A Course on Historical Thinking: Uncovering Ideas, Sources, and Arguments

Professor Fritz Fischer will discuss a course he teaches at the University of Northern Colorado called “Advanced Overview of US History.”  This course is a history content course open to both history/liberal arts majors and history/secondary teaching majors.  This is an advanced course, designed to provide in-depth examination of critically important ideas and themes in US history.  The idea is not merely to cover these topics; rather, it is to “uncover” them in a wide variety of ways.  The course examines each question in historical and historiographical context, requiring the students to move towards expertise in political, social, cultural and intellectual history. At the same time, the course provides explicit opportunities to discuss the most effective method to teach each idea.  In sum, Professor Fischer will discuss ways in which this course brings pedagogical content knowledge into the real world, providing both general history majors and future teachers with a path towards understanding the ways in which “content” and “pedagogy” connect. In this paper, Professor Fischer will focus mostly on the final project for the course, in which students examine a variety of primary sources in historical context and in the context of the processes of historical thinking, ideally leading them towards new understandings of how to utilize these sources with their future students.