The promotion of Historical Consciousness in emerging learning environment: a study with elementary school students

Abstract

The permanent epistemological discussion on the relationship between history and practical life is notorious, which enabled us to identify some anchors for the analysis of the historical consciousness of young people and history teachers, considering a more constructive teaching method of history (Gago, 2019; Seixas, 2004). Indeed, historical consciousness is inherent to human beings and is related to historical thinking, in which subjects have the experience of the past and interpret it as history (Rüsen, 2010). There has been an attempt to redesign didactical paths and innovative learning environments for the development of historical consciousness, using digital technologies and active methodologies (Moran, 2015), which leads to an active and meaningful learning process and that steers away from learning merely through memorization of historical facts and events. In promoting this methodological and organizational change in the classroom, the roles of the student and the teacher change. Thus, in this context, we intend to develop a study using active methodologies such as the flipped classroom, peer learning and the workshop class model, which, jointly with the TED-ed and Youtube platforms, may develop students' historical consciousness in order to promote the development of historical skills and foster a learning process that values meta-historical concepts and not only the historical content. A qualitative methodology will be used, particularly in a case study (Yin, 2015) thus seeking to describe and analyse the reality of learning at a given time and context. Several data collection techniques and instruments will be used, namely the Focus Group, as well as participant observation, semi-structured interviews, questionnaire surveys, and works produced by students. Considering the nature of the problem under study, for the data analysis, we opted for a predominantly qualitative approach using Grounded Theory analysis techniques and Nvivo software. In this rapport, the study design, the methodological procedures adopted and some reflections on the stages of the study carried out so far will be presented.