Iterative Pedagogy
Adam Crymble
[email protected]
Digital History Research Centre
University of Hertfordshire
• Case 1:
• Case 2:
Starting where last year left off
‘Adding value’ for an audience
What History Students Do
• Work with old stuff.
• What can it teach us
about dead people?
• Arrive thinking the
answer is always in a
quote.
• We want them to
analyze.
Typical History Assignment
Answer the same essay
question as the
students have
answered for the past
decade.
Why?
Scarcity of resources
A Sea-Change: The Internet
Internet & Digitisation
now have an abundance
New opportunity to
build rather than
repeat.
Adam Crymble - @adam_crymble
Case 1: Starting where last year left off
History of Britain and Africa (1750-2000)
• Level 4 survey.
• Thinking about relationships
Essay question:
Were people of African descent integrated into London life in the
1700s?
Adam Crymble - @adam_crymble
Black Experience in 18th c. London
Text-rich descriptions of crimes (but lots of details also on what people were like)
Adam Crymble - @adam_crymble
Year 1: Find 50 relevant entries
Needles in Haystacks: ‘the black dog’, ‘the Black Boy public house’.
Adam Crymble - @adam_crymble
Result of Year 1
• Build students’ advanced searching skills.
• 517 trial accounts out of 100,000+ contain
references to people of African descent.
• Students then wrote essay using these
sources.
Adam Crymble - @adam_crymble
Year 2
• Students given list of 517 trial accounts
containing references to people of African
descent (running start).
• Given 20 each to read carefully to identify
anything ‘interesting’. Results shared with whole
class
• Dataset is being iteratively improved, results
always shared.
Adam Crymble - @adam_crymble
Outcomes
•
•
•
•
Year 0: random keyword searching
Year 1: relevant records identified
Year 2: most interesting cases identified
…year 3, 4, 5…
• Thousands of hours of work, shared.
Adam Crymble - @adam_crymble
Case 2: Designing for an audience
Digital History Workshop
• Level
6 module.
• Purpose is to learn to build
digital resources for
other historians.
• Facilitating rather than
doing research.
• Very public facing.
Adam Crymble - @adam_crymble
The Historical Source
Alumni Oxonienses, British History Online
• Mini-biographies of 60,000 Oxford students, 1500-1714.
• Students challenged to make them better…
Adam Crymble - @adam_crymble
The Task
• Extracted from original record
– Date of studies
– County of origin
– Name of colleges attended
• Added from external source
– Population of county at time of admission
– Definition of degree studied for
• Calculated
– Year born (using age and date of admission)
Adam Crymble - @adam_crymble
Outcome Year 1
• Students produce professional, public-facing
resource for colleagues.
• Forced to consider needs of audience.
• ‘Published’ online, with citation guide to
ensure students receive credit.
Adam Crymble - @adam_crymble
Year 2: Using the new resource
Intro to Digital History
• Level
5 module.
• Analysis-based research
• Includes digital mapping of
historical data.
• Research focus.
Adam Crymble - @adam_crymble
Year 2: Mapping and Interpreting
• Given dataset and taught to build digital map
• Told data was built by students.
• Challenged to interpret patterns of student
recruitment.
– Not possible without the ‘added value’ from
previous cohort.
Adam Crymble - @adam_crymble
Mapping Results
1649-59
1660-75
Origin of students who attended Lincoln College
Maps by David Eddy
Adam Crymble - @adam_crymble
Student Conclusions
Students able to
challenge conventional
historical interpretation
with this new evidence
(Potentially publishable
new research findings!)
1660-75
Maps by David Eddy
Adam Crymble - @adam_crymble
Benefits:
• Students see themselves as ‘real’ historians
– (beyond private work for tutor).
• They are making new discoveries
– (more interesting to read).
• Plagiarism more difficult
– (can’t ask friends for essays).
Challenges:
• Can I publish on the research findings?
•
(ethics of student effort).
• Can I force students to contribute to collective endeavours?
•
(ethics of student work).
Iterative Pedagogy
Adam Crymble
[email protected]
Digital History Research Centre
University of Hertfordshire
• Case 1:
• Case 2:
Starting where last year left off
‘Adding value’ for an audience