
past with another thing present.
With only a modicum of disputation (Kelly, 2013), this historicist orientation
continues unabated in the domains of discussion about history education—albeit
not according to Hayden White’s vision of the most pressing challenge for historical
theory. White focused on tropes: the narrative frames which befall historians. History
researchers and history teachers, however, still prefer to emphasise ‘the research for
truth’ (Ginzburg, 1988; Kuukkanen, 2015; Lorenz, 2014, 64; La Capra, 2002, 154;
quoting Momigliano, 1979, 259).
262 A. Jones
There is an order of importance in history education. When a history student has

to traverse ‘a wide variety of secondary and primary sources’, and he or she is tasked
to write an essay that has to address ‘identify and interpret’ standpoints, sources and
secondary lines of argument, attention to the expository rhetorics and poetics of his-
tory writing plays second fiddle to the usual forensic-critical professionalising focus
on balance, clarity and resilience in truth claiming (Booth, 2014, p. 19; Marwick,
1973; Soffer, 1994: pp. 5, 22). History curricula in universities rarely attend to studies
of rhetorics of non-fiction (Wrigglesworth & McKeever, 2010). The tertiary training
still focuses instead on the many aspects of the handling of sources as a ‘research
for truths’ rather than as tropology. The training is chiefly about exposing, sorting
and testing of lines of argument in secondary sources, and about finding, placing in
context, interpreting and contrasting primary sources.
Here then is the horse racing metaphor. Punters’ work with observations, rumour
and form guides is a similar ‘research for truth’. Punters also ‘identify and interpret
a wide variety of secondary and primary sources’. The punter qua novice historian
in tertiary training is prompted to seek and to trust sources closer and closest to the
‘horse’s mouth’. The problem is the same: Which source is authoritative?
The metaphor reveals further aspects of the ground rules of authority. The inter-
pretation that really illuminates an essay, and the information which truly counts as a
‘hot tip’, could come from anywhere. It could either be, for instance, the trainer’s, the
jockey’s, the bookie’s, or even an insider mate’s. We already intuit that the answers
that clean up (i.e. hermeneutically) and are valid, whether for an all-out win or just
for an each-way bet, actually depend on the questioner’s question, on the source’s
standpoint, and on the contexts of questioner and questioned. These are ‘perspectival
understandings’ (Leinhardt & Ravi, 2013, p. 262) as distinct from mere ‘archivism’
(i.e. merely accumulating facts) (Greene, 1994, quoting 91; Young & Leinhardt,
1998). When student novice historians have to ‘identify and interpret a wide variety
of secondary and primary sources’, they have to think about issues that are often
implicit in the sense of being both conceptual and comparative; indeed, all concepts
are comparative. We refer to tricky things—like having to learn to ‘read between the
lines’ in a source, or else in a form guide. This skill is known as source criticism
(Ranke’s word was Quellenkritik).
More than comprehension is involved (Anderson, Day, Michie & Rollason, 2006).
The higher education agenda tasks the student to frame an interpretation. Yet many
students do not know this is the challenge. They may still think knowledge is found,
not made (Holt, 1990). They may still think, understandably, that precisely because
they are students they must never venture and never wonder; rather they must repro-
duce their teachers’ revelations (Booth, 2014, pp. 73–74). And even if this interpre-
tive challenge is grasped, there are additional problems. One such is the problem of
weighing multiple sources. Another such problem arises from whatever you might
weigh the source against in the scales. You can weigh a source (prospectively) as
exemplifying a discourse, or you weigh a source (inferentially) as arising (willy-
nilly) from a context (Rouet, Britt, Mason, & Perfetti, 1996; Rouet, Favart, Britt, &
Perfetti, 1997; Rouet, Marron, Perfetti, & Favart, 1998).
Like punters, novice history students tend to privilege whatever sources are loud
and close to what they already think. Their research often serves only to confirm
preconceptions (Baron, 1990; Shah & Oppenheimer, 2008). Furthermore, novices
often mistake research for generalisation. They miss the agenda of being tasked to
find the kind of specificities of evidence which historians crave (Sipress, 2004). Like
the lore of the racetrack, it is difficult to assess the thrall of the out-loud as against the
tacit and just-around. The tricky bit is that some sources have been shared and are
therefore public, articulated and social, while other sources can remain sequestered,
albeit still social in internalised or cultural senses. How do you weigh up, for instance,
the record-qua-source when it takes the form of words (the whisper on course, or
at the betting shop) as distinct from the record-qua-form (the comparative deeds of
horse as framed by records of placings, track conditions and weight differentials in
the form guide)?
The racing metaphor in turn helps disclose how an undergraduate (i.e. novice)
education in history is steeped in these subtle comparative-conceptual issues that
cross-implicate both questioner and questioned. The educational aspect of the prob-
lem boils down to the fact that while all concepts are comparative, and while all
academics are already inured to these concepts, far fewer students arrive with the
same conceptual baggage.
First, there is the parallel of the sifting and sorting agenda of the racetrack rumour
mill and its corollary, the betting plunge. Applied to ‘identifying and interpreting
a wide variety of secondary and primary sources’ in history, this agenda explores
criteria of credence, crowd-pull and credibility: namely whether one can rely on
preconceptions, popularity and hearsay. The intellectual models and purposes of
‘identifying and interpreting’ of the Sophists (which differed from the forensic and
classificatory games practised by the Greek Academy model of Plato and Aristotle)
shaped the disputatio rhetorical style of higher education in ancient and medieval
times, and even in the Renaissance (Bod, 2013; Kimball, 1983, 1986; Smethurst,
1953; Proussis, 1967). In just this jumbled way, the first Renaissance scholar to
practise modern methods of source criticism—Lorenzo Valla in Florence in 1440,
proving the donation of Constantine was an eighth-century forgery—started with
rhetorical analyses debunking authenticities of voices embedded the text (Black,
1995; Struever, 1983; Valla, 2008).
Second, there is also the parallel prompted by the kinds of horse racing talk that
refer to box seats, blinkers and rails’ runs. When tasked to ‘identify and interpret a
wide variety of secondary and primary sources’, the metaphor of box seats, blinkers
and rails’ runs points to factors and traditions privileging certain kinds of sources,
sites and voices over others. Wellsprings of the historical imagination can dry up, not
just in the conceptual constraints of individual students, but also in whole societies.
Consider the strange history of ebb and flow in the historical imagination in ancient
Israel. Ongoing Jewish historiography of ‘God’s chosen people’ was strangely pre-
cluded during exile under the rabbinate, i.e. after the destruction of the Second Temple
in 70 (Yerushalmi, 1982, xiv; Momigliano, 2002). Jewish theories of history evident
in sixth-century BCE texts, like Deuteronomy (compiling texts as old as the tenth-
century), the succession narrative in II Samuel 9ff, the reflection on human history
264 A. Jones
in Job 8. 8–11, and the Maccabee-era mid-160s BCE Hebrew-Aramaic compilation

known to us as Daniel testify to a well-developed Hebrew historical imagination.
Daniel 2 even offers a very Hellenistic kind of historical theory of the succession
of empires, consistent with those of Polybius and Strabo. Thereafter, an exception
proves the point of the demise of a Jewish historiography: unique histories and
antiquities of Israel were written in the first century CE in Greek by a Jew living
in Alexandria, Josephus. A long Jewish historical silence followed, until chroni-
cles emerge in the medieval Rhineland and until nineteenth-century Yiddish writing
became influenced by Zionisms and nationalisms. Aspects of community culture and
context—such as exile and a rabbinate emphasizing ritual in the absence of a capi-
tal and a temple—can suddenly curb the wonder and investigations which fuel the
historical imagination. These are aspects we can also recognize in studies tainted by
trauma. Consider the odd twenty-five-year postwar lag before the onset of Holocaust
Studies.
In trying to learn history, novices may exhibit similar curbs on wonder and inves-
tigation. Some of these curbs are legacies of past traumas. Most curbs arise, however,
from the students’ own mis-presumptions about the fixity of knowledge and of the
passivity of learning. Academics teaching history now need to declaim less, the bet-
ter to resource and re-position students to take active roles in the construction, and
contestation, of their own learning. Long may Herodotus reign.
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Chapter 14
TLO 5: Examine Historical Issues
by Undertaking Research According
to the Methodological and Ethical
Conventions of the Discipline
Nathan Wise, David Andrew Roberts and Lorina L. Barker
Abstract Threshold Learning Outcome 5 requires students to ‘examine historical

issues by undertaking research according to the methodological and ethical con-
ventions of the discipline’. This chapter explores several ideas for approaching this
TLO, with a focus on developing student empowerment and agency within the class-
room. By encouraging students to reflect on their own thinking processes, students
are motivated to regard themselves as active participants in the creation of historical
knowledge. Specifically, this chapter will emphasise the importance of: introducing
students to the fundamentals of historical practice; advising students of ethical con-
ventions; engaging students with the theoretical and methodological conventions of
the discipline; and encouraging students to engage in reflective practices.
14.1 Introduction
Threshold Learning Outcome 5 requires students to ‘examine historical issues by

undertaking research according to the methodological and ethical conventions of
the discipline’. This poses potential concerns to scholars in a discipline as diverse as
history and raises questions about precisely what methodological and ethical conven-
tions students should be encouraged to adhere to. The solution lies, not in probing for
a specific set of conventions, but rather to encourage students to understand, reflect
on and respect that diversity, and thus be empowered to make decisions about which
N. Wise (B) · D. A. Roberts · L. L. Barker

e-mail: nwise@une.edu.au
D. A. Roberts
e-mail: droberts9@une.edu.au
L. L. Barker
e-mail: lbarker3@une.edu.au

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0047-9_14
270 N. Wise et al.
conventions are most appropriate to their research interests. In this chapter, we will
discuss how TLO 5 can best be approached with a focus on student empowerment
and agency, and we will address some of the core considerations teachers and schol-
ars can make in striving for this outcome. In particular, this chapter explores ideas
for the practical design, implementation and effects of this approach to teaching and
learning with an emphasis on several key points:
1. Introduce students to the fundamentals of undertaking research within the disci-
pline, and expose them to diverse theoretical and methodological approaches to
this research.
2. Advise students on ethical conventions within the discipline.
3. Engage students with the methodological conventions of the discipline by treating
them as research practitioners within the discipline who are active in the creation
of knowledge.
4. Encourage students to reflect on the conventions they adopt, and reflect on how
this differs to the approaches of others in the discipline.
14.2 Introduce Students to the Fundamentals of

Undertaking Research Within the Discipline, and
Expose Them to Diverse Approaches to This Research
In the higher education sector, students of history face a significant learning barrier
in their attempts to understand the methodological and ethical conventions of the
discipline. Many students, particularly those continuing their studies immediately
after high school, are accustomed to memorising and reciting specific pieces of
information (Bain, 2008/2009, p. 159), and there is a lack of understanding of the
diversity of historical practice and the agency of the historian in shaping that history.
One of the main concerns with TLO 5 is that it implies the need to adhere to an
‘authorised’ set of disciplinary guidelines, but, aside from some fundamentals around
plagiarism, sources and referencing, in reality, there is not always agreement among
practitioners. A recent debate between Paul Ham and Martin Crotty about the merits
of public [or ‘non-scholarly’] and scholarly approaches to writing history cut to the
core of the methodological and ethical differences between the types of history those
two historians practise (Crotty, 2013; Paul Ham, 2014), while older debates between
Keith Windschuttle and Henry Reynolds serve as further evidence of the lack of
agreement among scholars working in the same field (Manne, 2003). Students should
be exposed to these diverse views and encouraged to interrogate their advantages and
disadvantages in different contexts, before they adopt the approaches they feel are
most suitable for their own research interests and objectives.
At the first-year level, students may be more accustomed to popular and prescrip-
tive styles of historical production, often with an emphasis on emotionally charged
narrative and ‘lessons’, rather than with practising or thinking about history as some-
thing created, mediated and used. To students more acquainted with receiving history
14 TLO 5: Examine Historical Issues by Undertaking … 271
than with researching it, the methodological and ethical conventions of scholarly his-
torical research and production can seem unusual and unexpected, but also liberating.
In the first year of study, foundation units can serve to dispel many of the myths
of historical practice, while simultaneously introducing students to some of the core
and most basic skills of history research and practice—beginning with how to differ-
entiate between primary and secondary sources, followed by how to locate, assess
and cite such materials. Such units, from the outset, can expose students to some
of the different ways and purposes of ‘doing history’. On the one hand, this can
involve a brief introduction to a select number of styles or ‘houses’ of history, such
as oral history, physical history and history as film, each, of course, having its own
distinct set of methodological approaches and ethical issues. On another level, such
foundation units can initiate student thinking about the inherently subjective nature
of historical research and production. That often begins with the elemental but sur-
prisingly enlightening lesson that the researching and telling of history—although
distinguished by its relationship to ‘fact’ and ‘evidence’—is necessarily a reflection
of our own times, and of our own prejudices and proclivities. This often marks a
fundamental shift in student thinking, from history as a lesson literally received,
to an exercise in relativism involving agenda and preconception. Students are thus
immediately inspired to consider the types of forces which impact most profoundly
on the way history is told and to ask fundamental questions about the moral and
ethical responsibilities of historians.
One such force shaping history is of course the cultural context within which
historians write. Students should also be encouraged to explore the factors that shape
individuals as diverse creators of historical knowledge, and one of the most effective
ways to consider this is by examining the lives and cultural backgrounds of a range
of historians engaged in different types of historical practice. As E. H. Carr famously
remarked, ‘before you study the history, study the historian […] Before you study
the historian, study his historical and social environment’ (Carr, 1990, p. 44). Doing
so ‘humanises’ historians, dispels myths surrounding the infallibility of historians
and histories, and raises awareness of the diversity of historical practice.
As part of this process, students can reflect on how historians are a product of their
times, and this is often best approached by exploring historiographical developments
alongside social and cultural developments and by contrasting the approaches of
historians in different cultural and temporal environments. This also serves as a
valuable introduction to student reflections on their own practices, and how those
practices reflect their social and cultural background, as outlined in more detail below.

Select the works of three different historians who wrote in three different eras.
Then select two or three other sources on similar topics from each era and
assess whether the historian either adhered to scholarly conventions at the
time, or challenged those conventions.
272 N. Wise et al.
As part of this approach, consideration must be given to the diversity of practices

within scholarly and public history. Students should be made aware of the differ-
ences between these forms of history, their intended audiences, their objectives and
their value. At the University of New England (UNE), for example, historians con-
ducted a series of brief video interviews with history practitioners from a range of
different professions. The diversity of views helps convey an appreciation of the
ways methodological and ethical conventions vary across different forms of histori-
cal research and practice. This series included interviews with Bob Carr [a politician
and published historian], Bill Oates [a local archivist and historian], John Acheson
[a former academic historian and now a heritage advisor/manager] and others. These
all featured people who had studied and practised history in some form then went
on to pursue a range of careers. All of these activities that we have initiated help
students to appreciate the diversity of historical practice, the value of this diversity
and the many ways historical thinking can be applied. This inspires students, and it
contributes towards their closer engagement with the learning material across all the
course units they study (for an analysis of a similar approach, see Chen & Cowie,
2014, pp. 445–465).
The diversity of methodological and ethical conventions of history can also be
brought to the fore in dedicated course units of study. At UNE, for example, these
issues are addressed in a second-year 6-credit-point course unit of study, History:
Uses and Abuses. Here, the principles of ethical research and the pitfalls of dishonest
representation can be explored through a number of themes, each with a series of
case studies. For example, a history of ‘Bad History’, considered from a variety of
angles, is intended to introduce students to a variety of vital issues concerning the
nature of history and historical study, the role and obligations of the historian, and
the consequences of misrepresentation. Having already motivated students to think
about the importance of history in informing us of who we are and how we came to be,
such dedicated units can explore how history can be read, shaped and manipulated
to suit and validate our current needs and agendas. Students are therefore invited
to reflect on how they, as historians, can embrace historical research as a means of
arresting falsehoods, correcting over-simplifications, exposing lies, resisting injustice
and asserting truer understandings of themselves and their world.
14.3 Advise Students on Ethical Conventions Within the

Discipline
From the outset, history students must be taught to become discerning readers and
astute evaluators. Typically, undergraduate assessment tasks require students to anal-
yse competing perspectives on an historical event or controversy, first to inculcate
them with the elemental notion that the past is interpretable and contested, but also
to cause reflection on and assessment of the relative merits of the opposing interpre-
tations. That also channels students into the historiographical realm of considering
historians in terms of their potential perspectives and objectives, and in terms of the
moral responsibility to interpret and communicate fairly and faithfully. Having stu-
dents examine problematic or even fraudulent histories, including renowned hoaxes
and deceptions, is a particularly direct and potent means of introducing them to the
methodological and ethical dimensions of history—a way of imparting the funda-
mental lesson that it is not just unethical and morally wrong to cheat, deceive and
slander, but that bad history is capable of causing real harm. With that background,
students can better appreciate the need to conduct ethical research of their own by
using credible scholarly sources and primary documents and by acknowledging and
assessing them maturely and appropriately. Through various exercises and examples,
students can garner some appreciation of research and reasoning as core disciplinary
conventions. These include the procedures for selecting and synthesising materials,
for asking and answering pertinent questions, for navigating contradictions and lim-
itations in evidence and for admitting and conveying the complexities and problems
arising from one’s own relationship with the subject and source materials.
On a more sophisticated level, however, following what Russell (2004) had
described as the ‘ethics of historical imagination’, students must begin to under-
stand the ethical dimensions and ramifications of history as a form of storytelling
that necessarily involves a creative and emotional engagement with the past. What
is the place of and what are the pitfalls of applying empathy and compassion in a
discipline that is nominally dispassionate and proudly empirical? (Atkinson, 2004;
Damousi, 2004). Ultimately, on so many levels, teaching the methodological and
ethical conventions of history is necessarily an exercise in warning students that
history is a complex but also inherently flawed and slippery discipline.
Moreover, students also need to be made aware that history is now often built on
less-traditional materials, and that the collection and use of these demand particu-
lar skills and sensitivities. For instance, students should understand the conventions
relating to culturally diverse groups of people. Teaching and researching history in
Australia, for example, frequently requires familiarity with the cultural protocols and
ethical guidelines that govern research involving Australian Aboriginal communities.
On the one hand, that means alerting students to the need to be culturally respect-
ful and sensitive when dealing with the histories of Aboriginal and other diverse
groups of people. Students might, for example, be invited to consider how and in
what ways images, voices and stories of Aboriginal people might be represented in a
manner that is culturally and socially sensitive. One recommended method is to teach
students to experiment with free verse poetry as a means of privileging Aboriginal
voices and for capturing and reading the way some Aboriginal people speak (Barker,
2010, 2014). Students should also understand the particularities of intellectual prop-
erty rights surrounding research with Aboriginal communities. In Australia, that aim
is greatly assisted by the Guidelines for Ethical Research in Australian Indigenous
Studies, devised by the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
Studies. Those guidelines should be a vital subject of discussion among history
students in their very first year of study. In our experience, early exposure to the
protocols and conundrums surrounding cross-cultural research can stimulate a range
of feelings and reflections that are, especially for younger students, surprisingly (per-
274 N. Wise et al.
haps lamentably) fresh and challenging. Even if students do not intend to work with
culturally distinct groups, they will learn much from consideration of the practical
processes and ethical issues surrounding the collection and use of data, of the need
for protocols and agreements between researcher and subject, and of the need to
consider the potential impacts and implications of historical research.
14.4 Engage Students with the Methodological Conventions

of the Discipline by Treating Them as Research
Practitioners Within the Discipline Who Are Active
in the Creation of Knowledge
Requiring students to examine historical issues by undertaking research according

to the conventions of the discipline is, of course, not a new or radical practice.
History teachers have always understood that their role is not just to impart subject
matter—no matter how much conservative critics bemoan the drift away from ‘facts
and dates’ (Crotty & Roberts, 2009)—but to inculcate some understanding that the
past somehow ‘matters’, that it is interpretable, often deeply contested, and that some
measure of research, analysis and argument lies at the core of the discipline. Even
the introduction to the seemingly arcane requirements of referencing—the historian’s
‘footnote fetish’—is in itself a reminder that historians are required to both provide
evidence for their assertions and attribution to others who have ploughed the field
before them. Students studying history in conjunction with some other humanities
subjects may need reminding that ours is an evidence-based discipline.
Throughout this research experience, emphasis is placed on facilitating student
awareness of themselves as active interpreters and participants in the processes of
learning and making history. That, it must be admitted, is not unrelated to the growing
demand from students themselves that the skills they acquire through studying history
must serve them worthily for vocational purposes. History is not alone among the
disciplines of the liberal arts and humanities in being required to reconstruct and
defend itself in terms of in-demand skills, career options and future salaries, but it
is particularly well placed to do so. Critical engagement with the past remains a
primary vehicle for developing the skills necessary to understand and function in our
contemporary world. Moreover, it is an awareness of the past as interpretable, and of
the historian as fallible, that potentially makes history so interesting and profitable.
Building upon this, scholars have acknowledged that the most effective method
of developing student understanding of the ethical and methodological conventions
of the discipline of history is to encourage them to engage with those conven-
tions through carefully guided research and writing [Bain, 2008/2009, p. 159]. This
engagement should not be seen as a short-term process that can be addressed in a
single teaching session, or even over a single year. Instead, students of history should,
from the earliest stages of their study, be encouraged to practise history, and under-
stand and adhere to relevant disciplinary methodological and ethical conventions as
though they were a professional or scholarly historian. As this chapter demonstrates,

a core element in the success of this approach to teaching and learning is the fostering
of semi-structured student-centred learning environments. Students must be engaged
if they are to understand, appreciate and adopt those conventions.
As O’Neill and McMahon note, the term ‘student-centred learning’ has been used
in different ways by different scholars, and there is a broad body of literature on the
variables and vagaries of student-centred approaches [2005, p. 1, see also Rogers,
1983]. Within history, emphasis should be placed on creating structured environments
where students have a greater degree of agency and responsibility in choosing, within
a given structure, what particular topic areas they wish to focus on, and what questions
they wish to ask of their subjects. This involves inviting greater reflection on how and
why they make such choices [Burnard, 1999, p. 244]. This treats students as active
contributors rather than passive recipients in the knowledge-creation process and
encourages them to experience a sense of responsibility for their learning. As part of
this process, students are also empowered to bring their own personal experiences,
areas of interest and expertise into the learning environment, whether in an internal
seminar/tutorial, a series of online activities or formal essays.
Scholars should also respect the diverse nature of the student cohort, their various
teaching and research interests and the various objectives they have for their study.
There is, for example, a growing number of higher education students of history who
are established in their careers, often in occupations linked with historical practice,
such as history teachers, archivists, museum staff, and research centres around Aus-
tralia. The general cohort of history students increasingly has history-focused careers
in mind at a very early stage. Those who do not have history careers in mind still trust
that the study of history yields a transferrable body of knowledge and skills that will
render them employable in their chosen profession. Today’s history students are par-
ticularly interested in the applied nature of historical thinking. They want to know,
and expect their lecturers to deliver, the ‘real-world application’ of the skills and
knowledge offered in our units and courses of study. Increasingly, our emphasis is
on providing undergraduate and postgraduate offerings that focus on the professional
development of historians and which recognise the diverse ways in which historians
apply their skills. With this in mind, an understanding of the methodological and
ethical conventions of both public and scholarly historians is an important learning
design consideration from an early stage.
The benefits of the student-centred approach can be seen in the long-term devel-
opment of student skills and knowledge, while in the short-term, student satisfaction
with the approach is reflected in positive feedback. Students recognise that this ‘teach-
ing style always gets the best out of people’. To quote another, ‘Not many history
subjects allow in depth exploration of personal interest areas […] I loved delving
into areas I found most interesting’. At a first-year level in particular, this approach
and this style of engagement inspires students and prepares them well for their future
undergraduate studies. From those first few weeks of experiencing higher education,
students develop an understanding of themselves as active participants in the learning
process, and they immediately begin to appreciate the long-term (and particularly
276 N. Wise et al.
the career-oriented) value of the skills and knowledge they are developing (Benware
& Deci, 1984, pp. 755–765).
Koen Geven and Angele Attard argue that ‘the concept of student-centred learn-
ing extends far beyond the classroom’ (2012, p. 155). To communicate that message
further, scholars should seek out opportunities for students to undertake volunteer
work and/or research with organisations and institutions around the country. Those
opportunities help students gain work experience as undergraduates and assist in
planning their study and career trajectories (the value of work experience has long
been recognised in other disciplines, such as education, management and law, but
scarcely among historians; for an analysis of this value, see Bridges, Hunter, Miller,
Thelen, & Weinberg, 1993, pp. 179–186). Perhaps most importantly, these opportu-
nities help students develop a practical, first-hand experience of the methodological
and ethical conventions of both scholarly and public history. These connections also
inspire students to strive towards greater goals with their studies.

As much as is practical, students should be encouraged and empowered to
pursue their own research interests. This assists with student engagement with
the topic and contributes to the sense that students ‘own’ the research and
are contributing to the broader historical community through the creation of
new historical knowledge. Large independent research projects are not always
feasible within a given course unit of study, but shorter research proposals often
provide a suitable alternative. Students should be able to identify key secondary
texts relevant to the topic, identify primary sources of information [including
their location and availability], outline a methodology for approaching the
topic, and consider a hypothesis to be tested through their research.
To further support reflective practices and engagement with the conventions
of the discipline, students might analyse their completed work with a focus on
the methodological and ethical conventions to which they adhered. Students
might consider how their representation could be used by external audiences to
understand ‘what actually happened’ in their period of historical interest. Peer-
to-peer review of this completed work will also enable students to understand
the practices that other scholars have encountered that they may not experience
within their own research. The completed research proposal and reflective piece
can then form the basis for later research, such as in a dedicated research course
unit at undergraduate, honours, masters or even doctoral level.
14.5 Encourage Students to Reflect on the Conventions

They Adopt, and Reflect on How This Differs from the
Approaches of Others in the Discipline
As students explore the life and times of other historians, so too they should be
encouraged to reflect on their own life and times and consider how that shapes their
understanding of, and approach to, historical practice. Here, the student-centred
approach—the need for students to be active contributors to the creation of historical
knowledge rather than the passive learners of that knowledge—comes to the fore.
For example, students can be invited to nominate their own (perhaps their first)
‘history moment’—that is, a moment when they encountered a place or relic or
product that evoked in them a sense and awareness of the past. They can explain
when and how that encounter precipitated an interest in history. As part of this
exercise, many students, unsurprisingly, point to reading an important book, being
told family stories or visiting an historical site. Public memorial events, cemeteries,
family heirlooms and photos, cinema, television and novels prove to be commonly
cited triggers. Actually, an increasing number, it seems, relate an awakening interest
in history to the playing of historically themed computer games, a new medium of
recreational history consumption that will undoubtedly soon force on us yet another
reconceptualisation of how and why our students engage with history.
Having nominated their ‘history moment’, in subsequent weeks students can be
encouraged to expand upon that by considering how they might go about researching,
understanding and communicating that aspect of the past. What type of primary
and secondary source material might they use? What theory or method seems most
appropriate, and what planning steps might they undertake if they were to conduct
an analysis of that past moment as an historian? This is a highly reflective process,
and students are encouraged to consider why they are engaged in these activities, and
why they have made particular decisions.
Alternatively, this can begin with another self-reflection exercise, where students
are asked to locate and describe themselves by responding to a set of questions. They
can be asked, first, to nominate their preferred ‘area of historical interest’, and to com-
ment broadly on their ‘understanding of history’ and their ‘preferred style/approach’
to history. That is followed by a series of questions that invite them, for example, to
contemplate the ‘political’, ‘cultural’ and ‘theoretical’ influences that might shape
their own approach to examining and interpreting the past. At a formative stage
of their studies, when many undergraduate students find it difficult to identify and
articulate such influences, better results are garnered by asking students to consider
their influences on a more personal level. That is, how might the circumstances and
character of their ‘upbringing’—their parental influences, their environment, their
education and religion—impact on their historical point of view. Generally, students
seem far more comfortable and confident engaging in the exercise as a discussion
of ‘influential life experiences’, rather than political and theoretical influences. The
task is a challenging one, and the results are mixed, but the exercise nonetheless
278 N. Wise et al.
opens a vital window to thinking about the role of subjectivity and perspective in the
production of history.
Building on either of the above activities, students then explore the work of a range
of different historians—including some historians of their own choosing—and then
reflect on the type of historian that they are, and what factors shaped their personal
approach to researching and writing history. By exploring a range of different histo-
rians and their practises, students appreciate how those disciplinary conventions can
vary depending on personal research and writing objectives. This semi-structured
design thus engages students with the methodological and ethical conventions of the
discipline, albeit in an historical setting of their choosing.
This approach also supports peer-to-peer learning and fosters a broader commu-
nity of practice (Wenger, 1998). Because students are all working on the same areas
of skill development, but are addressing different fields of historical knowledge, they
are encouraged to research independently but also to share their developments and
the challenges they encounter with other students. They thus learn from each other
(Lave, 1993). The opportunity to share their independent research experiences excites
the history students. For example, they can talk about the historical discovery they
made about a local area, a building or a relative. Throughout these discussions, stu-
dents are excitedly sharing their work as practising historians, and they are actively
engaged in that process with their peers. Once again, the success of this approach is
reflected in student feedback. Students enjoy ‘the camaraderie’ and ‘the interaction’
of sharing the progress of their research with others. The reflective nature of this
approach, where students are researching an area of personal interest, often an event
from their own past, also reinforces the reflective approach to the learning process.
Throughout these activities, students are encouraged to reflect on what they have
learnt.

Provide students with a framework for reflection and evaluation of their histor-
ical mindset. How have their life experiences shaped their historical interests
and their approaches to research? They may like to reflect on particular people,
events, places, books or activities that have sparked historical thinking. How
does this differ from the experiences of their peers and from other historians?
14.6 Conclusion
There has always been more to teaching history at tertiary level than the mere commu-
nication of subject matter. But today, more than ever, there is an increasing emphasis
on purposefully equipping students with the critical and reflective skills, and with
a sense of special methodological requirements and ethical responsibilities of the
discipline, which serve to make good historians and active global citizens. Through
these pedagogical approaches, students develop the first essential skills of a scholarly
historian and an understanding of the discipline of history’s methodological and eth-
ical conventions. TLO 5 is focused on these priorities. By enabling students to focus
on their personal historical interests and by encouraging them to reflect on their own
thinking process, students are motivated to think of themselves as active participants
in the creation of historical knowledge. Facilitating this thinking enables students to
engage with the methodological and ethical conventions of the discipline in a more
sophisticated manner.
References
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Conscience (pp. 17–27). Melbourne: Melbourne University Press.
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Journal of Education, 189(1/2), 159–167.
Barker, L. L. (2010). Using poetry to capture the Aboriginal voice in oral history transcripts.
In F. Peters-Little, A. Curthoys, & J. Docker (Eds.), Passionate histories: Myth, memory and
Indigenous Australia (pp. 185–202). Canberra: ANU EPress.
Barker, L. L. (2014). Ngarraka Yaan: A Murdi history of Weilmoringle (Ph.D. thesis). University
of New England, Armidale.
Benware, C. A., & Deci, E. L. (1984). Quality of learning with an active versus passive motivational
set. American Educational Research Journal, 21(4), 755–765.
Bridges, E., Hunter, G., Miller, P., Thelen, D., & Weinberg, G. (1993). Historians and archivists: A
rationale for cooperation. The Journal of American History, 80(1), 179–186.
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Nursing & Health Sciences, 4(1), 241–247.
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of Science and Mathematics Education, 12, no. 2, April, 2014, pp. 445–465.
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points in Australian history, (pp 1–17). Sydney: UNSW Press.
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28–39). Melbourne: Melbourne University Press.
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from http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/books/human-factors-20140320-353fg.html.
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L. Vlasceanu, & L. Wilson (Eds.), European higher education at the crosswords: Between the
Bologna process and national reforms (pp. 153–172). New York: Springer.
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& S. D. Teasley (Eds.), Perspectives on socially shared cognition. Washington: American Psy-
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lecturers?’. In G. O’Neill & B. McMullin (Eds.), Emerging issues in the practice of university
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bridge University Press.
Chapter 15
TLO 6: Examine Historical Evidence,
Scholarship and Changing
Representations of the Past
Sean Scalmer
Abstract Australian historians have long placed the examination of historical evi-
dence, scholarship and changing representations of the past at the centre of their
teaching. This chapter reviews the history of Australian practice, foregrounds the
innovative approaches of the New Left generation and contemplates recent chal-
lenges to prevailing methods, especially those driven by the changing university
sector and the changing orientations of students. This chapter critically examines
major responses to these challenges, particularly the increasing emphasis on ‘doing
history’ in the classroom. It argues that ‘doing history’ activities must continue to
connect scholarship, representation and evidence, and should not be limited to the
exclusive analysis of primary evidence.
15.1 Introduction
Humans recall and represent the past in many ways: anecdotes, paintings, fiction,
sculpture. Historical accounts differ from other representations of the past because
they are disciplined and supported by evidence. The historian searches for evidence
that might guide understanding of what happened and why. The activity is sometimes
equated with detective work: one searches for clues, reflects on their meaning and
uses them to reconstruct past events; one entertains competing hypotheses, considers
their evidentiary base, and confirms, reformulates or rejects. Equally, when assess-
ing the value of existing historical scholarship, the reader of history scrutinises the
evidence that has been provided by others and ponders its reliability, its limits and its
interpretation. Through this critical process of sifting and questioning, analysing and
connecting, querying and (conditionally) accepting, the historian hopes to understand
and explain the past better.
Historical evidence might take many forms. The modern discipline of history was
founded on the elevation of the written archival document, and most students will
S. Scalmer (B)
University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia
e-mail: sscalmer@unimelb.edu.au

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0047-9_15
282 S. Scalmer
at first probably associate historical evidence with written evidence: personal letters
and diaries; official reports and publications; newspapers, pamphlets and books.
But in their daily lives and sometimes in the school classroom students may have
been exposed to many other kinds of evidence: the visual evidence of paintings and
photographs; the physical evidence of buildings, monuments and material culture; the
oral evidence of sound recordings, from interviews and speeches to popular songs; the
cinematic evidence of newsreels and fictional film, conventionally combining moving
images with words and sound. Considered abstractly, almost anything might be
presented as ‘evidence’. This possibility depends only on the questions the historian
is asking of the past and the ingenuity with which they are able to analyse its traces.
But if evidence is central to the activity of historical research and therefore to the
production of historical scholarship, then it has not always been granted such primacy
in the history classroom. Political elites have typically conceptualised the teaching of
history as a means of promoting national belonging and informed citizenship. Such
an orientation mandates a preoccupation with content: the key events that shaped the
nation, from origins to the present; the texts of founding documents; the identities of
great leaders; the crises weathered and the sacrifices made.
This approach to history teaching has been described and criticised as the ‘cov-
erage model’. Based on the notion of a transmission of knowledge from expert to
student, it imagines a history course as an opportunity to share information about
significant events, major protagonists and key periods in the past. Its principal tools
are the textbook and the lecture; its primary mode of assessment is the examina-
tion. The success of a course is established by its coverage of important content; the
mastery of the student is expressed through the recall of its major elements. To the
extent that a ‘coverage model’ holds sway, TLO 6 is likely to be neglected: historical
evidence, scholarly argument and changing representations will be marginalised in
favour of the recitation of facts and events deemed essential to citizenship or to an
‘educated’ status.
Recent American commentary has presented the ‘coverage model’ as hegemonic
(see, e.g., Sipress & Voekler, 2011; Calder, 2006). This may be true of history teach-
ing in the USA, though critics and commentators may also have exaggerated its
dominance, so as to make their own challenges appear more urgent and original.
Certainly, it is not an accurate description of the dominant forms of history teaching
in Australian universities over the last few decades.
In the following pages, I review Australian practice, drawing special attention
to the often experimental and radical approaches pioneered since the 1960s. I then
go on to explore recent changes to the context of the history classroom on campus
and suggest that these have begun to undermine the successes of familiar methods.
I conclude by surveying recent responses to these difficulties and by proposing how
these might be fruitfully extended or elaborated. My overriding argument is that
TLO 6 has long been central to history teaching at Australian universities (and that
past practice offers a reservoir of lessons), but that further experiment is necessary
in order to meet contemporary challenges.
15 TLO 6: Examine Historical Evidence, Scholarship … 283
15.2 Rejecting the Coverage Model: The Contexts

of History Teaching at Australian Universities
Australia’s status as a settler colony has always raised particular difficulties for the
‘coverage model’. When British history dominated the curriculum, the failure to
cover aspects of the national story must have been obvious (a failure spotlighted
by the publication of popular histories for the non-academic reader). Attempts to
incorporate Australian history into university teaching stretch back many decades
(see Macintyre, 1994). But this was a version of Australia’s past that did not at
first include the experiences of Indigenous people, the working class, women or
migrants. The mobilisation of social movements challenging injustice brought with
it a desire to chart the experiences of the marginalised and explain the imposition
of dominance. The New Left generation that took up this challenge from the 1960s
devoted themselves to research, but also sought to remake the curriculum.
New Left historians did not simply challenge the existing coverage of the history
curriculum, and they also revised its forms. Working in new fields, they did not
have access to a familiar canon of great works, let alone a satisfactory textbook. As a
result, it was not possible to relay settled knowledge on the new topics; sharing freshly
unearthed sources and discoveries was rather essential. The scholarship was new and
dynamic; the historical evidence was often just discovered or had not been previously
exploited. It was starkly obvious to history students at this time that representations
of the past were open to change: their teachers were actively working to drive such
change.
New Left historians were often directly involved with social movements, and they
had come to value horizontal relationships (based on equality) rather than vertical
relationships (based on hierarchy). The consciousness raising group and the cam-
paign meeting had provided important political and personal education. Proponents
of education for liberation (such as Paulo Freire) were widely discussed. And some
younger scholars had collaborated in the establishment of ‘Free Universities’ and
other spaces of radical schooling. In this context, the potential of group exploration
and debate seemed to many much greater than the transmission of an expert’s knowl-
edge to a passive audience. It was therefore not simply that the project of ‘coverage’
seemed difficult to enact. Rather, the structures of pedagogical authority associated
with the ‘coverage model’ and the traditional classroom did not strongly appeal.
Broader developments in the academy entrenched this distance from the ‘coverage
model’ and its intellectual assumptions. The New Leftist concern with the subaltern
and with the value of radical social theory helped to promote an interest in post-
structuralism. This, in turn, brought with it a concern with language (the ‘linguistic
turn’), a questioning of the status of ‘the fact’ and a greater interest in the historical
narrative as a literary genre. In consequence, criticisms of the limits of what had been
‘covered’ in the history classroom were increasingly accompanied by a questioning
of the very project of ‘coverage’. By the early 1980s, any attempt to conceptualise
history as the transfer of self-evident ‘facts’ about the world seemed to most scholarly
historians hopelessly unsophisticated.
284 S. Scalmer
The political implications of these debates echoed beyond the university. Answer-
ing the challenge of New Left scholarship, from the 1980s and even more over the
1990s, a number of politicians and commentators attacked the new approaches. Con-
cerned particularly with what they alleged was a mournful and exaggerated ‘black
armband’ view of Australia’s past, these critics of the right launched what became
known as ‘the history wars’ (see Macintyre & Clark, 2003). There was no victory
in this conflict: antagonists and battlefield alike were left battered by the hostilities.
But though aspiring to reimpose agreement over national achievements, the history
warriors perhaps more fully exposed the depth of the dissension over a national
past. Certainly, the possibility of a full historical coverage—whatever that might
mean—drew no nearer.
Conflicts within and beyond the university not only influenced the drafting of
historical scholarship, they also raised broader questions concerning the represen-
tation of the past. The paucity of formal archives to capture the experiences of the
marginalised and dispossessed drove the challengers of the 1960s and 1970s to turn
to new sources: the personal and collective memories of those overlooked by formal
accounts; the objects—often previously discarded and devalued—that elicited new
meanings when appraised by the committed scholar’s eye. This concern with repre-
sentations of the past beyond formal scholarship was strengthened by the ‘linguistic
turn’ and by a growing interest in cultural history and representation that gathered
force over the 1990s. Enlivened by these forces, researchers became more attentive
to the capacity of material culture and memory to carry a version of the past. Not only
did many historians broaden the forms of evidence that they were prepared to consid-
er—increasingly scrutinising visual, oral and physical evidence—but ‘oral history’
emerged as an indispensable part of the historian’s toolkit and ‘memory studies’ as
a vital disciplinary sub-field. Over time these developments shaped the routines and
methods of the classroom as much as they did the drafting of scholarly research.
As with the more general rejection of the ‘coverage model’, concern with rep-
resentations of the past was reinforced by a number of wider developments. The
gathering interest in architectural heritage and the growth of museums as forums
for popular education and tourism helped to stimulate an appetite for ‘public his-
tory’ as a specific area of teaching and research; its advocates and practitioners gave
special emphasis to forms of physical and visual evidence as carriers of the past.
And while the battles of the ‘history wars’ were sometimes fought out on the cam-
pus and in the publishing house, the primary fronts of this conflict were mostly in
and around museums or at moments of public commemoration and anniversary. The
waging of these struggles buttressed the growing awareness that academic history
formed but one part of a much more wide-ranging conversation about the past. It
thereby encouraged history teachers to give greater attention to representations of
many kinds.
The university history education that emerged from this changing context has
taken many forms. The diversity of the university sector, combined with the vary-
ing strength of the history discipline at different universities, makes generalisation
hazardous. Nonetheless, it is very clear that whatever the differences among them,
most students of history at Australian universities will not be schooled according to
the maligned ‘coverage model’ that has featured so prominently in American dis-
cussions. Its ruling assumptions have not been accepted. Australian historians have
sought out other paths.
What, then, are the most widely practised approaches to history teaching and
learning in Australia? And what space have they typically granted to the examination
of historical evidence, scholarship and changing representations of the past?
15.3 Beyond Coverage: Evidence, Scholarship,

Representations and Change in Australian University
History Teaching
The enrolling history student in an Australian university might study any number of
topics, from the unfolding of the Cold War to the implications of the Black Death. But
whatever the topic, the approach to teaching and learning will conventionally follow
three key principles: the privileging of historical argument; integrative treatment of
scholarship, evidence and representation; reflective assessment.
15.4 The Privileging of Historical Argument
An influential contribution to recent discussions of history teaching in the USA has

recommended supplanting the old and allegedly hegemonic attention to ‘coverage’
and ‘survey’ with a new attention to ‘argument’ (Sipress & Voelker, 2011). In Aus-
tralia, this approach is long familiar. The thematic courses launched by New Left
historians some decades ago foregrounded a particular theme or experience that had
been marginalised in earlier historical accounts: Indigenous history; women’s his-
tory; labour history; protest history. Attempts to broaden historical understanding,
these courses were structured as concentrated arguments: critical analyses of the
myopia and biases that had defined earlier historical scholarship; attempts to estab-
lish the historical value of the new field. A product of great intellectual energy, they
tested the relevance of social and political theory to new historical investigations.
Expressions of political passion, they were marked by controversies and polemics
that often helped to organise weekly classes.
Though the political dynamism the New Left challenge has long abated, this
approach to the past has largely been retained. In practice, this means that nearly all
university academics working in history departments conceive of their role as the
sharing and promotion of historical argument, not the transmission of a set of fixed
or agreed historical facts. If ‘labour history’ or ‘women’s history’ courses are now
less frequent, new courses on the history of violence or the body or the family or
emotions or globalisation conventionally mimic the organisation of course materials
first developed by New Leftists: a mapping of how a field has been treated (and
286 S. Scalmer
especially overlooked) in earlier scholarship; a consideration of pertinent theory

(often drawn from other disciplines); a critical exploration of how this new approach
might offer fresh insights into the past; a sharing of primary sources that illuminate
the subject matter; an attempt to introduce students to an arena of exploration and
debate.
Even courses that examine particular national histories (courses that might super-
ficially be characterised as ‘surveys’) only very rarely adhere to the ‘coverage model’,
seeking to transfer a set of agreed facts about a national past. Rather, they tend to take
particular arguments about a national past—how has Australia’s changing place in
the world shaped its national self-understanding? Is American history appropriately
theorised as the establishment of an empire or the carrying of a torch of liberty?—and
to explore these arguments across decades or centuries. The primacy of argument
brings with it an orientation to history as a clash of opposing views and a field
marked by persistent change. It thereby creates great opportunities to foreground the
examination of scholarship, evidence and changing representations.
15.5 Integrative Treatment of Scholarship, Evidence

and Representations
Conventionally, undergraduate students are exposed to both historical scholarship

and to a variety of historical evidence, including representations of past events and
actors. Although (as will be discussed) the techniques used to explore these sources
are changing, the most familiar venues for exploration are the lecture and the tutorial.
The lecture is usually imagined as a means of introduction and guidance. Here,
the academic will seek to present a field of historical argument: to acquaint students
with the necessary background and contextual information (perhaps the only point
at which there is some overlap with the ‘coverage model’); to outline the pertinent
historiographical contributions and disputes; to highlight the most contentious issues
and to explain their significance. Conscious that students in a digital world can easily
discover ‘facts’ for themselves, most scholars at the lectern consider the provision
of a scholarly context their primary intellectual task. Anxious to galvanise interest,
keen to exploit the possibilities of new technologies, most illustrate and enliven their
discourse with representations of many kinds: songs, films, interviews, paintings,
photographs.
More a duet than an academic solo, the lecture is nearly always paired with the
tutorial. For the history student in Australia, the term ‘tutorial’ (elsewhere denoting a
period of individual instruction) takes on a specific and local meaning. This is really
a smallish seminar, sometimes with something around fifteen students but sometimes
(and increasingly, in the age of the neoliberal university) with as many as twenty-five.
Students are instructed to prepare for tutorials by attending lectures and undertaking
prescribed readings. For history students in Australia, this is only infrequently a
textbook. Much more typically, a ‘course reader’ will include several primary sources
(mostly written but sometimes visual) and usually at least two secondary sources that
offer alternative (and often rival) interpretations of an historical episode or question.
Students will confront new sources each week. They will be readied for discussion
by pre-circulated questions.
The tutorial creates a space for the concentrated analysis of historical evidence,
representations and scholarship. When tutorial classes work well, students will under-
take close reading of written documents and examine material culture and visual
sources; will debate the persuasiveness and power of competing scholarly accounts
advanced in the secondary readings; and will ponder their connection to broader
historiographical traditions and approaches. They will often move back and forth
between ‘primary’ and ‘secondary’ sources, examining their points of commonality
and difference. And they will be encouraged to develop independent judgements and
to test these in small-group discussions and wider classroom debates.
Though lectures will hopefully offer stimulation and even excitement, it is in the
history tutorial that Australian students have traditionally been granted an opportunity
to share more actively in the practice of historical investigation. The lecture and the
tutorial have usually been considered as mutually supporting: the lecture offering
the requisite background for informed participation; the prescribed tutorial readings
encompassing access to historical evidence, representations and scholarship; the
tutorial classes providing an opportunity for guided and critical exploration, led by
staff but driven by engaged students.
15.6 Reflective Assessment
An ‘exam resisters’ movement’ was one expression of campus dissent in Australia

in the early 1970s, and most New Left academics sought to eliminate or supple-
ment a final examination with alternative forms of assessment. The rejection of the
examination did not bring with it a new orthodoxy, but rather experimentation with
a variety of assignments including versions of group work and oral performance.
Notwithstanding such diversity, most students majoring in history at a contemporary
Australian university have conventionally been required to undertake three impor-
tant activities at some point in their studies: a primary document analysis; a book
review; a research essay. Many students will be repeatedly challenged to perform
these tasks. Considered as intellectual challenges, each requires a student to address
central elements of TLO 6.
1. A primary document analysis trains a student in the procedures the historian

adopts for the examination of evidence. These include attention to the nature of
the document (What kind of document? What is its physical appearance? Has
it changed over time? How did it come to be here?), to its production (Who
created it? When? For what purposes? In what context?) and to its content
288 S. Scalmer
(What is its formal structure? Its linguistic and visual character? Its viewpoint?
Its narrative and arguments?). In posing such questions, the student learns to
understand the value, reliability and limits of historical evidence better. And in
the assessment of such work, the university teacher can aid in the development
of a more sophisticated historical awareness.
2. A book review incites a student to consider the strengths and weaknesses of
a given work of historical scholarship. Invariably, this includes its evidentiary
base and its interpretation of that evidence. Often explicitly, always implicitly,
a review must give attention to the place of a book in a field of research: any
assessment of a book’s contribution is also a placement in a still changing body
of writing and representation.
3. A research essay invites a student to develop an argument about an historical
event or problem and to support that argument with reference to both historical
evidence from the period and pertinent historical scholarship. In researching
a history essay, a student must locate primary and secondary sources that bear
on the problem; identify the most relevant evidence and arguments; analyse
and reflect on their limits and persuasiveness; use these materials to develop
and plan an independent argument; and compose a clear and direct response
to the question that deploys the gathered evidence in support of claims made.
The conventional and traditional nature of the ‘research essay’ has led many
university teachers to seek alternative modes of assessment. But while other kinds
of assignments have much to recommend, there is no question that the ‘research
essay’ directs a student to examine historical evidence, scholarship,and changing
representations of the past. Moreover, in undertaking a research essay, the student
makes a personal contribution to the scholarly ‘representation’ of the past, thereby
directly discovering the ways in which such representations can change over time. In
devising and marking essays, and in providing students with guidance and feedback,
university academics help to inculcate these vital historical capacities.
Considered in general terms, teachers of history at Australian universities have
therefore long considered the skills and capacities now covered by TLO 6. Repu-
diating an obsession with ‘coverage’, they have organised course materials around
historical arguments. Supplementing direct instruction, they have combined lectures
and tutorials to expose students to a variety of forms of evidence, scholarship and rep-
resentation. Developing student skills in these matters, they have devised and admin-
istered assessment tasks that test student capacities and that foster their improvement
over time.
15.7 Tensions, Challenges and Problems
Notwithstanding past achievements, there are clear signs that the ways in which
Australian historians have aimed to fulfil TLO 6 face new and urgent challenges.
Specifically, the changing character of the higher education system and of student
life potentially jeopardises the viability of many conventional techniques.
How has the university changed? And how has this undermined past practice?
If the examination of historical evidence, scholarship and changing representations
has been promoted through the combination of the lecture and the tutorial, it is
increasingly obvious that both forums have been much changed over the last fifteen
years. Lecture attendance is falling, and on many university campuses, this is an
unspoken crisis. A recent study at the Australian National University disclosed that
the majority of students (approximately two-thirds) were neither attending lectures
nor listening to the lecture recordings during the regular semester. It is not that
students are choosing to take advantage of the provision of online lectures; a large
number are not listening to lectures at all (Hughes-Warrington, 2015).
At the same time, the underfunding of higher education by successive governments
has imposed severe financial pressures on the universities. One response has been to
reduce the number of tutorials during a semester, so that sometimes tutorial classes
convene only eight or nine times over a discrete course. Another response—perhaps
more common—has been to increase the number of students within each tutorial,
lifting ‘caps’ from fifteen or so to as high as twenty-five students.
The combination of these changes severely threatens the capacity of the lec-
ture/tutorial combination to foster the careful examination of evidence, scholarship
and representation in the same ways that it might have done in the past. If students
do not attend lectures or listen online, then they lack the contextual information
to make sense of primary sources or rival scholarly interpretations. Struggling for
understanding, they are much more likely to abandon the prescribed readings set for
them before the tutorial. As a result, they will not be presented with the alternative
and often competing perspectives that define a field of argument. And they will lack
the capacity for informed participation once the tutorial class begins.
Arriving at a tutorial, the ill-prepared student is likely to retreat from involvement
(fearing humiliation) or else to fall back on assertions of opinion. The well-prepared
student is likely to be frustrated by the confusion of peers on basic matters of com-
prehension and context. The tutor is likely to respond to confusion by repeating the
necessary context that had been provided in the lecture (that so few students had
attended), thereby transforming the tutorial into a kind of remedial lecture, reducing
the time available for richer and more demanding activities.
The now substantial size of the tutorial imposes further difficulties. Seeking to
cope with the unwieldy nature of a group discussion among more than a score of
variously outspoken, withdrawn, opinionated, receptive and deferential personalities,
tutors increasingly manage the classroom by the development of structured activities
for work in small groups. This can often assist shyer students to test out ideas and
can maximise participation under difficult circumstances. But when confronted with
290 S. Scalmer
five small groups of five students, for example, the tutor spends large parts of a
tutorial class largely unaware of what is being discussed in each of the groups and
is incapable of observing or guiding such discussion.
Other changes in university structures have further disrupted past arrangements.
The establishment and the flourishing of newer university disciplines (especially cul-
tural and media studies and international relations) has created more intense com-
petition for the allegiance of students. At the same time, a number of universities
have imposed new structures on undergraduate education, with a requirement that
students take ‘interdisciplinary’ courses and/or subjects outside their home faculty.
The effect of these changes has been to magnify the pressure on staff to attract and
retain student enrolments. This, in turn, has led some history departments to place
lesser emphasis on demanding and less popular aspects of a history education, such
as historiography and historical method. Other history departments have contracted.
This has limited their offerings and in some cases has led departments to reduce or
remove specific ‘historiography’ or ‘method’ courses.
Cumulatively, these are quite profound challenges to teachers of history in Aus-
tralian universities and there is as yet no consensual response. Because senior aca-
demics with responsibility for course design often avoid tutorial classes, many may
be unaware of the depth of the crisis. But broadly speaking, major responses have
focused on the reimagination of the history classroom, emphasising the ‘doing’ and
‘debating’ of history.
15.8 Emergent Responses
Perhaps reflecting a broader rejection of the traditional university lecture (see, e.g.,
Lambert, 2012), a number of historians have recommended the abandonment of
the conventional menu of lecture and tutorial and the reorganisation of the history
classroom around ‘doing history’ activities (see, e.g., Wineburg, 2001).
For some university staff, this might involve the reimagination of the lecture for-
mat, so as to incorporate greater opportunities for dialogue, problem-solving and
sustained interaction (on general approaches of these kinds see, e.g., Biggs & Tang,
2011). Historians experimenting with these methods tend to adopt a range of tech-
niques:
• The staging of debates between two or more lecturers, so as to express the

diversity of views and to model the use of evidence in argument.
• The posing of challenges to students at periodic moments within a lecture
class: asking students to explain the key points in a lecture to a learning
partner; to offer an interpretation of a primary source that has been displayed;
to address an historical question.
The potential to apply these methods has been enhanced by new technologies and
also by the redesign of some teaching spaces. Some examples are:
• Short digital recordings with expert academics can present alternative views
quickly and economically and sometimes dramatically.
• Active polling tools (the University of Melbourne tool is called ‘Quick-
Poll’ [http://qp.e.unimelb.edu.au/background.php], but there are many oth-
ers) allow students to respond to prepared questions on their mobile phones
and for the results to be displayed for the entire lecture class with great
alacrity. The discussion of these results can clarify differences of opinion
(and sometimes misunderstandings) and can provide an opportunity to probe
student interpretations and the evidence that these rest upon.
• The digitisation of historical resources—from film to sound to newspapers
and archives—allows staff to present forms of historical evidence (including
representations) as part of the unfolding of a lecture. Moreover, the redesign
of some teaching spaces (like the new Arts West building at the University of
Melbourne) that include screens on several walls and sometimes computers
on shared tables allows students to easily view and even to manipulate and
interact with these materials.
Transforming lectures into more interactive learning events not only improves
their capacity to promote the examination of evidence, scholarship and changing
representations, but it also makes lectures more interesting and appealing to students.
This can help to boost lecture attendance. And, with improved lecture attendance
and more informed students entering tutorials, the well-established capacities of the
tutorial to foster the ‘doing’ of history can be much more fully exploited.
While some university staff may limit their ambitions to the revision of the lecture
format, others, more radically minded, have proposed a more complete revision of
classroom practice. The most adventurous and influential of these notions is the
suggestion that history staff establish a ‘history lab’ for university students as an
alternative mode of learning (see, e.g., Shoemaker, 2009; Sargent Wood, 2012). The
approach is typically organised around four principles:
• The rejection of the ‘coverage model’.

• Organisation of classes in seminars, preferably with under forty students.
• Devotion of the majority of class time to the close examination of historical
evidence, concerning a limited number of episodes.
• Assessment that directs students to develop analyses of those historical
episodes, supported by the primary sources.
292 S. Scalmer
Proponents of this approach champion a sustained and relatively unmediated

confrontation between student and historical evidence. The premise is that students
should ‘draw their own conclusions from historical sources’ (Sewell, cited in Sipress
& Voelker, 2011, p. 1060), and there is a tendency to defer or even downplay ref-
erence to existing historical scholarship. One advocate selects deliberately obscure
historical cases for classroom analysis, so as to prevent student ‘Googling’ for an
‘authoritative voice’: ‘Removing the authoritative voice so that students build expla-
nations from the evidence seems essential … no matter what the format of the course’
(Shoemaker, 2009). Another prominent Website that provides models and resources
for these kinds of classes—the Stanford History Education Group’s Reading Like A
Historian—offers examples of historical controversies (‘Was Lincoln a racist?’) and
primary documents (speeches and publications by protagonists), but no secondary
scholarship to help students develop and argue for their own viewpoint (see sheg.
stanford.edu/rlh).
The strong virtue of these approaches is to foreground the import of historical
evidence, to share the excitement that comes with the unfolding of historical dis-
covery, and to emphasise more strongly the skills of close analysis and questioning.
Given the increasing difficulties with the traditional lecture/tutorial, any attempt to
reinstate the import of evidence and to guide students in the skills of analysis and
interpretation is surely very welcome. For many teachers devoted to the pursuit of
TLO 6, the ideal of the ‘history lab’ will undoubtedly appeal.
Nonetheless, the most notable formulations of the method seem to privilege ‘his-
torical evidence’ over the other elements of TLO 6. What of the examination of
historical scholarship or changing representations? How might these aspects of TLO
6 be integrated into the functioning of a ‘history lab’?
If the ‘history laboratory’ is to reflect the ways in which scholars ‘do history’,
then it cannot neglect sustained examination of historical scholarship. In their own
research, historians always scrutinise the primary evidence while in possession of
some background understanding of the historiography and most often with a deep
knowledge of the relevant intellectual debates and conflicts. We use this background
knowledge when we formulate questions of the primary sources, when we contextu-
alise them (relating them, e.g., to events unfolding at the time) and when we identify
the significant elements of primary sources (e.g. a capacity to disturb a settled view
about the past or to bear upon a controversy). The academic historian therefore
investigates primary sources with a clear sense of prevailing ‘authorities’, not with
the relative ignorance of these matters that some versions of the ‘history lab’ so
deliberately engineer.
Yet if experienced historians move between ‘scholarship’ and ‘evidence’ routinely
and easily, educational studies suggest that this may be a particular challenge for our
students. Surveys of student reading demonstrate that when confronted with multiple
source documents, most history students are likely to prefer clear secondary texts to
other sources (not the primary sources emphasised in the ‘history lab’) and to struggle
to assess competing perspectives (Stahl, Hydn, Britton, McNish, & Bosquet, 1996).
Faced with multiple viewpoints on an event in the past, they seem at first mostly to
consider each viewpoint as an expression of ‘mere opinion’, not easily taking the
next step of examining the evidence that might support or disprove such opinion
(Sipress, 2004, p. 357). And as Laura M. Westhoff has recently argued, students
typically struggle with ‘using historiography as a dialogic tool in the research process’
(Westhoff, 2012, p. 1125).
This suggests that the examination of primary evidence should not be completely
uncoupled from the examination of historical scholarship: a position registered in the
combination of these elements in the wording of TLO 6. Some teachers who have
experimented with the ‘history lab’ approach have recognised this necessity (see,
e.g., Sargent Wood, 2012). Conceivably, the consideration of historical scholarship
can enter the experiments of a history laboratory at several moments. Three seem
most obvious:
• Preparation: when outlining the aims of a course, the purpose of the ‘history lab-
oratory’ can be justified through a general discussion of the nature of ‘history’
as a discipline and the questions and procedures that organise its study. Conceiv-
ably, these might make the still relatively unorthodox and unfamiliar approach
of a ‘doing history’ course more easily understandable and acceptable to its new
initiates. It should also sensitise students to long running debates in historical
scholarship.
• Movement from personal interpretation of evidence to prevailing interpretations
(in existing scholarship): following close analysis of primary documents relating
to a particular episode or problem, students might then be selectively exposed
to secondary interpretations, as points of comparison and discussion. This might
illuminate the differing ways in which historical evidence can be interpreted and
mobilised in argument. It might also encourage students to develop a stronger
capacity to understand how a field of scholarship is organised and structured
—what one scholar has called the practice of ‘historiographical mapping’
(Westhoff, 2012).
• Movement from prevailing interpretations (in existing scholarship) to historical
evidence: particular history laboratory sessions might be devoted to the close
consideration of a historiographical controversy and to the historical evidence
that partisans have deployed and interpreted in the prosecution of their positions.
Having carefully examined the ways in which earlier historians have construed
and mobilised given evidence, students could then be invited to re-examine
elements of that evidence themselves: comparing their own analyses with those
already developed.
Doubtless, there are other opportunities. But the key principle is that teachers
direct students to move between the examination of primary evidence and the exam-
ination of scholarship and representation. This recursive process sits at the centre
of historical investigation. Whether in seminar, tutorial or lecture, history teachers
must preserve a space for both activities and must guide students in the process of
movement back and forth.
294 S. Scalmer
15.9 Conclusion
TLO 6 expresses a fundamental element of historical practice. For several genera-

tions, historians at Australian universities have been aware of its import and have
struggled to bring it into lively and experimental classrooms. The political and radi-
cal culture of Australian history writing and teaching helped Australian teachers to
devise and implement several approaches that foregrounded the import of TLO 6:
the privileging of historical argument; the integrative treatment of evidence, schol-
arship and representations; reflective assessment. Though the changing context has
undermined the assumptions and viability of some past practices, they nonetheless
remain a reservoir of helpful models and inspirations.
In order to meet the challenges of the contemporary classroom, history teachers
in Australia should preserve the argumentative and interpretative approach to his-
tory, but seek to renovate the ways in which historical evidence, scholarship and
representations are shared with students. It seems wise to create greater opportu-
nities for ‘doing history’ and to exploit the possibility of the new technologies to
enhance dialogue and student activities within the lecture. More radical possibili-
ties, such as the ‘history lab’, also merit further experiment. But enriched prospects
for students to examine historical evidence in class must be paired with continuing
engagement with historical scholarship. Indeed, teachers should strive to help stu-
dents move from one to the other: mapping their interpretations of evidence onto an
existing field; examining how previous researchers have used and interpreted pri-
mary sources; and comparing their intellectual choices with those that students have
made.
References
Biggs, J. B., & Tang, C. (2011). Teaching for quality learning at university. Maidenhead: Open
University Press.
Calder, L. (2006). Uncoverage: Toward a signature pedagogy for the history survey. Journal of
American History, 92(4), 1358–1370. https://doi.org/10.2307/4485896.
Hughes-Warrington, M. (2015). Not going, not listening either: Lecture recording did not kill
the live lecture. Retrieved October 11, 2016, from http://missunitwocents.tumblr.com/post/
132791490035/not-going-not-listening-either-lecture-recording.
Lambert, C. (2012). Twilight of the lecture. Harvard Magazine, March-April 2012, pp. 23–27.
Retrieved October 11, 2016, from http://harvardmagazine.com/2012/03/twilight-of-the-lecture.
Macintyre, S. (1994). A history for a nation: Ernest Scott and the making of Australian history.
Carlton: Melbourne University Press.
Macintyre, S., & Clark, A. (2003). The history wars. Carlton: Melbourne University Press.
Sargent Wood, L. (2012). Hooked on inquiry: History labs in the methods course. The History
Teacher, 45(4), 549–566.
Shoemaker, N. (2009). Where is the history lab course? Perspectives on History, January
2009, Retrieved October 3, 2016, from https://www.historians.org/publications-and-directories/
perspectives-on-history/january-2009/where-is-the-history-lab-course.
Sipress, J. M. (2004). Why students don’t get evidence and what we can do about it. The History
Teacher, 37(3), 351–363.
Sipress, J. M., & Voelker, D. J. (2011). The end of the history survey course: The rise and fall of the
coverage model. Journal of American History, 97(4), 1050–1066. https://doi.org/10.1093/jahist/
jaq035.
Stahl, S. A., Hynd, C. R., Britton, B. K., McNish, M. M., & Bosquet, D. (1996). What happens
when students read multiple source documents in history? Reading Research Quarterly, 31(4),
430–456.
Westhoff, L. M. (2012). Historiographic mapping: Towards a signature pedagogy for the methods
course. Journal of American History, 98(4), 1114–1126. https://doi.org/10.1093/jahist/jar614.
Chapter 16
TLO 7: Construct an Evidence-Based
Argument or Narrative in Audio, Digital,
Oral, Visual or Written Form
Paul Sendziuk
Abstract The movement towards privileging ‘authentic’ forms of student learning

and assessment, and employer demands for university graduates to possess the ability
to work in groups and communicate through a variety of non-textual means, has
encouraged history academics to rethink the way in which they teach and assess
their students. This chapter provides a brief critique of the written essay as the best
means for students to communicate their ideas and be assessed and suggests a variety
of alternative activities to develop student capacities to construct evidence-based
arguments and narratives.
16.1 Introduction
One of the history discipline’s key threshold learning objectives as defined by the
Australian Learning and Teaching Council’s ‘Standards’ project requires students
to demonstrate the capacity to ‘construct an evidence-based argument or narrative
in audio, digital, oral, visual or written form’. It invites teachers and students to
consider the way in which arguments are formed and the means by which they can
be communicated. More radically, it suggests that essay writing, long regarded as
the most effective and rigorous way to test the capacity of students to construct and
articulate arguments, should not be privileged over other forms of communication.
Many teachers will find this notion problematic, or at least challenging to accept or
implement, and hence it is the primary focus of this chapter.
But first we should not too hastily overlook the demand made in the first part of
the standard—that students develop the capacity to construct evidence-based argu-
ments, and, more fundamentally, to understand the kind of authority derived from
using evidence to make and communicate points of view. It cannot be assumed that
students appreciate what this entails, or the respect it warrants. Many of us live
in societies where the so-called right to free speech—to say anything we think or
P. Sendziuk (B)
e-mail: paul.sendziuk@adelaide.edu.au

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0047-9_16
298 P. Sendziuk
feel—is sacrosanct. And we have created an enormous array of media through which
ordinary people can communicate their views, no matter the merit of these opinions:
YouTube videos, online blogs, ‘tweets’ and Facebook posts, and the barely moder-
ated ‘comments’ section placed beneath articles published in online newspapers and
magazines. Little respect seems to be paid to the notion that one’s right to speak
derives from proffering informed opinion, arguments that are supported by research
and evidence. People who spend the majority of their time communicating in forums
that do not require or apply such standards may find it difficult to adjust to the higher
demands placed on communication in a university setting.
One way to teach or facilitate understanding of how to construct evidence-based
arguments is, of course, to model such behaviour; that is, to be scrupulous and
rigorous in our use of evidence when we make arguments in our lectures or during
tutorials, and to point to it in texts that we assign our students to read and then discuss.
Equally, we can consider the consequences of assigning particular types of ‘texts’
to read or watch, such as ‘opinion’ pieces written for newspapers, or short articles
written for popular history magazines, or YouTube videos, which might not apply the
same rigorous standards of proof as required of scholarly books and journal articles.
History students also need to understand that the provision of evidence in support
of a particular historical narrative or argument does not necessarily make it true or
incontrovertible, because it is the historian who chooses which types of evidence to
proffer or to ignore, sometimes deliberately, or who might overlook certain types
of evidence because their viewpoint is circumscribed. That is, we recognise that
‘facts’—or bits of evidence—do not exist independently of selection and the inter-
pretation of the historian. In demonstrating this point to our students, we encourage
them to get to the heart of our discipline—the contestability of history and historical
discourse—and appreciate the difficulty in ascribing truth value to the statements that
historians make. Depending on one’s perspective, this is either a thrilling or appalling
concept to comprehend. It will either incite a student’s passion for the subject or turn
them off history entirely. Moreover, it is a difficult concept to grasp, so, as teachers,
we need to consider carefully when to introduce it into our curriculum, and how to
do so, so that we have more students incited and excited, rather than discouraged and
disengaged.
What is the appropriate medium through which to develop and test a student’s
ability to construct evidence-based arguments? Until relatively recently (and perhaps
even still) the predominant medium employed by teachers has been the written paper,
such as a critical analysis of a source, a review of a book or a research essay. As Nye
(2015, p. 93) was frequently told in her interviews with fifty Australian tertiary-level
history teachers, ‘nothing beats the essay’. Students are sometimes required to deliver
their papers orally, and hence they look and sound different from written papers, but
in effect they are the same thing, with typeface characters turned into aural signs.
However, the emergence of accessible and relatively easy to master audio visual
and digital forms of communication, such as wikis, websites, video and powerpoint
slide presentations, has increased the options available to teachers, to which we can
add various forms of real-time in-class presentations such as debates, role-plays and
exhibitions. The pre-eminence of the written paper, particularly the research essay or
16 TLO 7: Construct an Evidence-Based Argument or Narrative in … 299
exam script, as the best means to develop and test a student’s knowledge of a subject
and ability to construct a sustained argument is under threat.
There are numerous reasons why it is useful to seek alternatives to the writ-
ten paper as a form of communication and assessment. First, as Timmins, Keith,
and Kinealy (2005) and Kelly (2014) have argued, essay writing lacks ‘real-world’
application. Essay writing tasks remain ubiquitously employed in university courses,
yet university graduates are virtually never required to write such papers outside of
the academy, in the offices or shop floors where they find employment. The skills
required to write an essay, such as the ability to locate sources of information and
assess their worth, are transferrable, but a student need not write an essay to acquire
or demonstrate them. The requirement to produce an essay can thus be regarded as
an inauthentic exercise (Maclellan, 2001). The production of a written paper during
an end-of-term examination is even more so, in that a student’s ability to reproduce
knowledge in such an environment does not guarantee that the knowledge can be
used in a real-life setting (Bloxham & Boyd, 2007).
Second, while essay writing tasks are an effective way to determine whether a
student can sustain a logical argument and communicate effectively, and in theory
they encourage students to develop a deep understanding of a particular topic, as a
learning activity essay writing is not as useful as some might claim. Assigning an
essay writing task does not teach students how to make arguments; it simply allows
students to demonstrate that they already can (Sendziuk, 2015). Teachers rarely
have enough time in the crowded curriculum and within the diminishing teaching
semester to provide specific instruction about the art of rhetoric and constructing
effective arguments and critiques. Students might glean something in this regard
from the comments scrawled by their tutors in the margins and at the end of their
papers, but this does not amount to effective instruction. Some students will acquire
these skills by reading the work of good authors and mimicking their strategies, but,
again, students need not be writing essays in order to do this.
Related to this point is the fact that essay writing tasks privilege and reward
students who already possess highly developed written communication skills, but
disadvantage students who may well possess more knowledge of the subject and have
greater creativity but who experience difficulty in translating their thoughts into text.
This can be for a variety of reasons, such as being a non-native language speaker
or a ‘mature aged’ student returning to study after a long period (Grove, 2016), or
having not yet discovered the ‘formula’ for structuring an essay. Similarly, writing
a 2000–3000-word paper requires a great deal of time and ideally a quiet and stable
environment, which is not afforded to students who live in disruptive settings. Thus,
as Ramsden (2003, p. 185) notes, assigning a greater variety of assessment methods
‘may be administratively inconvenient, but it offers more latitude for students to
display their knowledge, and it has the potential to provide a more accurate—though
more complex—depiction of each student’s achievement’. Of course, essays can also
be plagiarised (Roberts 2008), written by someone other than the students who submit
them, or written with the assistance of a copy editor or competent proof-reader, to
which not all students have access. Add to this the cost (in terms of time and money)
300 P. Sendziuk
of marking all of the essays that are submitted, with tutors requiring approximately
half an hour to read and comment on each 2500-word essay that is submitted.
Even without resorting to modern forms of electronic communication, there are
means to allow students to prove they can construct evidence-based arguments and
have acquired a range of other desired skills and attributes that do not require the
submission and marking of written papers. Below I outline three such activities that I
use in courses that I teach, and point to variants of these activities employed by others.
Each is a group-based assignment that can be presented and, if desired, assessed
by a tutor during class time. In addition to explaining how they enable students
to develop their capacities to scrutinise and employ evidence to form arguments, I
outline some of the other benefits of group-based learning projects and suggest ways
to best prepare students to undertake them. So as not to neglect text- and technology-
based forms of communication entirely—for they are certainly incorporated into this
particular threshold learning objective—I conclude by recommending a further three
activities that require students to come to grips with the problems of finding, using
and contextualising sources of evidence while producing non-traditional text- and
technology-based assignments.
16.2 In-Class Debate
The first group-based activity is a version of an Oxford-style debate in which two

teams, each composed of three students, debate the merits of a particular propo-
sition (for example, ‘The internment of “enemy aliens” in Australia during World
War Two was warranted and fair’.) The students are given at least three weeks to
prepare arguments ‘for’ or ‘against’ the proposition, and on the day of the debate
take turns to present evidence in support of each point and to refute the merits of
the opposing team’s claims. They thus conduct research as they would if writing an
essay but present their findings in a different way. Each student can only speak for
4 minutes, so prior to the debate they must negotiate to determine the best points
and the most compelling evidence to present, a process by which they learn from
each other. I assess the performance of the students and deliver feedback and a final
grade at the conclusion of each debate. Students are rewarded for the strength of
their arguments, their use of examples and evidence to support their points, their
ability to communicate with passion and persuasion, and the degree of organisation,
preparation and teamwork that is apparent. Self-assessment and/or peer assessment
can also be incorporated into this activity. I give students plenty of freedom to choose
how to communicate; they can read a prepared speech or speak from ‘dot points’, or
role-play (presenting from the perspective of a historical character, for example, see
Fig. 16.1), and/or use visual materials to convey their points.
Fig. 16.1 In a debate about the merits of extending the franchise to South Australian women in the
1890s, the ‘affirmative’ team adopted the roles of real-life participants in that discussion: Catherine
Helen Spence, Edward Stirling and ‘a suffragette’. Photograph courtesy of Laura Gransbury
Erin Ihde at the University of New England offers a variant of this activity
(there are, indeed, many—see, for example, Warne (2015)). Ihde provides
all of the source material for his students, thus defining the limits of their
required research, and then asks the teams of students to devise contrary argu-
ments based on exactly the same set of primary sources. The students are thus
encouraged to examine the way in which evidence can be chosen or ignored
or de-contextualised to support opposing cases. In his activity, students read
sources relating to the banditry of a nineteenth-century Australian outlaw,
such as police and newspaper reports and the outlaw’s own testimony, and
then debate whether the outlaw’s behaviour was justified (Ihde, 2015).
16.3 Museum Exhibition
My second group-based activity example involves teams of four or five students

working together to curate a museum exhibition, which is ‘installed’ and experienced
by other students in the classroom during tutorial time. They are given at least three
weeks to work together, mainly outside of class time, to research and design the
exhibition that must be related to the theme of the tutorial. I place only two restrictions
on the format of the exhibitions. First, the exhibitions must be installed in 5 minutes
302 P. Sendziuk
or less at the beginning of the tutorial (that is, before most of the class has arrived) and
designed to occupy the audience for no more than 15 minutes. Students thus have to
practice installing their exhibitions at home and make any necessary modifications.
Second, students are asked to limit the amount of text and verbal communication that
they use during the exhibition. They are therefore encouraged to present information
in the form of images, objects, projected film, audio/visual recordings, games and
puzzles. In my course ‘Migrants, Refugees and the Making of Modern Australia’,
for example, one group of students designed a series of laptop computer stations
where their classmates could listen to excerpts of recorded interviews with former
refugees and watch videos of rallies and politicians speaking about refugee policy.
A different exhibition replicated the deprivation and confinement of refugees fleeing
Vietnam by boat in the 1970s by using tape and chalk outlines on the floor to change
the dimensions of the teaching space and issuing the audience with small handfuls
of rice (see Fig. 16.2). The most successful exhibitions demand that the audience
actively engage with the material; they invite students to consider a question or items
of evidence before lifting a panel or pressing a button to reveal further information,
or for the audience members to manipulate and speculate about an object before
learning of its significance. Students are assessed according to the coherence of the
exhibition and its relationship to the theme of the tutorial, their ability to propose an
argument or convey ‘take-home messages’ through the material on display (rather
than just narrating ‘facts’), the use and accuracy of examples and evidence to support
their points, and the degree of team organisation and collaboration that is evident in
the exhibition. Again, self-assessment and/or peer assessment can be incorporated
into this activity.
In assigning both of these group-based activities, I do not assume that students
have an innate ability to work in groups. Indeed, many students are schooled in
an education system that privileges individual modes of enquiry and assessment,
and which places students in competition with each other rather than encouraging
collaborative and cooperative forms of learning. Skills such as negotiation, collective
problem-solving, time management in meetings, the equitable delegation of tasks,
and the importance of giving encouragement and affirmation to others need to be
taught and learned, just as the skills required to write an essay need to be acquired
(Johnson, Johnson, & Holubec, 1984; Panitz, 1997). I devote class time to discussing
these aspects and invite students to talk about what they expect from their group
members and themselves during the project. My aim is for them to take ownership of
the group working process and to recognise that teams can be ruined by individuals
trying to do too much as well as too little. During the course of the semester, I
also briefly meet with each group to offer suggestions, ascertain their progress, and
identify if and where conflict had arisen.
Facilitating group work can be tricky, but there are sound pedagogical and
vocational reasons for encouraging students to work in teams. In theory, group
projects enhance the negotiation, teamwork and interpersonal skills of students,
which employers are keen to see and are commonly desired graduate attributes of
academic programs. In the case of my examples, they also nourish the students’ cre-
ative talents and reward those with superior oral and visual communication abilities,
Fig. 16.2 A simple concept to convey a powerful message. An audience member stares at a pho-
tograph of an over-crowded fishing vessel bringing Vietnamese refugees to Australia. The personal
space aboard the boat is reflected by the outline drawn on the floor with tape. Photograph by Paul
Sendziuk
so often subordinated in written assessment tasks (Johnson & Johnson, 1998; Slavin,
1990; James, McInnis, & Devlin, 2002). They promote the ideal of cooperation,
rather than competition, in the quest for achievement, and thus provide a model for
lifelong interaction in work, family and social environments (Panitz, 1997). Stronger
students can benefit while working with weaker students because they are given the
responsibility of explaining concepts, which requires them to clarify their thoughts
304 P. Sendziuk
50
45
No. Students (n=48)

40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
Work Load Enhanced Enabled Faciliation of
Enjoyment of Friendships Learning
Course
Museum Exhibition Group Project
More
Less
Undecided or the Same
Fig. 16.3 Student perceptions of the Museum Exhibition Group Project in comparison with com-
pleting an individual 2000-word written assignment
and methodology (Nagata & Ronkowski, 1998). In turn, group activities encourage
weaker students to seek help and receive tutoring from their peers (Johnson & John-
son, 1998; Slavin, 1990). Importantly, group work outside of class time also fosters
lifelong learning skills by requiring students to work in a self-directed and indepen-
dent fashion, each of which are key teaching and learning objectives of the modern
university education (Candy, Crebert, & O’Leary, 1994; Knapper & Cropley, 2000;
University of Melbourne 2007). In terms of group-based student presentations or
exhibitions, Hounsell (2003, p. 3) observes that tasks that involve students collabo-
rating and putting their work ‘on display’ help to ‘develop a common understanding
of what has—and can be—achieved’, and often motivate students to try harder than
if the work was seen by the tutor alone.
I conducted an evaluation of the museum exhibition project in one of my courses,
part of which asked students to compare it to the experience of (individually) writing
a 2000-word essay or source analysis. Nearly 86% of the students who completed
the questionnaire preferred the group project (6% were undecided). Responses to
further questions suggested why (see Fig. 16.3). It was not necessarily because the
group project required less work than writing a paper; in fact 29% of respondents
estimated that the exhibition project required more work, while 27% felt the time
commitments were about the same. A more significant factor was that it enhanced
their enjoyment of the course: 94% of respondents felt this way, while none felt it
diminished their enjoyment (6% were undecided). Meanwhile, 90% of students stated
that their participation in the group project enabled them to make friends more easily
in the course, while only one student disagreed with this statement (the remainder
were undecided on this issue). Additionally, 61% of respondents estimated that they
learnt more by participating in the group project than if they had written a 2000-
word paper, 33% said they learnt ‘about the same’, and only 6% of students felt that
they learnt less by participating in the group project instead of completing a written
paper (Further findings and an explanation of how the evaluation was conducted are
provided in Sendziuk (2007)).
16.4 Role-Play
The third non-textual means by which I seek to develop and test a student’s ability to
use and contest evidence and communicate arguments is role-play. This involves
devising a reality-based scenario, such as a town hall meeting or international
congress where a particular issue was debated, and inviting students to present the
position of one of the historical actors in that discussion. Students must therefore
research the actual position adopted by this person (or organisation, or state) and
find and use evidence to support this position during the role-play. In a tutorial that
examines the reasons why the Australian colonies federated in 1901, for example,
my students adopt the roles of the individual colonies and key stakeholders, such
as trade unions and Britain. They are asked to consider: what was the position of
your ‘stakeholder’ in the Federation debate? What reasons did they give in arguing
for or against Federation? What powers and responsibilities did they want the new
Commonwealth Government to have? What did they want included in the Constitu-
tion? Did your stakeholder change their position over time? And thus, importantly,
was Federation inevitable? Another role-play asks students to assume the roles of
key figures in the debate about conscription during World War One. These tutorials
are noisy affairs, and my evaluation of this exercise suggested that students devote
more time to preparing for these classes than they do for ‘normal’ tutorials, are more
motivated to do so and feel that well-conceived role-play is effective in facilitat-
ing their learning (For further discussion, see Sendziuk (2014).). Other examples of
single-session role-plays are provided by Mauch (2015) and Musgrove (2015). In
these cases, students work in teams to present the position of particular historical
actors.
The ‘Reacting to the Past’ curriculum, pioneered by historian Mark C. Carnes and
now incorporated into history programs at more than 300 tertiary education institu-
tions throughout the world, pushes the role-play concept and student-led discussion
to the limit. It enables an entire course, rather than just an individual session, to be run
as an extended ‘game’ set in the past. In these games, students adopt roles and make
decisions, informed by classic texts, in order to prevail in difficult and complicated
historical situations. These situations range from India on the eve of independence in
1945 and New York in revolution in 1775, to the ‘birth of democracy’ in Athens in 403
BC. While students are obliged to adhere to the philosophical and intellectual beliefs
of the historical figures they are assigned to play, they must devise their own means
306 P. Sendziuk
of expressing those ideas persuasively, in papers, speeches or other public presenta-

tions and pursue a course of action they think will help them win the game (Barnard
College, 2017; Carnes, 2014). In doing so, they come to understand how individual
free-will as well as broader socio-economic and environmental forces shape events.
Depending on the scenario, ‘winning’ can mean persuading other players of the cor-
rectness of one’s course of action, or simply avoiding being ‘killed’ or starving to
death. Each game is supported by learning resources that can be purchased by the
class: a student game book, which outlines the historical context, game premise, cen-
tral debates, and rules; an instructor’s manual with role descriptions; and companion
texts/primary source readings, which inform the student’s actions and words.
16.5 ‘Creative’ Writing
For those keen to continue encouraging students to write, or who perhaps feel more
comfortable marking written assignments, there are text-based alternatives to asking
students to write essays or analytical papers. One activity, recounted to Nye (2015) by
one of the Australian History teachers that she interviewed, involves students working
in groups to compose a ‘fraudulent’ primary source. During class, this source is then
slotted in amongst a pile of authentic sources and given to a different group, which
is then required to identify the false evidence. In order to do so, students must test
the context of a source’s production and look for tell-tale signs of authenticity. As
Nye notes, there are two clear stages in the task: the construction of the evidence
and the analysis for authenticity. The first requires students to have a good grasp
of the historical period in question and the people who lived in those times, so as
to create a plausible primary source. The second stage is equally challenging, as
students come to realise that all primary evidence is problematic and marked by the
individual agenda and background of its authors in some way (Nye, 2015).
A more elaborate creative writing task requires individual students (rather than
teams) to write an extended explanation of a particular historical event, or justification
of a particular action, from the perspective of a person who participated in it. In his
course on Ancient Rome at Australian Catholic University, Matthew (2015) provides
the following questions/scenarios for his students to address:
• You are the Cartheginian general Hannibal in 216 BC; should you march your
army on Rome?
• You are a member of the Roman Senate in 133 BC; should the state endorse
Tiberius Gracchus’ lex Agraria?
• You are in the war council of the slave army of Spartacus in 73 BC; should the
slave army march out of Italy to freedom or attack Rome?
• You are a member of the Roman Senate in 67 BC; should Pompey be given an
extraordinary command against the pirates in the Mediterranean as per the lex
Gabinia?
• You are a member of the Roman Senate in 49 BC; should Julius Caesar be declared
an enemy of the state?
• You are a member of the Roman Senate in 31 BC; should the state declare war on
Antony and Cleopatra?
• You are Augustus writing a letter to a friend asking for advice in 2 BC; should you
exile your daughter Julia for sexual misconduct?
In composing their responses, his students need to consider if the proposed course
of action is constitutional/conventional within the context of the Roman system, if
there were enough resources available at the time to implement the idea, the costs or
benefits (financial or otherwise) of the proposal, and its ramifications (social, political,
military or otherwise). In each case, students are required to engage with real primary
sources (that is, ancient texts) as well as modern scholarly debates concerning these
questions. As the assignment is written from the first-person perspective in the form
of a speech, a letter, or a journal entry, students have to acquire knowledge of the
historical event but then write about it in the appropriate tense and context. As
Matthew argues, the format and genre of this activity ensure that students cannot
easily plagiarise existing academic work and make the process of researching and
writing a little less daunting and more fun. Student creativity is also encouraged
and rewarded, which is not always the case with traditional essay writing. Yet like
traditional essay writing tasks, this exercise demands that students think critically
about their use of sources, consider scholarly debates and choose which existing
interpretations are most plausible.
16.6 Oral Histories and Documentary Movie Making
The final idea that I will recommend, and the only one that requires the use of tech-
nology for the students to communicate, is a video-making task. It requires students
to present a historical narrative or argument in the form of a short documentary video.
In order to make the task of creating and marking these videos more manageable,
the videos need to be in a specified length, generally no more than 3 or 4 minutes.
Students will therefore encounter the dilemma that all historians face: what to include
and exclude in order to conform to space/time restrictions and to create a coherent
narrative, thus causing them to reflect on how the form and genre of communication
can greatly affect the content and the ‘truth value’ of the history being presented. In
their course ‘Making History’, Johnny Bell, Alistair Thomson and their colleagues
at Monash University and Museum Victoria ask students to create 3-minute videos
based on oral history interviews and objects that they have either conducted and
collected themselves or found in online repositories. These are then supplemented
by still and moving images, sound effects and music that they either create or find on
the Internet. The students use a range of freely available Web-based video-making
and video-displaying tools and tutorials to create their videos, so they need only to
308 P. Sendziuk
be given access to a computer to complete their assignments (though devoting class

time to explaining how to use the various movie making programs is advisable).
In the ‘Making History’ course, the completed videos constitute the students’
final assignment, but the students also submit written papers in the form of a source
analysis, a project proposal, and an end-of-course reflection, to help them prepare
for, and reflect upon, the task. As Bell et al. (2016) explain, the first five weeks of the
course are devoted to introducing students to different types of historical sources:
photographs, objects and material culture, personal life writing such as diaries and
letters, public archive sources such as war service or migration records, and oral
history interviews. Students bring examples of each to weekly tutorials and discuss
approaches to using them, drawing upon methodological and theoretical readings.
They then produce their first assignment: a critical analysis of a primary source
that they will use in making their video. The following three weeks are devoted to
researching the topics for the students’ videos, which require primary and secondary
source reading to develop arguments and narratives. During this time, the students
prepare 300-word scripts that are shared amongst the class for feedback. The students
then complete a second assignment, a 1500-word project proposal which comprises
of a critical review of their primary sources and the relevant secondary literature,
an outline of their proposed video history including reflections on prospective dif-
ficulties, and a draft script and storyboard for their video. The final weeks of the
course are devoted to making the videos, after which time they are uploaded to a
publically accessible video-sharing website and marked by the tutors. Two weeks
later, the students answer a one-hour exam question that asks: ‘What have you learnt
about making history from your research project and your production of a digital
video history?’
Reporting on the student evaluations of the course, and quoting from the reflective
essay responses, Bell et al. (2016, p. 418) note that some of their students ‘initially
felt anxious about unconventional academic assignments, but most of them relished
the chance to do “something out of the ordinary” and “make history” rather than
writing essays about the ideas of other historians. As one student explained, “I get so
sick of writing essays & this is a great way to study in an engaging way”.’ Moreover,
‘students began to understand how history is affected by the availability and absence
of evidence, and they began to think hard about the nature and meanings of sources’
(p. 421). Students who adopted a critical perspective on the use of oral history
and its reliance on memory and storytelling came to ask: ‘Why are some moments
remembered and others forgotten? What does that pause or that emphasis really
mean? How does one person’s story complicate accepted historical understandings?’
(p. 422). Most importantly, students gained an understanding of how histories are
mediated and created by historians. As one student, who made a video about her
migrant grandfather’s experience, reflected:
Before taking this course … I failed to see a historian as anything more than a transparent
vessel through which we would gain an insight and view of the past. I failed to see all history
as subjective, not regarding historical truth, but in what is selected, and left omitted, what
is given importance to and what is disregarded. … At the beginning stages I was presented
with unconnected elements of my grandfather’s story, immigration documents, photos, a
manuscript and anecdotes told over the phone. It was my job as the historian to select what
I thought was valid in telling a story with historical meaning.
This growing awareness of the constructed nature of history was described by

another student as ‘more apparent in video than in writing’ (p. 424). This is perhaps
because the act of writing has become so ubiquitous and ingrained that its artifice goes
unrecognised. This is just one reason why this particular threshold learning objective
advocates the use of non-textual, as well as textual, forms of communication.
The teachers of ‘Making History’ remind us of another. They note that in creating
digital histories, students ‘develop a wide range of transferable skills and under-
standings (research methods, planning and organisation, script-writing, oral history
interviewing, editing in different media, digital production) which they will take to
other studies and future employment including, if they wish, employment as public
historians. These outcomes match the growing conviction in history pedagogy that
the conventional historian’s toolbox is seriously dated in the digital world’ (Bell et al.,
2016, p. 429). This assessment is supported by the observations of Turkel (2011),
Weller (2012) and Kelly (2014). Moreover, Bell et al. (p. 430) argue:
the vast popular audience for history today is increasingly inclined to satisfy its historical
curiosity through digital and online resources, and to address that audience the modern
history graduate needs to be equipped with digital skills and understandings. By occasionally
stepping out of the essay comfort zone to make history using digital technologies and diverse
ingredients, students confront assumptions about history, stretch their creative and analytical
skills and learn how to make history for an audience. This makes them better historians,
regardless of the medium they choose for historical production.
The essence of these observations might be equally applied to most of the other
activities outlined in this chapter.
Teachers often feel uncomfortable when marking non-traditional modes of dis-
course such as in-class debates, exhibitions, role-plays and videos. Some have
expressed concern about the consistency and transparency of marking such assign-
ments (Maclellan, 2004), although these concerns apply equally to traditional meth-
ods of assessment such as essay writing (Read, Frances & Robson, 2005; O’Hagan
& Wigglesworth, 2015; Bloxham, den-Outer, Hudson & Price, 2016). Falchikov
(2005) recommends a number of strategies to improve reliability, including assess-
ing important outcomes through different tasks, training the assessors (staff and/or
students), introducing the tasks by using exemplars and establishing very transpar-
ent assessment criteria. Ideally, the assessment criteria should relate to the students’
demonstration of ‘historical thinking’ skills or historical ‘content’, rather than the
‘form’ of the assignment (i.e. the students’ technical proficiently in film-making
or use of computer software, and/or their ability to act). In terms of the types of
group-based activities that I assign, and the peer assessment and self-assessment
techniques that I sometimes employ, there is an extensive literature concerned with
how to implement and assess these most effectively and fairly (for history-specific
examples, see Booth, 1996; Boud, 2001; Nicholson & Ellis, 2000). If the task requires
oral communication, then it is best to audio-record each performance, just in case
the student/s desires to challenge the mark or the performance needs to be reviewed
by an external marker.
310 P. Sendziuk
Student anxieties also need to be overcome. They must be convinced of the rele-
vance of the task and its usefulness in developing and testing the skills that students
need to acquire (Hounsell, McCune, Hounsell, & Litjens, 2008). If non-traditional
activities are employed across a department, it is useful for staff to develop uniform
rules regarding word/time limits, assessment criteria and penalties, so that students
have secure parameters to work within (Gibbs, 2006; Bloxham & Boyd, 2007). If
these are group-based activities, then teachers should also consider giving students
the option of completing an alternative individual-based assignment, which might
well entail writing a paper, especially if some students know that their personal cir-
cumstances will prevent them from being able to meet regularly and contribute to a
group. I do this, but generally less than 10% of the class choose this option.
In short, teachers need to think carefully about the way they approach student
assessment and consider encouraging the use of different forms of communication,
which might require studying the methods of others and becoming better acquainted
with the scholarship of teaching and learning. If the evaluations of the various activ-
ities outlined above are any indication, students appreciate the opportunity to com-
municate what they have learnt, and the skills they have acquired, in a variety of
forms, and we do them a disservice if we do not try to provide avenues for them to
do so.
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Chapter 17
TLO 8: Identify and Reflect Critically
on the Knowledge and Skills Developed
in the Study of History
Penny Russell
Abstract Encouraging students towards an informed yet independent stance of crit-

ical reflection requires a delicate balancing act. This chapter explores a range of
strategies, from direct teaching about questions of historical epistemology to the
creation of opportunities for students to discover and wrestle with such questions
for themselves. It argues that every stage of the tertiary history curriculum should
include stimulus for original, independent, critical and creative reflection, room for
discovery, and a safe space for trial and error, re-evaluation and growth.
17.1 Introduction
TLO 8 seeks to close the pedagogical loop: to ensure that students not only develop
knowledge and skills in their study of history, but can identify these new-found
abilities for themselves and others. More, they should be able to ‘reflect critically’
on their knowledge and skills. These are significant aspirations. At a purely pragmatic
level, it is of course useful for graduates to be able to explain the value of their skills
to others. Still more important is their capacity to review their own work, identify
room for improvement and understand how it may contribute to wider conversations:
all skills that are bound up in the idea of ‘critical reflection’. TLO 8 seeks to equip
students for ‘lifelong learning’ and ensure that they will take from their tertiary
studies a clear sense of the value of historical understanding, and a clear-sighted
capacity to identify, critique and as far as possible correct muddy thinking, shoddy
research, false connections and invented traditions, in their own work and in the
world around them.
Though TLO 8 comes last on the list of desirable learning outcomes, it does not
follow that it is a more ‘advanced’ outcome, to be embedded only in more senior units
or acquired only by more able students. Like salt in the sea, opportunities for critical
reflection are pervasively present in all history courses—whether intentionally built
P. Russell (B)
University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia
e-mail: penny.russell@sydney.edu.au

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0047-9_17
314 P. Russell
in or not. Students use such skills every time they engage with historical material,
even when they are simply choosing which course to take. Without some capacity for
critical reflection, students would be unable to interpret a primary source at anything
but face value. They would be unable to conceptualise or plan an essay or other
project, to distinguish relevant from irrelevant evidence, to compare the strengths
of different secondary sources, or to edit and improve their own work. They would
struggle to take an independent stance in relation to source material, to develop
cogent arguments of their own, or to express their opinions in tutorials or seminars.
Much of this critical reflection goes on with little reference to teachers or assessment
tasks. Though integral to learning, it is scarcely measurable as an explicit ‘learning
outcome’. Critical reflection is as likely to happen outside the classroom as within
it; it may be wayward, spontaneous, unpredictable; it should certainly be original
and individual. We, as teachers, will not be made privy to every critical reflection
prompted by our teaching—and perhaps we are all the happier for that.
Critical reflection as a pedagogical goal, however, implies a more exacting stan-
dard: conscious, thoughtful deliberation on the processes, pitfalls and possibilities of
the discipline, and of the student’s own practice therein. This type of sophisticated
self-awareness cannot be taught as one might teach the causes of war or the effects
of revolution. It cannot be instilled through guided practice, as one might advise on
research or writing skills, primary source analysis or management of research data.
Critical reflection cannot be unduly hastened and certainly cannot precede the acqui-
sition of skills and knowledge: attempts to teach critical reflection to students with
limited proficiency in historical practice are more likely to encourage slick, parroted
responses than confident independent critique. Perhaps the greatest challenge we
face as teachers is how to nurture a capacity for independent critique while at the
same time teaching students to understand and appreciate the values, principles and
favoured practice that are the hallmarks of the discipline of history. Encouraging stu-
dents towards an informed yet independent stance requires a delicate balancing act.
In this chapter, I explore the various means we might adopt to pursue this end, from
direct teaching about questions of historical epistemology to the creation of oppor-
tunities for students to discover and wrestle with such questions for themselves.
17.2 Teaching Reflection
Universities that offer a full history major will often include at least one course
where students can step aside and consider questions of historical epistemology and
historical writing separately. With titles like ‘Writing History’, ‘Historiography and
Method’, or ‘History and Theory’, such courses tend to be designed explicitly for
more advanced students—positioned as capstones to the major or made compulsory
for intending honours students, optional for others. They generally provide something
of a history of the discipline by surveying major trends in historiography and changing
debates over the nature of historical interpretation, questions about narrative and
analysis, and the problem of truth in history.
17 TLO 8: Identify and Reflect Critically … 315
The advantage of such purpose-built units is that they address head on the prob-
lem of historical knowledge. Many students, when they first enter on tertiary studies
in history, have been encouraged to think that the historian’s task is to seek out the
‘objective truth’ about the past. As consumers of history, they may hanker for author-
itative accounts and find it unsettling when historical disputes end not in resolution
but in ongoing discrepancies and uncertainties. A course designed around historical
epistemology can help them to come to grips with the reasons for such uncertainty
and equip them to deal more confidently with unresolved debates and the lack of a
single ‘right answer’.
The philosopher’s epistemological question—how do we know what we think we
know?—is particularly problematic for the historian. However we understand the
‘realness’ of the world around us, the past—as conceived of in the present—can be
‘real’ only in a very limited sense. Most historians adhere, tenuously at least, to the
principle that the past ‘really happened’—that the worlds we seek to reconstruct had
a tangible, inescapable materiality for those who lived through them. But all must
acknowledge that the documents, artefacts, buildings and other remnants that survive
give us no unmediated access to that lived, ‘real’ past. Our sources are fragmentary,
partial, incomplete and opaque and may support multiple interpretations, none of
them definitive. Our perspective is inescapably the perspective of hindsight. In our
syntheses and our quests for continuity, change, context or causality, we condense
decades and even centuries into brisk narratives of transition. We privilege, despite
our best endeavours, the makers of history over its silenced victims. Our evidence
cannot help but favour the perspective of those with power, or those with the privilege
of literacy and the leisure to write. However widely we cast our net, we cannot gather
up the full sum of human experience from any era—and even if we could, we would
still not fully grasp its multiple, shifting significance. History is partial. It is imperfect.
It is imprecise. It is contingent, subject to change with each new archival discovery,
each new question, each new interpretation, each new perspective—and each new
historian. And always the lost archives of the past—so infinitely vast compared with
the pitiful remnants that survive—cast their ghostly shadow, reminding historians
that against all the weight of the evidence they can muster, numerous alternative
stories once existed (Curthoys & Docker, 2006).
At the same time the surviving archives, partial as we know them to be, stubbornly
remind us that those elusive, imagined, insubstantial past worlds once did exist, as
inescapably present for those who lived through them as our own present is for us
today. This incessant tug of war, between the insistent materiality of the past and
the shape-shifting ethereality of ‘history’, is something that every maker of history,
within the academy and beyond, must grapple with and resolve in their own way. The
truth, we come to realise, lies neither in the archives nor in secondary interpretations.
It is permanently elusive, and yet the discipline of history lies in its fundamental
commitment, if not to truth, at least to the rejection of falsification. We may never
find the truth, but we may not knowingly invent it. Historical understanding shifts, the
methods and purposes and sources of history are always changing—but that does not
mean that historians see the past as infinitely malleable, existing only for reinvention
or exploitation in the present. As Tom Griffiths puts it, the historian’s imagination
316 P. Russell
must work in creative friction with the ‘hard edges of reality’: ‘There is a world
out there that humbles and disciplines’ (2000, p. 136). The archives themselves do
not constitute that reality, but they remind us that it did indeed exist. The traces
they contain—those ‘gnomic, refractory remnants of past sensibilities’—are what
disciplines the discipline of history (Clendinnen, 1998).
Recognition of the intrinsic uncertainties of history, for all its ‘hard edges of real-
ity’, may be built into everything we write and teach—but without specific guidance,
students may struggle to know what to make of it all. A purpose-designed course
on historical epistemology can give them the language and conceptual frameworks
they need to articulate (and perhaps modify) their own stance in relation to historical
knowledge. At the very least, they will be better able to see the ground that is shifting
beneath their feet. At best, they will learn to approach any appearance of certainty
with cautious scepticism and to notice the effects created by the seamless ordering
of knowledge. As they become more conscious of the work historians do to ‘bring
order to the past and make sense of the present’, they may learn to recognise the lim-
itations and constraints of those ordering narratives, to notice the social and national
identities they create, and the events and historical actors they exclude (Jacobs, 2010,
p. 587).
Historiographical courses generally offer, as well, a pragmatically useful intellec-
tual history of the discipline of history itself, and an understanding of the political
interests and epistemological assumptions that have prompted changing historical
interpretations. Students who have been taught about the embrace of Marxism, mate-
rialist analyses and social histories in the 1960s and 70s, and the turn to culturalist
analyses of language and discourse that followed in the 1980s and 90s, will be
equipped to recognise and better understand the bewildering differences in interpre-
tation and approach they encounter in their studies (Eley, 2005). As they map the
pluralist and evolving language of history, they may with growing confidence identify
micro-historical, global, local or transnational approaches, economic or political his-
tories, labour or feminist or postcolonial analyses. They may also come to understand
some of the social forces that lie behind such intellectual trends.
Certainly, they will become more skilled in identifying the way different historians
frame their work through their choice of questions and their selection of sources. As
Tracey Loughran argues: ‘If we cannot see that a frame exists, we cannot think
outside it. We cannot know what is neglected, and we cannot think of new questions’
(2017, p. 12). Learning how to see the invisible frames that shape historical work is
one of the most important skills of historical critique.
The downside of such courses is that they can easily become tediously descriptive
or undesirably teleological—in student perception if not in pedagogical intent. The
separation of historical epistemology from historical content can tend to crush the
interest of those students who are drawn to history by their curiosity about concrete
aspects of the past. The desire for greater historical understanding of an era, a region
or an event does not always extend to curiosity about the methodologies, frames or
pitfalls that shape or bedevil such understanding. For these students, separating the
critical, reflective skills of history from its content renders those skills less meaning-
ful, and therefore less interesting. Taught in isolation, an account of shifting historical
debates and new intellectual frames may simply contribute to a sense that history is a
waste of time—if there is no reliably ‘truthful’ history to be written of the past, then
why try to write it at all? It can be difficult, too, to avoid a tendency to understand
the present as the moment of greatest enlightenment, consigning earlier historical
trends to the condescension of posterity.
Such problems are generally avoided by placing these courses towards the end
of tertiary history studies, and by making them compulsory only for higher-level
history students. And this, I think, is where they work best. They are most useful for
the students who need, and want, a wider repertoire of concepts and vocabulary to
grapple with complexities they have already encountered through their own practice
and reading. Not everyone is all that interested. Nor, I would argue, is an interest
in historical epistemology a necessary condition for a reflective, critical stance on
history.
17.3 Reflective Research
How, then, do we encourage reflection on disciplinary skills in students from the

outset of their tertiary studies, and in those who may only ever take one or two
units of history in the course of their degrees? Critical reflection, I would argue,
should be (and often is) an implicit element in every aspect of the history curriculum.
Our responsibility as teachers is to facilitate and encourage, even when we cannot
explicitly assess it as a learning outcome.
Perhaps the most effective way to encourage reflective awareness of the skills of
the discipline is to require students to practise those skills for themselves. Independent
research is often the most challenging, but also the most rewarding and pleasurable
of the assessment tasks students’ encounter. And they tend to rise to the occasion,
producing work of a higher standard than their more conventional essays. Devising
a project that interests them, they have all the more incentive to gather as much
evidence as they can, interpret it judiciously and communicate it effectively. Along
the way this independent historical research, more than any other exercise, confronts
students with the fractured processes, multiple skills and complex motivations that
underpin apparently seamless scholarly work.
Only when ‘doing history’ themselves do students experience the inherent con-
straints of historical research: that every positive choice is also a negative choice, that
each opportunity taken is an opportunity missed. When students are first asked to
devise a research project for themselves, their most common tendency is to go after
a ‘big’ question, sometimes unmanageably big. They want to uncover significant
truths and create authoritative, overarching narratives. To channel such grand ambi-
tions into a research project that can be accomplished in the time and space available
to them is, quite frankly, hard. As they struggle to reconcile the desirable with the
achievable, they have to pose narrower questions and choose a finite, accessible set
of sources out of the vast array theoretically available. If those sources do not con-
tain the evidence they hoped to find, then they face new choices: to search further,
318 P. Russell
with the risk that the evidence they imagined may prove permanently elusive, or to
adjust their question to one that can be answered from the sources they have. Once
the question and the sources are settled upon, there are still difficult decisions to be
made, each requiring fine judgement. How much evidence is ‘enough’? How much
textual or contextual detail about each source do they need to include in the essay?
Which out of three or more telling quotations should they use to support a single
contention? What should they do with the annoying piece of evidence that seems to
undercut the argument they wish to make?
The gap that so often seems to lie between the scale of the important question
and the scale of the achievable response forces reflection—sometimes introspec-
tive, sometimes externally directed and overtly critical—on the limits of historical
enquiry, the constraints of the discipline, the purpose of research and the possibility
of historical understanding. The process, often painful, of placing boundaries around
ambitious projects makes students acutely aware of the significance of framing, both
its practical necessity and its often unacknowledged implications. The difficulty of
representing the full flavour of a rich primary source within the limits of a brief
undergraduate essay should make them uncomfortably aware of the selectivity of the
evidence historians present even in the most evidence-rich works of history. Forced
to make choices themselves, they become more aware of the significance of choices
made by others. Such awareness is vital to the art of critical reading.
Sometimes, of course, the learning process goes the other way. Students may
begin with questions that are so narrow, so purpose-driven, that they become self-
fulfilling. Their research may initially amount to little more than snippets of primary
sources, gathered in support a preconceived theme and arranged together for effect.
A student who goes looking for evidence of the repressive discourse of domesticity
in women’s magazines in the 1950s, for example, will find numerous instances of
demeaning stereotypes scattered through advertisements, gossip columns, fashion
displays, letters, opinion pieces, cartoons and short stories. Not much higher-level
reflection is needed to arrange these into an essay that will illustrate the repressive
discourse of domesticity in women’s magazines. But the accumulation of example is
not proof, unless contra evidence has had due consideration. And illustration is not
analysis. To arrive at a persuasive, analytic account of what was going on in such
magazines, the student would need to ask more probing, rigorous, and open-ended
questions, questions that do not already assume the answer. These new questions
will demand more systematic research methods. For example, they might ask what
proportion of a magazine was devoted to such stereotyped representations of domes-
ticity, relative to other content. By taking note of the content, tone and layout of
articles not immediately relevant to the domesticity question, they could build a pic-
ture of surrounding context in the magazine, making their critical appraisal of that
central question so much more convincing.
Soon our questing, self-reflective student may find a narrow focus on the mag-
azine’s content again too limiting and may seek more information on the external
events mentioned in its columns, the different perspectives taken by other periodi-
cals of the time, the circulation of the magazine, the publishing practices of the era.
Recognising the limits of what they can accomplish through primary sources alone,
they will begin to read secondary sources in a new way: not as absolute authorities
on all aspects of their subject matter, but as contributors to an ongoing conversation
in which the student’s own research can now form a meaningful part. Searching for
more complex arguments about their own material, they may begin to weigh the value
of different contributions to the historiography, to feel the authority of the researcher
in assessing the validity of a conceptual frame.
Whether they start big and narrow down or start small and widen out, students learn
the importance of posing questions, the way these questions shape and determine the
final work, and the importance of developing and refining their question in dialogue
with their primary and secondary sources. As they select and interpret evidence,
and craft the particular combination of narrative and argument that becomes the
final essay, they will be increasingly aware of what they have chosen to leave out,
the implications of those omissions, and the justifications for them. Engaging in
historical practice—however flawed the execution may be—will thus build their
awareness of the pitfalls as well as the possibilities of historical scholarship.
Practice leads to reflection in other ways too. By doing history themselves, stu-
dents learn to recognise and appreciate the difficulty of the task, and thus to arrive
at more informed critical judgements about how it is approached by other scholars.
When from practical experience they understand how histories are framed, and how
the framing affects the outcome, they will learn to look for frames that have not been
made explicit, to identify questions that have silently shaped the use of evidence.
Indeed, simply knowing when they take shortcuts or fudge evidence themselves may
make them less trustful, and more discriminating, in appraising the work of others.
To a large extent, such new layers of understanding and critique will evolve natu-
rally from the project itself. This is not to suggest that teachers should pursue a totally
hands-off strategy or that they have no role to play in such outcomes. An independent
research project needs skilful design and oversight if students are not to be set up
for failure. We cannot leave them to flounder about until they work things out for
themselves—if only because the constraints of a single semester do not allow time
for even the most productive floundering. But at the same time, we should refrain
from hedging every project about with too many limits and prescriptions. Students
need room to make their own mistakes and, in solving them, define their own goals.
One possible safeguard is to build in a secondary assessment, in which they may
reflect on what worked and what did not in an independent project, and what they
would do differently another time. But for the most part, we must accept that much of
the process of trial and error, discovery and compromise, will inevitably take place
out of our sight—and be none the less valuable for that.
17.4 Reflective Reading
The experience of doing history does not, on its own, lead inevitably to the flowering
of new levels of insight, critique and authority—though surprisingly often it can. Stu-
dents of history also need models of excellent practice, including of critical reflection,
320 P. Russell
to see how it can inform research, sharpen analysis, and make historical narrative
more interesting. Ideally, they will find some of those models in lectures—but they
should also, more importantly, find it in their reading. When students encounter out-
standing examples of critical, engaged scholarship in their fields of study, they can
see for themselves that such historians communicate more to their readers, making
explicit not only their answers, but their questions and guiding assumptions. In any
historical field, examples may be found of scholars who recognise, and work with,
the uncertainty of historical knowledge, who acknowledge with due humility the
ultimate unknowability and contested character of the past, who are frank about the
limitations of their sources and their strategies in using them. In other words, stu-
dents should encounter historical scholarship that surpasses anything they can hope
to emulate, while showing them what is possible. In creating reading lists we should
seek out examples of subtle, supple prose that may require several readings before
its context can be assimilated, its insights appreciated, or its arguments understood.
Students should be reading history that keeps their minds on the stretch—that may
dazzle, or even baffle, before it enlightens. Through exposure to the best historical
minds, they should learn to read history with an appreciative, engaged, confident and
critical awareness.
The space in which students can best identify and critically reflect on the skills of
history is the space between what they are able to do for themselves, and what they
come to perceive as possible. They will become aware of deficiencies or weaknesses
in their own knowledge and skills through trial and error in their own practice—but
only if at the same time, they become acquainted with the work of outstanding
historians doing history exceptionally well.
Perhaps I am making an argument here for humility as a lifelong tool for learning.
Students certainly should build confidence through the independent exercise of new
skills; they should learn to recognise and appreciate, and to the best of their ability
adhere to, best practice in historical scholarship. But complacency is not the aim here.
Students should not come out of a history major thinking they know everything, but
should have a realistic understanding of the limits of what they have achieved. More
importantly, they need the confidence to say that—on any given topic—they do not
yet have the answers, or that they do not yet even understand the question. Openness
to further discovery is the most useful skill of all.
17.5 Reflective Writing
Critical reflection need not be taught directly, or assessed explicitly, in order to secure
its place in historical pedagogy. But it will have a place in assessment nevertheless. A
student’s capacity to reflect on what they have learnt, and in doing so extend or even
transcend it, is arguably that elusive ‘HD’ quality that we recognise in their essays
even while we find it difficult to explain what it is: the ‘wow’ factor, the ‘extra spark’
that elicits admiration and even awe. It shapes that indefinable quality that we reward,
but cannot prescribe—that we reward precisely because it exceeds prescription.
In addition to introducing students to epistemological debates and inspirational

examples of good historical scholarship, we can offer direct guidance on how to write
history well. History, we might suggest, is positioned not only along a continuum of
reality and invention but also—and relatedly—along a continuum between the empir-
ical sciences and the literary humanities. History belongs in the social sciences, with
its requirements for evidence-based argument, reasoning and careful interpretation
of data. But it also belongs within the humanities. It is a creative, narrative disci-
pline, demanding imagination as well as critical method. The literary qualities of
historical writing can generate identification, sympathy, attachment, curiosity, awe,
nostalgia, anger. History can elicit sentimental or emotional responses as much as it
may persuade or convince through argument. Navigating the competing demands of
evidence and narrative is something everything historian will do differently. But is
something that every historian must do (Curthoys & McGrath, 2009; Griffiths, 2000;
Pyne, 2009).
Finding the balance between telling a story and arguing a case is complicated
further by the multiplicity of genres and approaches available to historians. The
very scale of the story to be told can vary enormously—at the extremes of ‘big his-
tory’ and ‘micro-history’, the story might span millions of years or extract a book’s
worth of meaning from a single moment. Some historians thrive on broad, schematic
overviews of events; they concentrate on narratives of change and causation; they
identify and focus their attention on broad structures, the interplay of states and
nations, patterns of movement, development, growth, change or continuity across a
long time scale and a global canvas. Their narratives may be progressive or apocalyp-
tic; teleological or open-ended; national, comparative, transnational, international or
global; speculative or definitive. But they are characterised by attention to the ‘big
picture’, the identification of broad trends, movements or structures rather than inti-
mate revelation of particular moments. Other historians (or even the same historian,
at a different moment) may be more inclined to dwell on particularity, on the con-
tingent play of circumstances in a single event, on the lived experience of epochal
moments, on the ordinary, the banal, the intimate, the individual. They may seek to
recover a ‘world we have lost’, to describe the contours of everyday life in historical
circumstances now almost forgotten, almost unfathomable. In place of overview and
explanation, they insert recovery, empathy, an almost ethnographic reconstruction of
how people lived, how they experienced and understood their lives.
Every time students think about what they want to achieve with an essay, make
fine-tuned judgements about what they need to communicate and choose the words
that will be vehicles for the thought, they are exercising skills of critical reflection.
Our most important role here is to press for greater precision of language, favouring
clarity over academic jargon, original thought over cliché—and always encouraging
students to recognise the gap between the thought in their head and its imperfect
expression on the page. A capacity for reflective thinking must come from within,
and to this extent cannot be taught. But all students can learn to use writing as a
tool for thought. Essays matter, not because they are the only way—or even the best
way—to present historical research in all circumstances, but because they are the
most precise and exacting literary genre available to us. ‘Reading maketh a full man,
322 P. Russell
conference a ready man, and writing an exact man’, wrote Francis Bacon—and if
we can forgive the gender-exclusive language, it has to be said that he was on to
something. We need students to write essays so we can detect (and encourage them
to detect for themselves) the sloppy connections, the evasions and omissions and
assumptions, the lazy use of jargon and the incoherency of conjunctions, that betray
a want of sufficient thought.
17.6 Reflective Teaching, Reflective Learning
For a few years when my daughter was small, she went every Saturday to what
she called ‘circus class’. There she learnt how to climb up a silk, hang from a
trapeze and perform complex manoeuvres with evocative names like ‘bird’s nest’,
‘monkey roll’ and ‘Giselle’. Each new skill was acquired after weeks of practice,
sometimes an element of frustration—but always in the end came the proud glow
of accomplishment. All the while, she was unconsciously building other strengths
of which she was less conscious: impressive power in the upper body, improved
balance, remarkable flexibility and very calloused little palms.
One year when the Cirque du Soleil was in town the trapeze students were offered
discounted tickets, and I took my daughter along. It was a magical and memorable
evening for both of us, a dazzling display of power and skill. My most enduring
memory is of my daughter’s reaction to the trapeze artists who disported themselves
so far above us, fearlessly winding themselves up in the silk before tumbling down at
dizzying speed, or twirling with casual ease and absolute grace on a trapeze suspended
high in the roof of the marquee. Even I, after all those Saturdays, was able to recognise
a number of basic, familiar moves, here transformed into something magical. My
daughter had a more immediate, visceral understanding of the strength, training and
discipline that made those moves as natural as breathing to the artists above us. Seeing
the skills she had developed so painfully, week by week, transformed into a spectacle
that could entrance the world was inspiring, if a little humbling. But it was also
affirming—because she watched that performance with an informed, empathetic and
critical appreciation that extended far beyond my own. Her experiential knowledge
of process and effort, pitfalls and mistakes gave her a more authoritative, critical
awareness of the skills she saw displayed. In turn, seeing that masterful performance
gave her a deeper insight into what could be done with the skills she had herself
attained.
History is not a trapeze act, but there are parallels here nonetheless. The elusive
goal of ‘critical reflection’ is not the final outcome of learning but a continual possi-
bility, proceeding in fits and starts and at unpredictable moments, located somewhere
in the space between individual, continually improving practice and enjoyment of the
skilled performance of others. Critical reflection, in thickening layers of complexity,
will naturally form a part of any student’s developing historical awareness.
It won’t be achieved simply by telling our students how, or what, to think about
historical epistemology. But this does not mean that tertiary teaching has no role
to play in the acquisition of reflective skills. While critical reflection may rarely
be imparted by direct instruction, it can and should be encouraged in the design of
assessments, the construction of reading guides, the provision of feedback and the
very atmosphere of a tutorial or seminar. Courses on historiography can be wonder-
fully clarifying, even transformative, when they come at the right moment. Perhaps
most importantly, the challenge for teachers is to recognise, nurture, guide, robustly
critique—but always respect—the exercise of independent thought. Every course
and every teacher has a role to play in furnishing stimulus for original, independent,
critical and creative reflection, room for discovery, and a safe space for trial and error,
re-evaluation and growth. In tutorials, workshops, discussion groups and assessment
projects, we need to provide safe spaces for uncertainty, reflection and outright mis-
takes. We should recognise the exercise of original, critical thinking in our students’
work—even if it takes them in directions we may not have anticipated and may not
even approve. We should watch for the moments when they confidently offer original
interpretations, when they thoughtfully critique the work of scholars they have read,
when they show an appreciation of the skills of scholarship, when they creatively and
perceptively apply content or questions encountered in one context to their analysis
of a different issue. Such bold essays into originality deserve reward: not just the
reward of higher grades, but the more meaningful reward of honest, appreciative
response and feedback.
Critical reflection is not a capstone skill but a fundamental element of learning. It is
impossible, therefore, to detach it from all other measures of quality and achievement
in the skills and content of the discipline. It is difficult to teach directly, but it is—or
should be—present in everything we teach.
References
Clendinnen, I. (1998). Fellow sufferers: History and imagination. Australian Humanities Review,
1997–98, Retrieved February 3, 2017 from http://www.lib.latrobe.edu.au/AHR.
Curthoys, A., & Docker, J. (2006). Is history fiction?. Sydney: UNSW Press.
Curthoys, A., & McGrath, A. (2009). How to write history that people want to read. Sydney: UNSW
Press.
Eley, G. (2005). A crooked line: From cultural history to the history of society. Michigan: University
of Michigan Press.
Griffiths, T. (2000). Essaying the truth. Meanjin, 59(1), 128–144.
Griffiths, T. (2016). The art of time travel: Historians and their craft. Melbourne: Black Inc.
Jacobs, M. D. (2010). Getting out of a rut: Decolonizing western women’s history. Pacific Historical
Review, 79(4), November 2010, pp. 585–604. doi: phr.2010.79.4.585.
Loughran, T. (2017). A practical guide to studying history. London: Bloomsbury Publishing.
Pyne, S. (2009). Voice & vision: A guide to writing history and other serious non-fiction. Cambridge,
Index
A Authority, 3, 12, 133, 157, 160, 178, 213, 235,

After Standards, 2, 6, 13, 136–139, 141, 145, 251, 253, 254, 258, 262, 283, 297, 319
218
Agency, 10, 14, 35, 48, 52, 67, 131, 132, 190, B
192, 244, 269, 270, 275 Bachelor of Ancient History, 146
American Historical Association (AHA), 114, Bachelor of Arts, 27, 60, 137, 143–145, 147,
135, 147, 162, 163, 176 222
Argument, 7, 11, 13, 44, 63, 92, 115, 119, 124, Bachelor of Historical Inquiry and Practice, 27,
125, 141, 145, 148, 207, 223, 224, 238, 146
253, 257, 260–262, 274, 282, 285, 286, Barnett, Ron, 4, 24, 47, 51, 61, 187, 189, 193,
289, 293, 294, 297–299, 302, 307, 253
318–321 Belonging, 49, 65, 68, 282
Arvanitakis, James, 94 Bergen Community College, 165, 173, 175
Assessment, 3, 4, 9, 33, 34, 45, 51, 59, 64, 67, Big History, 32, 35, 178, 321
68, 92, 96–98, 108, 114, 115, 124–127, Bologna, 9, 156–159, 163–165, 173, 177, 178
133, 138, 161–164, 177–179, 200, 207, Booth, Alan, 8, 113, 135, 186, 219
217–219, 221, 223, 224, 226, 227, 229, Boyer, E. L., 7, 141
241, 251, 257, 272, 282, 285, 287, 288, Bradley Review, 5
294, 297, 299, 300, 302, 303, 309, 310, Butler, Judith, 188, 190
314, 317, 319, 320, 323
Asynchronous online discussion, 99, 102, 103 C
Audio, 13, 63, 95, 297, 298, 302, 309 Capstone assessment, 118, 138, 140, 144, 176,
Australian Historical Association (AHA), 4, 6, 323
136, 148, 162, 163, 233 Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of
Australian History, 9, 12, 26, 28–30, 35, 137, Teaching, 7
138, 141, 146, 147, 219, 227–229, 283, Carr, E.H., 218, 239
294, 306 Carrick Institute, 7
Australian Learning and Teaching Council Changing representations of the past, 13, 281,
(ALTC), 2, 4–7, 134–136, 192, 297 285, 288
Australian Quality Framework (AQF), 114, Charles Darwin University, 144, 145
117, 118, 121, 122, 124, 126, 135, 137 Citizenship, 162, 205, 237, 244, 257, 282

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0047-9
326 Index
Citizenship education, 204 Elton, Geoffrey, 24, 28

Classroom activity, 208, 209, 211, 238, 240, Emotion, 2, 64
243, 245, 271 Empiricism, 47, 118
Collaborative learning, 68, 96 Enabling leadership, 185, 186, 189, 191, 192
Compliance, 6, 9, 45, 131, 132, 134–136, Enthusiasm, 8, 36, 46, 48–53, 55, 92, 96, 107,
138–143, 145–148, 188–191 108, 219
Conceptual approaches, 11, 143, 217–223, Entrepreneurial university, 193
226, 228–230 Essay, 13, 97, 124, 207, 219, 221, 223,
Content 225–229, 241, 257, 258, 262, 287, 288,
content selection, 9, 113, 114, 200, 203, 297–300, 302, 304, 307–309, 314, 318,
205, 214 319, 321
Conversation map, 63 Ethics, 273
Coverage, 28, 30, 31, 116, 118–120, 127, 200, Eurocentric history, 203
203, 204, 222, 282–286, 288 European Higher Education Area (EHEA),
Creative writing, 306 155–158, 161, 164, 165, 178, 179
Creativity, 10, 11, 33, 36, 48, 53, 67, 143, 193, European History, 29, 146, 203, 221
257, 299, 307 European Union, 44, 157, 251, 256
Critical thinking, 47, 51, 121, 221, 222, 251, Evaluation, 7, 8, 64, 69, 107, 136, 176, 192,
258, 323 304, 305, 313, 323
Cropley, Arthur and David, 10 Evidence, 6, 8, 9, 13, 23, 26, 27, 31, 33–36, 44,
Cultural narratives, 210 50, 63, 69, 90, 92, 95, 107, 118–121,
Curriculum 123–126, 138, 145, 147, 164–166, 173,
curriculum development, 8, 70, 71 175, 177, 207, 213, 214, 220–223, 226,
curriculum renewal, 2, 136 228, 229, 234, 251, 253, 254, 257, 258,
Curthoys, Ann, 221, 315, 321 260, 263, 270, 271, 273, 274, 281–289,
291–294, 297, 298, 300–302, 305, 306,
D 308, 314, 315, 317–319, 321
Davison, Graeme, 12 Excellence and standards, 5, 131, 132, 134
Deans of Arts, Social Science and Humanities Exhibition, 126, 301, 302, 304
(DASSH), 134, 148
Deans of Arts, Social Science, and Humanities F
(DASSH), 143 Face-to-face, 90–92, 94, 107
Debates, 12, 14, 97, 116, 200, 202, 219, Facebook, 298
226–228, 270, 284, 287, 292, 293, 298, Feedback, 35, 68, 69, 97, 98, 104, 126, 146,
306, 307, 309, 314, 315, 317, 321 162, 207, 218, 224, 275, 278, 288, 300,
Decoding the Disciplines, 6, 8, 59, 62, 63, 69, 308, 323
71, 207 Feminist history, 118, 221, 223, 225, 226, 229,
Delivery, 45, 55, 89, 90, 94, 96, 108, 114, 219 316
Demonstration discipline, 6 Fieldwork surveys, 125
Dening, Greg, 11 Final year, 4, 6, 35, 61, 70, 71, 120, 121, 123
Department of Education Employment and First year, 6, 8, 27, 61–65, 67, 68, 70, 71, 91,
Workplace Relations (DEEWR), 5 119, 120, 123, 131, 139–141, 201, 219,
Detectives, 119 220, 222–224, 271, 273
Difficult content, 199, 206 First year pedagogy, 6, 8, 59, 62, 70
Digital First-in-family, 94
delivery, 55, 89, 90, 94, 108, 133, 219 Fitness for purpose, 5
digital technology, 95 Flipped classroom, 91, 92, 227
digitisation, 2, 291 Foucault, 225, 226, 257
Distributed leadership, 189–192 Frame-of-reference knowledge, 199
Dot points, 15, 300 Framework for first year curriculum and
pedagogy design, 65
E Fraudulent evidence, 306
Early Modern history, 32, 200 Funding, 7, 26, 44, 89, 158, 160, 191, 192, 241
Index 327
G In-class written assignments, 96

Global History, 32, 35, 203, 219, 222, 223 Indigenous History, 285
Globalisation, 30, 94, 208, 209, 222, 223, 285 Indigenous Studies, 144, 273
Good Practice Guide, 59, 70, 72–84
Griffiths, Tom, 11, 315 J
Group work, 34, 90, 91, 96, 98, 123, 124, 207, James Cook University, 143, 144
287, 302, 304
K
H Kift, Sally, 59, 64
Hancock, Keith, 14, 35
Hay, Iain, 5 L
Herodotus, 258, 259, 264 Large group discussion, 99, 105
Hidden curriculum, 43 Leadership, 5, 9, 55, 137, 185–193
Higher Education Panel, 132, 136 Learning and Teaching Academic Standards
Higher Education Quality Council, 26 (LTAS), 134–136, 138
Higher Education Standards Framework, 131 Learning goals, 155, 160–162
Historians, 1–6, 8, 10–15, 24, 25, 28, 30, 33, Lectures, 9, 50, 89–92, 94, 95, 97, 108, 118,
35, 36, 43–48, 50–52, 55, 59, 62, 64, 71, 203, 206, 213, 218, 242, 286–289, 291,
90, 94, 113, 116, 118, 121, 123, 124, 298, 320
127, 134, 139–142, 144, 145, 147, 155, Love, 43, 47–51, 53, 54
156, 162, 165, 166, 173, 175, 176, 180,
185–187, 189, 191–193, 201, 202, 206, M
214, 218–226, 233–247, 251, 252, Major, 4–6, 43, 44, 47, 50, 55, 60, 63, 116,
257–263, 270–279, 281, 283–285, 289, 117, 119, 120, 124, 131, 135–148, 161,
290, 292–294, 298, 307–309, 315, 316, 163, 175, 205, 208, 221, 223, 281, 282,
318, 320, 321 290, 314, 320
Historical skills, 9, 10, 34, 114, 118, 177 Managerialism, 15, 36, 59, 132, 191
Historical thinking, 1, 3, 4, 11, 13, 27, 35, 52, Marxism, 316
62, 69, 70, 117, 124, 175, 176, 199, 219, Media, 3, 30, 89, 146, 220, 228, 260, 290, 298,
230, 272, 275, 309 309
Historical Thinking in Higher Education, 2, 4, Memorial, 277
6, 11, 26, 187, 190 Memory studies, 14, 233–235, 284
History Methodology, 6, 23, 28, 34, 69, 144, 304
laboratory, 178, 292, 293 Minute paper, 95
major, 4–6, 43, 44, 50, 60, 63, 117, 120, Movie making, 308
131, 132, 135–138, 140–142, 161, 163, Museum, 275, 301, 304, 307
175, 205, 221, 282, 314 Museum-style exhibitions, 97
public discourse, 3, 245
theory, 3, 6, 26–28, 61, 94, 117, 221, 261, N
277, 283, 285, 314 Narrative, 3, 9, 13, 14, 30, 53, 55, 179,
History Benchmark Statement, 33, 44 199, 203, 221, 236, 253, 257, 260,
History extension course NSW, 64, 139, 146 261, 270, 283, 297, 298, 307, 314,
History Learning Project, 121, 122, 173, 176 319–321
Honours benchmark statement for History, 135 National history, 3, 159, 166, 221, 236
Hughes-Warrington, Marnie, 4 Nationalism, 223, 235, 236, 239
Humboldt University, 159, 177, 178 New Left, 281, 283–285, 287
Nordic history, 204
I
Identity, 2, 14, 24, 43, 46, 47, 64, 179, 188, O
234–237, 257 Office for Learning and Teaching (OLT), 2, 6,
Imagination, 9, 10, 12, 14, 189, 192, 236, 253, 7, 136, 192
263, 273, 315, 321 Online discussions, 13, 60, 61, 97–99, 101,
Implementation, 6, 8, 9, 13, 15, 59–61, 114, 103–105, 107, 124, 218, 220, 223, 228,
157, 177–179, 189, 191, 200, 205, 270 278, 287
328 Index
Oral S
evidence, 120, 282 Sage on the stage, 89, 90, 92, 106
history, 2, 84, 220, 271 Scholarship, 2, 7, 13, 25, 26, 36, 47, 53–55, 98, 113,
presentation, 13, 63, 90, 209, 287, 297, 122, 163, 188, 218, 226, 234, 252, 253,
302, 307–309 281–289, 291–294, 310, 319–321, 323
Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL),
P 1, 4, 7, 8, 59–61, 141, 186–192
Paintings, 212, 281, 282, 286 Scholarship reconsidered, 7
Passion, 8, 36, 43, 46–55, 186, 285, 298, 300 Scott, Joan, 132, 136
Periodization, 221 Secondary sources, 119, 121, 166, 168, 222,
Plagiarism, 270 238, 239, 244, 247, 260, 262, 271, 287,
Podcast, 94 314, 319
Polling, 95, 96 Seixas, Peter, 33, 199
Polling tools, 291 Seminars, 50, 116, 118, 124, 206, 207, 211,
Postgraduate, 4, 28, 33, 35, 53, 147, 148, 275 213, 251, 314
Posthuman, 2 Shulman, Lee, 7, 177
Powerpoint, 15, 95, 298 Signature pedagogy, 2, 131, 139
Primary document, 238, 287 Skills, 10, 13, 25, 27, 28, 34, 44, 46, 51, 52, 54,
Progression, 4, 9, 23, 30, 34, 35, 45, 113–115, 63–65, 67–70, 90, 91, 97, 113, 114,
117, 120–127, 137, 155, 175–177, 187, 116, 118–123, 125, 126, 135, 138–140,
188, 199, 218 143, 145, 174, 192, 210, 222, 223, 238,
257, 271, 273–276, 278, 279, 288, 292,
Q 299, 300, 302, 304, 309, 310, 313, 314,
Qualification framework, 159 316, 317, 320–323
Quality assurance, 5, 25, 34, 36, 44, 132, 140, Small group discussion, 99, 101
158, 159, 178, 179 Social history, 220, 226, 229, 234, 239
Quality Assurance Agency, 26, 114, 135, 251 Source, 11, 12, 99, 119, 120, 123–125, 165,
166, 173, 203, 210–212, 223–225, 251,
R 253, 255, 262, 263, 273, 277, 292, 298,
Reacting to the past, 305 301, 304, 306, 308, 314, 318
Reflection South, 27, 30, 119, 138, 140, 211, 301
reflective logs, 125 Southern Cross University, 143, 144
reflective practice, 6, 7, 185, 269, 276 Standardisation
Reformation, 206 suffocates experimentation, 45
Regulation, 1, 3, 5, 36, 133, 186, 188, 191–193 Standards Framework, 131, 138, 140, 142
Renewing first year curricula, 6, 59–84 Stearns, Peter, 33, 96
Research, 2–4, 6, 7, 11, 12, 23, 25–27, 33–36, Student engagement, 9, 52, 64, 69, 94, 95
44, 47–50, 53, 54, 60, 65, 94–97, 99, Swedish History, 203, 205
101, 104, 107, 116, 119–123, 126, 127,
132, 139, 141, 147, 148, 160, 163, 165, T
173, 176, 178, 179, 188, 189, 192, 193, Teaching Quality Assessment Scheme, 26
200–203, 205, 212–214, 219, 221, 223, Teamwork, 96, 190
225, 227–230, 239, 241, 242, 251–255, Tertiary Education Quality Standards agency
257–263, 269–276, 278, 282–284, 287, (TEQSA), 5, 132–134, 136, 142
288, 292, 293, 298, 300, 301, 305, 308, Think, pair, share, 95
309, 313, 314, 317–321 Thompson, E. P., 89
Reynolds, Henry, 12, 270 Threshold Learning Outcomes (TLOs), 1, 4–6,
Roe, Jill, 4 8–10, 13, 15, 25, 33, 44, 59–61, 63–65,
Role of historians, 14 70, 71, 134–136, 138, 139, 141,
Role-play, 13, 97–101, 103–105, 107, 212, 143–145, 148, 158, 159, 163–166, 173,
300, 305 175–179, 217, 218, 233
Index 329
Thucydides, 258, 259 University of Warsaw, 173

Timmins, Geoff
tools, 3, 15, 33, 35, 94, 119, 133, 208, 220, V
256, 282 Video, 13, 95, 272, 298, 307–309
Tradition, 3, 11, 13, 27, 226, 255 Video-making, 307
Transnational history, 30, 236
Tuning, 9, 34, 44, 114, 135, 143, 147, 148, W
156, 158, 162–164, 176, 178, 251, 256 White, Hayden, 14, 257, 261
Tutorial, 9, 68, 89, 90, 97–100, 102–108, 218, Wineburg, Sam, 33, 62, 173
223, 224, 226, 229, 275, 286, 287, University of wollongong, 144
289–293, 301, 302, 305, 323 Women’s history, 24, 30, 33, 285
Tweets, 298 World War II, 31, 124, 228, 233, 234, 239,
240, 242, 244, 246, 247
U
University of Bergen, 165, 173, 175 Y
University of Missouri at Kansas City, 176 YouTube, 298
University of New England, 27, 146, 272, 301

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Jennifer Clark · Adele Nye Editors

Teaching the Discipline

ISBN 978-981-13-0046-2 ISBN 978-981-13-0047-9 (eBook)

© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2018

Printed on acid-free paper

Into the Fray

History is not a discipline of agreement. Understandings of the past are advanced,

exercise in reforming or recasting a history curriculum. My comment refers to those

Australia Marnie Hughes-Warrington

1 The Three Contexts of Writing About History Teaching . . . . . . . . 1

Part I Issues in Contemporary History Pedagogy in a Standards

9 Leadership: Enabling Leadership in the Teaching and Learning

Part II Unpacking the Threshold Learning Outcomes

Pamela Allen University of Tasmania, Hobart, Australia

Geoff Timmins University of Central Lancashire, Preston, UK

Jennifer Clark and Adele Nye

© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2018 1

1.2 Context One: The Expanding Discipline

The expansion of the discipline is virtually a taken-for-granted assumption; it is the

1.3 Context Two: Discipline Standards: The Threshold

Threshold Learning Outcomes

1.4 Context Three: The Scholarship of Teaching

1.5 Part One

In Chap. 5, Sendzuik and Buchanan offer a very practical evidence-based critique

1.6 Part Two

Section Two specifically unpacks the Australian Threshold Learning Outcomes.

TLO 2—Demonstrate an understanding of a variety of conceptual approaches to

There is no immediate relief from the current regulatory fashion. Managerialism is

Program. Retrieved December 18, 2013 from http://fyhe.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/

Marcus Collins and Adele Nye

Abstract In this chapter we offer a snapshot of undergraduate history teaching in

© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2018 23

What do we teach, why do we teach it and when do we alter our practices? A

as is their example of computers as introducing new techniques in research and teach-

Despite these differences, an instructive comparison between British and Australian

Table 2.1 History units by type in Britain, 2016

2.4 History Units Categorised by Type

Table 2.2 History units by type in Australia, 2008 and 2016

2.5 History Units Categorised by Place

In terms of geographical scope, the ‘revolution’ discerned by Harrison during the

Table 2.3 Place-specific history units by region in Britain, 2016

2.6 History Units by Period

Stronger evidence exists in support of Harrison’s contention that history degrees

Table 2.5 Time-specific history units by period in Britain, 2016

2.7 The Structure of History Degrees

‘The fragmentation of “history” as a monolithic subject of study’ formed the last

national quality assurance framework a decade later, it was at pains to emphasise

from breadth to depth, from tutelage to independence, from compulsion to choice

A snapshot of history teaching in 2016 in two nations shows the discipline to be a

University of Western Australia*

© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2018 43

What follows is therefore a discussion, an argument and an appeal. It draws for

3.2 The Standards Agenda, Passion and the Emotions

3.3 The Will to Teach: Love of the Subject, Research

This love, expressed in words such as ‘excitement’, ‘zeal’, ‘energy’, ‘discovery’

3.4 Passion and the Will to Learn (and Go on Learning)

These perceptions of the learning situation are fundamental to how students

3.5 Passion, Teaching Effectiveness and History Teaching

3.6 Conclusion: Placing Passion in History Teaching

Today, passion has become an increasingly mainstream topic in scholarly conversa-

Neumann, A. (2006). Professing passion: Emotion in the scholarship of professors at research

Abstract Stakeholder ownership and implementation are crucial when applying

© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2018 59

Discipline-based Threshold Learning Outcomes, and associated explicit Learning