Harvard-Danford Center Holds Workshop on History Teaching

"Experiments in History Teaching," a program of the Harvard-Danforth Center for Teaching and Learning, will hold the second of five monthly workshops on new approaches to history teaching December 11 in the Harvard Science Center.

Michael J. Novak, a graduate student in History and one of the program's coordinators, said yesterday the workshop will focus on the uses of community history-- the history of neighborhoods, towns and cities--as a teaching technique.

Historians from New England universities, colleges, museums and high schools will hold seminars on "Teaching the Boston Experience," "How Little We Know About the New England Mill Town and Why," "The Urban Civilizations of Pre-Industrial Europe" and other studies of community history.

"Experiments in History Teaching" aims "to get history teachers from all levels of the educational process to talk about teaching," Novak said. "People teaching history in different contexts can learn a lot from one another. There is universal agreement that it fills a need," he added.

"Experiments" is funded by a $12,000 grant from the Harvard-Danforth Center for Teaching and Learning, Karen J. Freeze, a center administrator, said yesterday. Freeze said grants are available to faculty and graduate students interested in teaching improvement activities.

Desider L. Vikor, a graduate student in History who attended the first workshop, which centered on cultural artifacts and archaeology, said the workshop "was very informative from the standpoint of acquainting people with various methods of teaching history."

Vikor, who plans to attend the coming workshop, said he found it difficult to say if the program will have any direct impact on history teaching at Harvard. But Vikor added that the workshops "meet a need that is very pressing."

The topics and dates of the three coming workshops are "Personality in History," on January 15, "History from the Bottom Up" on February 19, and "Quantifying the Past" on March 19.

Novak said the program is also planning a joint conference with two groups the weekend of April 30 and, with funding, will publish a guide to techniques of history teaching.