Exploring the Use of Artful Thinking in Teaching History: A Case Study

Date of Award

2019

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts in Education, major in Basic Education Teaching (Option 1: Thesis)

Department

Education

First Advisor

Cornelia C. Soto, PhD

Abstract

Studying and understanding history can become too challenging or uninteresting for some students because of the enormous information from the past and the ideas that need to be studied. Thus, they simply perceive history as a subject which is simply about the memorization of facts. For the part of teachers, it is also challenging to teach history in a way students would appreciate it and turn every classroom session into a meaningful learning experience. If it is already a challenge to make history interesting, it is even more challenging to battle the issues the subject is facing such as fake news and historical revisionism. This thesis explores a new approach to address the issues mentioned above through the Artful Thinking. In this approach, students are trained to think through the thinking routines. These thinking routines are developed and reinforced with the aid of visual art, particularly painting. In every thinking routine, core questions or guidelines are given to make students observe, ask, describe, explain, etc. the artwork being shown in relation to the history lesson. The use of Artful thinking attempts to bring a new classroom learning experience and to tap students’ higher order thinking skills such as reasoning and critical thinking. This study also looks at the students’ attitude toward studying history and academic performance before and after the implementation of the Artful Thinking approach.

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