Contents

Learning Environments
History

Learning Environment Research: History

URL: http://inkido.indiana.edu/history/

The purpose of this work is to explore learning and instruction within an experimental, project-based undergraduate history course designed to support students in engaging in historical inquiry.

Context	This project consisted of a collaboration between myself, Steve Warren (a history graduate student at Indiana University), Sasha Barab, and Steve Schatz. The central goal of this project was to redesign a large lecture undergraduate history course (History of the American West) to one that was more learner-centered. This course mainly consisted of non-history majors, as a result many of the students were signing up for the course because they were required to have an upper level history course in order to graduate.
Conditions	I entered this project initially due to my interest in history and to learn if what we had accomplished in our Virtual Solar System (VSS) course could be applied in another setting. However, unlike the VSS course this course involved 75 students in the class rather than the typical twenty that had characterized the VSS courses. We met regularly the summer prior to the implementation of the course to discuss how to restructure the course. This work lead to the paper included here. I observed every class and interviewed students and the instructor. Through this work we developed a better understanding of how to redesign large lecture courses to be more student-centered.
Scope	This was an upper level undergraduate history course that met two times per week. In collaboration with Steve Schatz, I conducted pre-post interviews with 30 of the students, interviewed the instructor, and conducted interviews throughout the semester to determine the students' perception of the nature of doing history as a discipline. I also observed every class and maintained field notes concerning the interactions that were occurring in the classroom, how the students perceived the class, and how the instructor felt the class was proceeding.
Role	I assisted in the re-design of a traditional lecture based history course to a project-based environment in which students worked in groups of three to four to develop papers that represented the interpretation of history from different historical perspectives. I observed every class, interviewed the students in the class concerning their perceptions of history and the design of the course, analyzed student work, and developed a website for students to share their work over the World Wide Web. I was primarily responsible for conceptualizing the paper, analyzing and interpreting the data, and preparing the paper for publication.

Project Papers:

Barnett, M., Barab, S. A., Schatz, S., & Warren, S. (under review). Designing a community of inquiry in an undergraduate history course: A clash of cultures. Manuscript submitted for publication in Journal of Curriculum Studies.