Historical Thinking
In this section, I highlight how historical skills were represented through badges in our course. Students were encouraged to reflect on how they applied these skills to assignments and assessments by writing paragraphs defending their rationale. This served as a sense of metacognition, showing how much students knew about the skills they were using. The acquisition of badges was not an easy task, but when achieved, it was rewarding.
Reflection on Historical Skills
One of my major goals for this course was to make students aware what the historical skills we would engage them and make them attainable. I did this by creating badges that represented the objectives of the history department, which reflect the transformative experience I wanted to impart to my students. I also wanted for students to regulate their time, recognizing that individuals need additional assistance and more time to discern readings whether it was for comprehension or curiosity for the course. Therefore, I set the bar high and asked students to aim for competency in assignments by applying to badges that proved their application of historical skills. As students had the ability to take risks by resubmitting assignments and apply the feedback that directed them towards competency, I challenged students to write a reflective paragraph that proved that their assignment possessed the standards of the badge. Students were required to provide evidence of their learning by explaining their rationale behind the paper with specific examples to support their arguments.
In this example, a student is applying for the Across Time and Space Badge that I challenge students to "evaluate different interpretations of historic developments from different eras and connect them together by identifying themes, systems, and cultures using evidence from primary and secondary sources." The student writes a reflective paragraph that highlights the mechanics behind her assignment through the use of examples and explaining her rationale.
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"I believe this assessment deserves the Across Time and Space Badge because I have evaluated different interpretations of historic developments from different eras through the comparison and contrast of education in the Islamic World and Tang/Song dynasties. For example, Tang China valued education more and even provided it to women, while the Islamic World doesn’t think it is as important and only provides it to men. I carefully examined texts and evidence from readings about the two time periods and used it as evidence to support my findings. I began the paper by stating a thesis and used supporting arguments and analysis to back it up. I argued the Islamic World would become more education based after encountering the Tang/Song and supported this by comparing the two governments. I claimed that the Tang/Song built its empire around education while the Islamic World built it around religion. This was important because it highlights the differences in the way each empire is run. In my concluding paragraph I inferred how the Islamic World would react to this by stating how they want a more organized system because of their far-reaching lands. Education would eventually be prioritized and become the foundation of their political system."
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What makes this paragraph exemplary is the way in which the student states with clarity the intentions she had towards answering the hypothetical prompt of "What would happen if the Islamic World were to encounter Tang/Song China?" She uses the language of the description of the badge to explicate the skills she is proving. Her ability to provide specific examples from the readings supports her arguments for both the prompt and her rationale to analyze different eras.
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The reflective aspect of this paragraph creates a metacognitive approach, or highlights what they know and defend it, providing evidence of their learning rather than going through the motions. This metacognitive approach reflects on the thinking that the student engaged in by examining the processes that they did or did not use (Ritchhart, 2014) thus creating a formative insight on what the student knows about the particular skill and how to apply it.
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In my first year as a fellow, it did not occur to me to ask students to reflect on historical skills or even to explicitly ask them to explain their approach to history. The reflection of badges was very new to students and encouraging them to demonstrate historical thinking using the badges and then provide proof took lots of coaching, trials, and errors along the way. However, badges gave me an insight into the level of thinking of each of my students, helping me to support them better.
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Badges
Badges represented the historical skills we wanted to discuss in the course. I hoped to describe these badges to facilitate their understanding and awareness of the skills they were engaging in. I also hoped that students were motivated to collect these badges and experience a sense of reward when receiving them. Writing a reflective paragraph that elaborated on how the skills were utilized in assessments presented a challenge to many. Oftentimes, these paragraphs lacked relevant language that described the badge. On other occasions, the assignment did not reflect the badge chosen, nor did the paragraph expressed relevant information about the skill used. Because this course was designed to aim for competency, students received feedback and suggestions on including the skills of a badge and including necessary examples for evidence. The level of resilience of resubmitting until receiving the badge was clear. In an in-class discussion, one student casually commented that I "made them work for it[badges]," expressing her level of challenge in earning badges.
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A student expressed his experience with badges in the first term and second term in the letter below. He elaborated on how he did not earn any badges in the fall, as he struggled to understand what badges stood for. It wasn't until the second term came around when he dedicated the time and effort to look closely into the badges and samples to improve on his understanding and application of these skills. His hard work paid off as he saw the benefits in performance and motivation when applying for badges. He concludes his letter in the following way,
"I would say that I now understand and enjoy working for badges because it pushes me to make my work better as well as teaching me to think deeper about topics."
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The unfamiliar of working with badges played a role in the learning experience of students. In my history department, I am not aware of other instructors who explicitly ask students to identify and defend the historical skills their assignments possess. In the case of my course, I wanted students to understand the work and skills they were using when analyzing history, write about it, and be rewarded for it. This proved to be an exciting challenge that opened up the learning opportunity to instruct students to think deeper and reflect on historical skills.