Creating card activities to be used in the teaching and learning of history

Abstract

Card activities can be used to target various skills related to history (Counsell, 2012). Examples of these skills include source analysis, the concept of cause and consequence, empathy, historical significance, change and continuity. This project involves creating card activities that focus on teaching these skills. Another skill that can be taught is essay writing, as card activities can be used to create writing frames that will help the students write better essays. Card activities can also be used during group work. This will allow discussions among the students and enhance their thinking skills. Through this, the students can support one another’s learning (Vella & Caruana, 2015). This will also allow for different interpretations to emerge from the students. Having said this, card activities engage students with history in a fun and interactive way, which may raise an interest in the students towards the subject. This project includes the creation of actual activities involving specially designed boards that will be the background framework on which students will manoeuvre the actual cards in the history classroom. Five topics from the national history curriculum were chosen as the themes on which these card activities have been constructed. One will also find the clear learning objectives behind these card activities, outlining the specific procedural knowledge and the substantive knowledge that each activity will teach. Furthermore, this project also includes clear guidelines in the write-up as to how history teachers can incorporate these card activities within history lessons, and how they can be managed in real classroom situations.