History teaching & research : bridging the theory/practice divide, vol. 2

Abstract

Ten years have passed since the idea of launching an annual event to commemorate our colleague, Michael A. Sant, was first put forward early in 2002 by Prof. Mark Borg, the then Dean of the Faculty of Education. This was an appropriate gesture towards a senior lecturer who was totally dedicated to his work at the Faculty and towards that person who introduced for the first time various effective history teaching methods in Malta. For this reason the History Teachers’ Association accepted to co-organise the annual event in conjunction with the Faculty of Education. This event, which has now become a regular appointment for history teachers and educators, proved to be a golden opportunity to give due importance to history pedagogy in Malta. Every year the lecture presents developments and research in the teaching of history and looks at the evaluation of innovative learning approaches in history education. The event which has now run for a decade has invariably found the support of all the Deans of the Faculty of Education who have collaborated with the History Teachers’ Association in making this annual appointment possible. This is the second volume which brings together the five lectures from 2007 to date. However, in the first volume (published in 2006) one can find the collection of the first five lectures, four of which are by international speakers, all experts in the field of history pedagogy. After the inaugural lecture given by the undersigned, the other lectures were, consecutively, by Dr Penelope Harnett, from the University of the West of England, Bristol; Ms Joke van der Leeuw-Roord, the founder and executive director of EUROCLIO, the European Standing Conference of History Teachers Associations; Prof. Alexander Schevyrev, from the University of Moscow, and, Dr Oscar Larsen, from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. We are thus very proud to present the second volume of the Michael A. Sant Memorial Lectures.