Sunday, November 8, 2026
HomeTechnologyFree Know-how for Academics: About Main Sources

Free Know-how for Academics: About Main Sources

[ad_1]

As a U.S. Historical past instructor one my major objectives was to assist college students perceive the previous to grasp the place we (Individuals) got here from to grasp how we obtained right here and to, hopefully, keep away from errors of the previous. To that finish, I continuously had college students learn excerpts from major supply paperwork. Generally that meant confronting language and sentiments whereas widespread on the time of writing can be fully unacceptable in the event that they had been written at the moment. 

Confronting major supply paperwork whose content material if written at the moment can be fully unacceptable  turns into a really teachable second by way of serving to college students perceive the context (bodily in addition to political and cultural) by which the paperwork had been written. It is also a possibility to show how and why change occurred. 

It’s tough to show with major sources if college students do not first absolutely perceive the variations between major and secondary sources. That is yearly that I taught U.S. Historical past started with classes on figuring out major and finding major supply paperwork. To that finish, I’ve a number of assets that helped me assist my college students and I hope will allow you to as effectively. 

Evaluate textbooks, major sources, and Wikipedia.

It is a relatively easy exercise that I’ve completed over time as an introduction to the worth of major sources. Within the exercise I present college students with a textbook entry, a Wikipedia entry, and a major supply doc about the identical occasion or matter. I then have them learn all three and examine the details about the occasion. The define of questions for college students is offered in this Google Doc that I created.
Guided studying of major sources via Google Paperwork.
One in all my favourite methods to make use of the commenting function in Google Paperwork is to host on-line discussions round a shared article. Via the usage of feedback related to highlighted sections of an article I can information college students to vital factors, ask them questions, and permit them to ask clarifying questions concerning the article. All of the steps for this course of are outlined in Utilizing Google Paperwork to Host On-line Discussions of Main Sources. A variation on this exercise will be accomplished with Formative. I outlined that course of right here. 




Disclosure: I’ve a long-standing in-kind relationship with Widespread Craft. 

[ad_2]

RELATED ARTICLES

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

Most Popular

Recent Comments