Page 171 - Balancing between the present and the past

A historical contextualization framework
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Table 25. Overview of the lesson activities in the experimental and control condition
Lesson Historical topic* 1 Pre-tests
Experimental condition
Pre-test historical contextualization
Control condition
Pre-test historical contextualization
2 Start of the Cold War
Case to enhance awareness of present-oriented perspectives: The teacher provides dyads with a handout with questions and shows the Duck and Cover movie. Central task for the dyads is to reason if they could imagine that they received such atomic warfare training. In a classroom discussion, the dyad’s answers are discussed. In this discussion, the teacher uses the students’ present-oriented answers to explain the consequences of viewing the past from a present-oriented perspective (i.e., not able to explain the case).
Prior knowledge activation: The teacher activates the students’ prior knowledge by asking questions in a classroom discussion. Teacher lecturing: The teacher explains the following historical phenomena: Russian Revolution, Collaboration between the USA and the Soviet-Union, Yalta and Potsdam conferences, differences between capitalism and communism, and the development and the fear of the atomic bomb.
Explanation of historical contextualization: The teacher provides the handout with the guiding questions (Appendix G) and explains the importance of historical contextualization.
Reconstructing the historical context: The teacher explains the following historical phenomena: Russian Revolution, Collaboration between the USA and the Soviet- Union, Yalta and Potsdam conferences, differences between capitalism and communism, and the development and fear of the atomic bomb.
Evaluating the case: The teacher asks the dyads to explain the case again but now to explicitly use the newly acquired historical context knowledge. In this classroom discussion, the teacher explains the importance of historical contextualization by stressing the differences between the students’ present-oriented answers (from the first lesson activity) and the contextualized answers.
Individual assignments: The teacher provides the students with 13 assignments. They work individually to complete questions 1 to 3.
Whole-class discussion: Students’ answers to the assignments are discussed.
Recap: The teacher repeats the most important historical events explained in this lesson.