Most of us probably remember learning that "in 1492, Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue." But many of the other names and dates from high school history lessons have likely become history themselves. History teachers are increasingly turning to innovative ways to interest youth in the rich past of their nation and others throughout the world.

"I and many other educators and researchers believe it is much more important and effective to teach historical thinking and inquiry than to teach focusing on the memorization of names and dates. A focus on school memorization of history leads to knowledge that is not applicable and transferable to other situations," says Joe Polman, an assistant professor of history.

"I believe it is important to find new ways to engage students in thinking historically and doing historical inquiry, both to better understand themselves and their society's past, and to develop the tools for understanding the extreme diversity of modern societies, particularly in North America," he says.

"It has been said that the central challenge of education is motivation, and engaging students' interest and imagination is certainly a unique challenge in history," agrees assistant professor Kevin O'Neill.

"In increasingly multicultural societies like Canada and the U.S., this challenge gets harder because teachers somehow have to build a relationship between what students are able to understand and value as part of their native cultures, and what they are expected to understand and value in their new home," he adds.

So what's the secret to engaging students in history?

Polman directs successful after-school clubs in which young people work with undergraduate or graduate educators to create digital artifacts about history. These artifacts are shared and displayed on the Internet and in presentations.

"My most recent club involved inquiry at a nearby historically significant cemetery. The youth collected data from gravestones and took digital photos, then chose topics to research," he says. Club members created multimedia presentations about their findings.

In another project, club members created Web pages about the history of resistance to slavery, including the Underground Railroad. Visitors to the site see the names and faces and can read the stories of people who helped fugitive slaves escape in the 1800s.

O'Neill and his colleagues across Canada are building Tracking Canada's Past, an online community for studying the country's national railway.

"The central idea of Tracking Canada's Past is to build a geographically distributed learning community, in which teachers and students from cities and towns across Canada can work together to research a historical phenomenon that has influenced them all: the Canadian Pacific Railway," says O'Neill.

Using an Internet-enabled software application for collaborative learning, O'Neill says the project plans to include teachers, students and adult volunteers from historical societies, museums, libraries and other institutions. They will build a shared database of research notes, artifacts and narratives relating to the railway in their communities.

The project will provide a context for teaching strategies that will look at historical evidence and include a range of perspectives for students to include in their work.

"Rather than merely digesting others' accounts of the past, we will ask students to write history themselves," says O'Neill.

O'Neill sees the Internet as an important tool for history education. But he says the Net makes it more important than ever to bring dedicated, well-trained professionals into history teaching and equip them to meet the challenges through continuous professional development.

According to Polman, the Internet has become an important way for history lesson plans to be shared among educators. But he says it should be used carefully as a resource for students.

"Some practices, such as teachers just sending their kids out to 'search for information about Thanksgiving and write a report or make a presentation,' may not be that beneficial to kids. Good Internet learning activities must be well designed and well supported," he says.

Students in Polman's clubs are beginning to develop historical inquiry skills. They're also changing their attitude about history. They may not spend enough time in the club to master much history completely, but Polman says it does have an impact on their studies.

"I argue that they begin to develop some skills and have case study data which suggests their changed attitudes about history impacts their future learning in the classroom," he says.

And in providing a community service through their historical work, students reap both cognitive and motivational rewards.

"The motivational benefits include realizing a lasting benefit of the work -- it's not just to be turned into the teacher and forgotten -- and the cognitive benefits, including making for a richer context or situation. [This] helps the student to learn the contextualized knowledge and transfer better to other situations outside school," says Polman.

Diane Rodewoldt has adopted this approach to teaching history in her high school classrooms. "[Learning history] is about thinking and being able to make inferences, draw conclusions, be critical, to look for bias and assess reliability of one's sources," she says.

She involves her students in daily discussions about current events and past events.

"I value my student's opinions, especially when they can prove or justify them -- a skill worth learning."

However, most of the praise Rodewoldt has received came because of her innovative history assignments and projects.

In an archeology project, separate classes each create a culture and artifacts that represent their culture. Then each class digs up the other's artifacts and makes assumptions about the culture they have discovered, before the two meet to exchange their findings.

"And this year, I am developing an assignment where students will use interview techniques to learn about local history and 20th-century history. This will help students to critically read primary and secondary documents," she says.

Rodewoldt says that watching a student learn and improve inspires her.

"If one of my students watches the news and says 'I know why this is happening,' and then relates to something in a history class, then I am a success," she says.

Teaching methods have changed as society has changed, says Rodewoldt.

"Today, students need a more active approach. They need to think and question. They need to find answers to their own questions. They need to read and think critically. They need to know how to find answers and not just be given all the answers," she says.

"If we truly want students to understand the concerns and methods of historians, we need to present them with opportunities to work on meaningful historical problems, using authentic sources in authentic ways. They should see their work as taking place in a community of critical minds whose mission is to 'do history' -- even if it is in a small way," says O'Neill.

Students should be involved in activities which serve as a bridge between kids and adults in the community who concern themselves with history, whether it's hosting a heritage fair, building a museum exhibit, helping to preserve a historic site or restoring rare artifacts, he says.

"Others might describe this as a way of connecting school with the 'real' world, but I dislike this way of putting it. School is part of the real world, even if we often forget this," says O'Neill.

net sites

Texas State Historical Association

Providing education programs for both teachers and students

http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/education/index.html

If Stones Could Talk...

This site was created by an after-school history club

http://www.umsl.edu/~edujpolm/greenwood/greenwood-
overview.html

Junior Historians

A collection of historical articles written by high school students

http://www.ihsa.org/feature/hstoric/