Ontario Teachers' Manuals: History by Ontario Ministry of Education
page 39 of 176 (22%)
page 39 of 176 (22%)
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topic, or on a series of connected topics, has been finished. At the
close of each lesson, the facts learned are fixed more firmly in the mind by the usual drill; but there must be further organization of the several lessons by a proper review, so that history will not be a number of unconnected events, but will be seen as an orderly development. This may be accomplished: (1) by questioning the class from a point of view different from that taken in the first lessons, (2) by oral or written expansion of a topical outline, (3) by illustrations with maps or drawings, (4) by tracing the sequence of events backwards, (5) by submitting some new situation that will recall the old knowledge in a different way. It must be remembered that it is not a mere repetition that we seek, but a _re-view_ of the facts, a new view that will prove the power of the pupils to use the knowledge they have gained. Thus the lesson on the St. Lawrence River (p. 112) is a good review of the facts of history suggested by the places mentioned; the lesson on the Road to Cathay (p. 92) may be considered a review of the chief explorers of North America. Such a review aims at seeing new relations, at connecting new knowledge and old, at "giving freshness and vividness to knowledge that may be somewhat faded, at throwing a number of discrete facts into a bird's-eye view." THE USE OF PROBLEMS IN TEACHING HISTORY The development, or problem, method is intended to get the pupils to do some independent thinking, instead of merely absorbing knowledge from the teacher. The plan is simply to set clearly before the pupils the conditions existing at a certain moment in the story so that they may see for themselves the difficulties that the people in the story had to overcome. The question for the class is: "What would you do in the |
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