Teaching History in Higher Education
Ethics, Aims, Methods

Examines the unique challenges of teaching history, and offers a new and more coherent approach to the discipline.

Edward Ross Dickinson (Author)

9781009519922, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 20 February 2025

280 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.8 cm, 0.567 kg

'Teaching History in Higher Education is a very wise and useful introduction to the teaching of history, one that new and old teachers will find helpful and challenging. Edward Ross Dickinson demonstrates that historians need to teach students the fundamental assumptions and practices of the discipline, help them understand how historians think and at the same time push them to think like a historian.' Gaines M. Foster, Louisiana State University

What are the distinctive characteristics of the discipline of history? How do we teach those characteristics effectively, and what benefits do they offer students? How can history instructors engage an increasingly diverse student body? Teaching History in Higher Education offers instructors an innovative and coherent approach to their discipline, addressing the specific advantages that studying history can bring. Edward Ross Dickinson examines the evolution of methods and concepts in the discipline over the past two hundred years, showing how instructors can harness its complexity to aid the intellectual engagement of their students. This book explores the potential of history to teach us how to ask questions in unique and powerful ways, and how to pursue answers that are open and generative. Building on a coherent ethical foundation for the discipline, Teaching History in Higher Education presents a range of concrete techniques for making history instruction fruitful for students and teachers alike.

Introduction
1. What Is History Like?
2. What Do Historians Do?
3. What Kinds of Stories Do Historians Tell?
4. What Kinds of Problems Do Historians Solve?
5. What does History Teach Us?
6. Principles and Guidelines for Teaching History
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: History: theory & methods [HBA]