“They are aware of how to find and consume media, but not always of how to analyze it.”
The theme of Unit Two is incorporating new media into our classrooms. When I was in high school, I barely knew what a primary source was. I only knew that there was one type of source that mattered when it came to learning, and that was primary sources. This quote speaks to that. Students know how to find things and take that information in, but they do not know what to do with it from that point forward. There have been cases where we’d look at a political cartoon, the one pictured to the left for an example, but when asked to analyze it, there was silence among the crowd. We wouldn’t know the implications this meant for people of color during the Gilded Age with Social Darwinism. This unit is about helping students figure out how to analyze documents, political cartoons, and sources and ask important questions rather than have the information go in one ear and out of the other.
“Students reported that the guided use of primary source materials promoted critical evaluation not just of historical, but also contemporary sources, and additionally promoted deliberative discussion among people from diverse perspectives.”
If using primary sources and finding them using technology is so important, why don’t more schools implement this technique? Granted, a lot might have changed since I was in high school and it has not been that long since I graduated, but in my American History II class, we weren’t allowed to switch tabs on our laptops. Now, I loved that teacher, but ever since I’ve been in college, I’ve seen how much I’ve used technology on papers and to find sources. It makes me wonder why this hasn’t been implemented in some schools if it’s so beneficial for students.
“Therefore, I added more Discussion Forums, including the one discussed above, which engaged students with secondary sources so they could better understand the relationship between primary sources and historical arguments.”
From someone who has used discussion forums in the past for this sort of thing, it wasn’t my favorite thing in the world. I think in-class discussions about these sources are better than a discussion forum. Students may not be as engaged as teachers might believe. When I did discussion boards, it was just to get a grade for participation. Some students might have the same mindset and not be as engaging with the topic as teachers would like them to be. It can turn into something to do rather than something they want to engage with. I think if they did something like with Zotero, reading and taking notes on the sources themselves, and following up with a discussion, it would prompt them to be more engaged academically and mentally.
