A Primer for Teaching African History: Ten Design Principles

Description

A Primer for Teaching African History is a guide for college and high school teachers who are teaching African history for the first time, for experienced teachers who want to reinvigorate their courses, for those who are training future teachers to prepare their own syllabi, and for teachers who want to incorporate African history into their world history courses. Trevor R. Getz offers design principles aimed at facilitating a classroom experience that will help students navigate new knowledge, historical skills, ethical development, and worldviews. He foregrounds the importance of acknowledging and addressing student preconceptions about Africa, challenging chronological approaches to history, exploring identity and geography as ways to access historical African perspectives, and investigating the potential to engage in questions of ethics that studying African history provides. In his discussions of setting goals, pedagogy, assessment, and syllabus design, Getz draws readers into the process of thinking consciously and strategically about designing courses on African history that will challenge students to think critically about Africa and the discipline of history. Cover Contents Acknowledgments Introduction Part I. Conceiving a Student-Centered Course One. A Place to Begin: What Students Bring with Them Two. Setting Goals: Why Should Students Study African History? Part II. Content and Design Three. Locating Africa: Designing with Space Four. When Was Africa? Designing with Time Five. Who Are Africans? Designing with Identity Six. Making Hard Choices: Coverage and Uncoverage Part III. Opportunities Seven. Ethical Thinking as an Outcome of the African History Course Eight. Teaching Methodology and Source Interpretation through the African History Course Nine. The African History Course and the Other Digital Divide Ten. Bringing It All Together Notes Selected Bibliography Index A B C D E F G H I K L M N O P R S T U V W X Z