The mapping for historical skills must begin with the vital purpose of teaching the subject. History ought to involve the internal transformation of those who engage in it to set in motion an external effect in our collective world. Suggesting that history is the retelling of narratives of the past without any critical thought or examination is to extract the very essence of humans. In my educational experience as a student, history was reduced to memory exercises that tested my retention of dates, events, and figures. Due to this experience, history for me was meaningless and indifferent, providing very little development of empathy as a human and a global citizen. Laurel Schmidt took notice of similar experiences to mine in her book Social Studies that Stick (2007), where she states, "The problem is that over time, social studies instruction has been sucked dry of the humanity and audacity that made possible the very events that it's supposed to explore." (p. 3) One of my main purposes that form my identity as a teacher and historian is to show my students the opposite of my dull, passive, and conforming education in history. I truly believe that motivating students to perform historical skills with competency can create a personal impact that strives for their best selves.  

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When I joined the History department at Loomis Chaffee in my first year as a fellow, I was inspired to instill a learning environment that harvested a holistic formation in the individual and the collective. The Loomis Chaffee objectives challenged both the faculty and the students to be critical about historical content and skills that go beyond the classroom and into college preparation and beyond. Therefore, I decided to define historical skills through the following learning objectives established by the department:

1. to develop an appreciation of the past through multiple perspectives;

2. to increase knowledge of our interdependent and complex world;

3. to teach the value of engaging in open-minded dialogue and discussion; and

4. to foster an understanding of foundational terms and ideas defining history, philosophy, and religion so that our students are prepared to do substantive work presently, in college, and beyond.

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Through these objectives, I saw the vital purpose of learning history, one that challenges students' intellect and inspires them to grow and engage with the perspectives of the past, to better understand our present and forge a better future. Adding my voice and identity to these objectives involved the essential element of making history about humanity. History is the avenue to engage students into the human problem-solving (p. 33)  business; the struggle to evolve and improve our collective condition by looking at the decision of our ancestors, examine our own and create opportunities for future generations to come. 

The learning objectives of the department made me ponder on how I would solidify and showcase historical thinking skills for my students so that they could see them as attainable goals that are present in the course, rather than objectives that hide in the course catalog. This presented an interesting challenge, that I was excited to tackle. Upon coming across a chapter titled "Environment: Using Space to Support Learning and Thinking" by Ron Ritchhart (2015) in the first year of my fellowship, I learned about the power of using physical spaces to make students and teacher thinking visible. This idea can have different manifestations, however, designing and teaching a course online limited the use of physical space like whiteboards, bulletin boards, posters, handouts, and furniture. 

 

The option I decided to implement was Digital Badges that could solidify and showcase the learning goals to measure historical thinking in an online classroom. The badges below represent variations of the department's objectives. Each badge contains specific claims about competencies, creating clearer goals for learning, traces of engagement and progress through acquisition, and a sense of reward when collecting (Hickey & Schenke, 2019). The design and formation of these badges represent essential elements of analysis and criticism so that students can better understand their place in history and strive for the formation of the best self. 

History is complex, unorganized, and even messy. History is more than events, but about who tells it, who hears it and who spreads it. The process of defining and measuring historical skills has been reflective and eye-opening. I use the term "measuring" not to quantify how much a student learns, but rather to create clearer parameters and goals for my students. I believe that the goals I have highlighted through the use of badges inspire a critical approach to history.

 

The badges go beyond the memorization of historical information, but rather the practical use to create an internal and external impact. In our course, students are encouraged to engage history through an inquiry-based approach that contests the narratives presented to them by various sources, hoping they can see themselves as historians (Block, 2014). These ideas are supported by the badges Argument Badge, Contesting Badge, and Primary and Secondary Source Badge.

 

Equipping students with skills to question and contest history is to facilitate a transformation that enables them to see themselves as historians. Historians do more than record history, they make it. I found it valuable to teach students to discover the different narratives of history so that I could invite them to create their own. Rachel Foster and Kath Goudie (2019) highlighted three important elements for students to consider when identifying and creating narratives, which inspired me to create three badges: "selection" (Selecting Badge) "Arranging" (Framing Badge), and "Weighting" (Chance and Inevitability Badge)

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The objectives of the department could not, in detail, express the vast selection of historical skills. However, their objectives do place a critical approach to the history that goes beyond the classroom. As Loomis Chaffee dedicates to the preparation of students to make internal transformations for external impacts, I was compelled to create badges that highlighted an appreciation for history as a means to make a change beyond the present and into the future through an open-minded dialogue with a complex world, thus the Appreciation for History Badge, Go Beyond Badge and Across Time and Space Badge came into fruition and added to our badge collection. 

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While I use these badges as the starting place and the final goals, there are multiple other elements in between that forged my identity as a teacher. Nonetheless, these objectives impersonate some of the visions and definitions of sound historical thinking skills. My goal as an educator is to empower students to take part in the complexities of human history.  Like Schmidt, I want students to move from the passive to the active by "helping them understand that the stuff of history is simply what human beings do." (p. 11) Rather than pretending to cover material, I want to humanize my curriculum, spark curiosity in my students and bring the social in social studies back.  

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