Kansas City Becomes the Classroom: Engaging Students with Local History

This paper explores how a focus on local history in an urban history course can engage students through innovative pedagogy, collaboration with community institutions, and high-impact learning practices that foreground historical methodology. Drawing on experience teaching a course on the history of Kansas City at William Jewell College, the presentation shows how traditional classroom instruction is supplemented by regular field visits to local museums and historic sites, where students critically evaluate public history spaces. The presentation also highlights partnerships with archivists at the Missouri Valley Special Collections, enabling students to work directly with primary sources and conduct independent research on topics of their choosing. In collaboration with KCUR, the local NPR affiliate and host of the podcast A People’s History of Kansas City, students learn to translate historical research into public-facing media by producing their own history podcasts. Short clips from student work will be shared to demonstrate the historical method in practice. The paper concludes by reflecting on how these approaches can be adapted to other history courses and institutional contexts.