Teaching Big History

Author: Richard B. Simon
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520283546
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 442

Book Description
Big History is a new field on a grand scale: it tells the story of the universe over time through a diverse range of disciplines that spans cosmology, physics, chemistry, astronomy, geology, evolutionary biology, anthropology, and archaeology, thereby reconciling traditional human history with environmental geography and natural history. Weaving the myriad threads of evidence-based human knowledge into a master narrative that stretches from the beginning of the universe to the present, the Big History framework helps students make sense of their studies in all disciplines by illuminating the structures that underlie the universe and the connections among them. Teaching Big History is a powerful analytic and pedagogical resource, and serves as a comprehensive guide for teaching Big History, as well for sharing ideas about the subject and planning a curriculum around it. Readers are also given helpful advice about the administrative and organizational challenges of instituting a general education program constructed around Big History. The book includes teaching materials, examples, and detailed sample exercises. This book is also an engaging first-hand account of how a group of professors built an entire Big History general education curriculum for first-year students, demonstrating how this thoughtful integration of disciplines exemplifies liberal education at its best and illustrating how teaching and learning this incredible story can be transformative for professors and students alike.

Big History

Author: David Christian
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Higher Education
ISBN: 0078116074
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 353

Book Description
Big History: Between Nothing and Everything surveys the past not just of humanity, or even of planet Earth, but of the entire universe. In reading this book instructors and students will retrace a voyage that began 13.7 billion years ago with the Big Bang and the appearance of the universe. Big history incorporates findings from cosmology, earth and life sciences, and human history, and assembles them into a single, universal historical narrative of our universe and of our place within it.ËË The first edition of Big History: Between Nothing and Everything, is written by the pioneers of the field, and presents a framework for learning about anything and everything. It encourages students to think critically about our cumulative history and the future of the world through a variety of lenses.

Teaching History with Big Ideas

Author: S. G. Grant
Publisher: R&L Education
ISBN: 1607097672
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 231

Book Description
In the case studies that make up the bulk of this book, middle and high school history teachers describe the decisions and plans and the problems and possibilities they encountered as they ratcheted up their instruction through the use of big ideas. Framing a teaching unit around a question such as 'Why don't we know anything about Africa?' offers both teacher and students opportunities to explore historical actors, ideas, and events in ways both rich and engaging. Such an approach exemplifies the construct of ambitious teaching, whereby teachers demonstrate their ability to marry their deep knowledge of subject matter, students, and the school context in ways that fundamentally challenge the claim that history is 'boring.'

Popol Vuh

Author:
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0684818450
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 388

Book Description
One of the most extraordinary works of the human imagination and the most important text in the native languages of the Americas, Popul Vuh: The Mayan Book of the Dawn of Life was first made accessible to the public 10 years ago. This new edition retains the quality of the original translation, has been enriched, and includes 20 new illustrations, maps, drawings, and photos.

The Big Resource Guide to Teaching and Learning Texas History

Author: Tracey Williams
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 1491798025
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 471

Book Description
Offering a one-of-a kind teaching resource for Texas history teachers, The Big Resource Guide to Teaching and Learning Texas History, by author and teacher Tracey Williams, includes everything to make Texas history come alive in the classroom. The teaching units are aligned with the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills and contain activities, assignments, and assessments to help instructors teach the state curriculum. The Big Resource Guide to Teaching and Learning Texas History covers all major topics in Texas history and offers a graphic organizer to help students record the important details of the topics. This resource includes essential Texas history vocabulary, cross-curricular vocabulary, and end-of-chapter assessments. This guide helps prepare students for assessments, and it also aligns with English language arts, offering reading and writing activities. An engaging resource, it allows students to collaborate with their peers, be creative, investigate subject matter, solve problems, and have fun while learning.

Big History and the Future of Humanity

Author: Fred Spier
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1118881729
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 371

Book Description
big history and the future of humanity “This remains the best single attempt to theorize big history as a discipline that can link core concepts and paradigms across all historical disciplines, from cosmology to geology, from biology to human history. With additional and updated material, the Second Edition also offers a fine introduction to the history of big history and a superb introductory survey to the big history story. Essential reading for anyone interested in a rapidly evolving new field of scholarship that links the sciences and the humanities into a modern, science-based origin story.” David Christian, Macquarie University “Notable for its theoretic approach, this new Second Edition is both an indispensable contribution to the emerging big history narrative and a powerful university textbook. Spier defines words carefully and recognizes the limits of current knowledge, aspects of his own clear thinking.” Cynthia Brown, Emerita, Dominican University of California Reflecting the latest theories in the sciences and humanities, this new edition of Big History and the Future of Humanity presents an accessible and original overview of the entire sweep of history from the origins of the universe and life on Earth up to the present day. Placing the relatively brief period of human history within a much broader framework – one that considers everything from vast galaxy clusters to the tiniest sub-atomic particles – big history is an innovative theoretical approach that opens up entirely new multidisciplinary research agendas. Noted historian Fred Spier reveals how a thorough examination of patterns of complexity can offer richer insights into what the future may have in store for humanity. The second edition includes new learning features, such as highlighted scientific concepts, an illustrative timeline and comprehensive glossary. By exploring the cumulative history from the Big Bang to the modern day, Big History and the Future of Humanity, Second Edition, sheds important historical light on where we have been – and offers a tantalizing glimpse of what lies ahead.

Teaching World History as Mystery

Author: Jack Zevin
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135147477
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 253

Book Description
This text presents a philosophy, methodology, and examples for world history instruction based on inquiry and problem-solving methods that promote reasoning and judgment and restore a sense of imagination and participation to classroom learning.

Big History

Author: Cynthia Stokes Brown
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781458786661
Category : Human ecology
Languages : en
Pages : 348

Book Description
An epic for our time, Big History begins when the universe is no more than a single point the size of an atom, squeezed together in unimaginable density, and ends with a twenty-first-century planet inhabited by 6.1 billion people. Its a story that takes in prehistoric geology, human evolution, the agrarian age, the Black Death, the voyages of Columbus, the industrial revolution, and global warming. Historian Cynthia Brown visits the Vikings, the Mayas and Aztecs, the Incas, the Mongol empire, and the Islamic heartlands. Along the way she considers topics as varied as cell formation, population growth, global disparities, and illiteracy, creating a stunning synthesis of historical and scientific knowledge of humanity and the earth we inhabit.Big History represents a new kind of history, one that skillfully interweaves historical knowledge and cutting-edge science. In an age of global warming, when the fate of the earth hangs in the balance, scientific advances permit us to see the universe as never before, grasping the timescales that allow us to understand the history of mankind in the context of its ecological impact on the planet. Cynthia Browns lucid, accessible narrative is the first popularization of this innovative new field of study, as thrilling as it is ambitious.

Future-Focused History Teaching

Author: Mike Maxwell
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781732120112
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 256

Book Description
This provocative book challenges the status quo in history eduction by proposing that isolated facts from the past be replaced by knowledge relevant to the future. Not a classroom teaching guide, this book examines the fundamental premises and practices that underlie the work of every history teacher from grade school through graduate school.

Teaching Big History

Author: Richard B. Simon
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520283554
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 442