Heritage Fairs: Engaging Students in Learning History

1. Heritage Fairs: Engaging Students in Learning History Tuesday, January 8, 2013, 12:30pm-3:30 pm Hollywood Road Education Services - Room 2

2. Part II: How to Design a Heritage Fair for your Classroom

3. How to Design a Heritage Fair for your Classroom Step 1: Deciding how a Heritage Fair fits in your classroom? • An end of unit/course project. • A project that is one of the learning activities that students will be assessed on during a unit/course. • An inquiry project that will represent student learning in a unit/course. Students will share their learning with others.

4. Step 2: Decide how much “voice and choice” students will have in choosing the topic for their project? Options: • Teacher assigns topics to students (the same or different topics). • Teacher asks a question that all students attempt to answer with their project (i.e. what was the most significant event/person/invention during a set time period?). • Teacher provides a list of topics from a course or unit that students choose from. • Teacher determines the time period or geographical location for the project, and students choose their own topic and design their own research question.

5. Step 3: Capture students’ interest and curiosity in the project/topic. Conduct an entry event that will capture students’ interest or curiosity in the fair, or in the topic/time period/geographical area they will focus on. • For example: Introduce students to Heritage Fairs and show them examples of past Heritage Fair projects from the portfolio section of the BC Heritage Fairs website http://www.bcheritagefairs.ca/

6. Step 4: Selecting a meaningful topic Provide students with time to explore a variety of resources so they can choose a topic that interests them. Once they have chosen a topic, invite them to consider the following criteria for their topic: • Must have a Canadian theme, but can be about local, provincial, regional, national or international history. • Is it an important part of the unit/course/topic being studied? • Is the topic historically significant? • Did the topic have consequences for many people in a wide geographic area for a long period of time? • Was the topic important to people in the past and today? Does the topic have a connection to a larger story in the past? • Is it interesting? Will the topic keep your interest over the length of the project? • Are there enough quality resources available for you to successfully complete the project?

7. Step 5: Developing a powerful inquiry question Whether it is referred to as an inquiry, essential, driving, focus or big question, almost all teacher guides on inquiry or project-based learning insist that students start with a question. The inquiry question provides purpose and direction to the activities that students will be conducting as they work on their project. • Invite students to brainstorm the criteria for a powerful research question.

8. Step 5: Developing a powerful inquiry question cont…. Criteria for a “powerful” inquiry question for a Heritage Fair Project: • Are not easy to answer. • Are open ended and require research. • Require judgment between one or more possible options. • Are historically significant: they matter to people today, including students, teachers, historians or others interested in history. Inform students that they are going to begin brainstorming powerful inquiry questions for their project. Before starting, establish rules for brainstorming: • Try to list as many questions as possible • Do not stop to judge, discuss or answer questions • Build on other’s ideas • Write down all of the questions exactly as they are said.

9. Step 5: Developing a powerful inquiry question cont… • Invite students (individually, or in pairs) to begin brainstorming a list of potential questions for their chosen topic. • If students are struggling to come up with questions you may want to provide them a list of question prompts (see handout Prompts for Heritage Fair Inquiry Questions) to get them started. • If students are still struggling to generate questions invite a few students to share questions that might help others get started. • After students are finished their list ask them to go through their list and use the criteria for a powerful inquiry question to help them determine which three questions are their most powerful. • Another strategy is to get students to sort their questions into weak and powerful.

10. Step 6: Identifying resources How will students find sources that will help them answer their research questions? • When conducting research for their projects, the majority of students go immediately to secondary sources, including textbooks, library books, encyclopedias (print and online) copy as much information as possible, and then put it onto their display board. • For Heritage Fairs we want to encourage students to use primary sources to complete their projects.However, just using primary sources does not guarantee that they are used well. In many cases, primary sources appear on display boards as illustrations without an explanation of how they provide evidence to answer the inquiry question. • We want students to choose primary and secondary sources that provide relevant evidence to answer their inquiry question. Furthermore, we want students to make thoughtful inferences from their primary sources, not just obvious or surface interpretations.

11. Step 6: Identifying sources cont…. To teach students about historical evidence and the differences between primary and secondary sources: • show students the 5 min Take 2: Thinking About History video from TC2 (The Critical Thinking Consortium) entitled “Evidence and Interpretation”. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=iIzUXZb3xE4 • I have emailed you a notes sheet called “Background Sheet: Evidence and Interpretation” that provides key information about primary and secondary sources.

12. Step 6: Identifying sources cont…. THEN/HiER(The History Education Network/Histoire et Education en Reseau) has a websitewith a special section devoted to Primary Sources and Teaching Links for Canadian history. http://www.thenhier.ca/en/content/primary-sources-and-teaching-links • This collection of online archives, websites and databases of primary sources on significant topics in Canadian history is designed to help student-teachers, teachers, social studies educators and historians locate significant online collections of primary sources for a wide range of topics in Canadian history.

13. Step 7: Teaching students skills and knowledge What will students need to know and be able to do to complete their Heritage Fair project? • Choose a topic • Develop powerful questions • Identify, analyze and interpret primary and secondary sources • Understand historical significance • Read, and write. • Summarize and make inferences from visual and written text. • Citing sources and making a bibliography • Design an effective exhibit and presentation • Oral response to interview questions How and when will the teacher teach students how to do these things?

14. Step 8: Student Reflections What questions can we ask that get students to reflect on their projects? • What have I learned? • How well have I met my goals? • What changes should I make? • What new skills did you acquire over the course of the project that you are most proud? • How has this topic changed your thinking on the topic?

15. Step 9: Assessing the project How do I assess students’ Heritage Fair projects? • Balance formative vs. summative assessment: nothing goes on the project board until it meets expectations. Provide formative assessment for each piece of the project. • Gallery walks and jigsaw activities for content knowledge. • Assess only the knowledge and skills that have been focused on in the project. • Elementary teachers: assess in different subject areas: language arts, social studies, art, HACE, CAPP. • Peer and self-assessment. Have students assess their own and each other’s work, including their final reflections. • Summative assessment: Final rubric. All should be meeting expectations.