Webinar: Historical Interpretations

We’ve been talking to our secondary school members and we know how difficult life is for teachers in the current circumstances, so we wanted to lend a helping hand.

'What’s the wisdom on…' is a new and already popular feature in our secondary journal Teaching History and provides the perfect stimulus for a virtual department meeting. 'What’s the wisdom on…' provides history teachers with an overview of the ‘story so far’ of many years of practice-based professional thinking about a particular aspect of history teaching.

To complement the journal feature, and to fit into a current need, we have produced a series of recorded webinars designed to support virtual department meetings. In each webinar (lasting approx. 45 mins), our experts Dr Katharine Burn, Helen Snelson and Christine Counsell use their professional expertise and experience of writing for and editing Teaching History journal to provide a structured discussion about a different concept or issue covering teaching the story before you attempt the analysis, thinking about the different types of sources, evidence, argument and approaches; what often goes right and wrong, getting your enquiry question right, and using historical scholarship to inform your approach.

These discussions will provide an excellent starting point for your own departmental discussions whether for curriculum or teacher development. Let us know how your departmental discussions develop after listening to the series via Twitter by tagging @histassoc into your tweets.

The third episode below explores 'What’s the wisdom on…Historical Interpretations'. It discusses choosing specific real interpretations, introducing pupils to real historical scholarship, deciding your angle, building a constructive analytical approach in pupils, expanding the range of interpretations, plotting the way interpretations change over time and more.

Please note: Primary members can view the film here

You can also view the original accompanying journal feature on historical interpretations or other 'What's the Wisdom on' episodes including:

• Causation
• Evidence and Sources
• Enquiry Questions (Part 1)
• Enquiry Questions (Part 2)
• Change and Continuity
• Similarity and difference
• Historical significance
• Consequence