Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Preface
- Chapter 1 Changing Perceptions in Teaching Medieval History
- Chapter 2 Medieval History Course Design
- Chapter 3 Active Construction of Knowledge and Intentional Planning
- Chapter 4 Project Management
- Chapter 5 Technology in the Medieval-History Classroom
- Chapter 6 Medieval Studies Project Examples
- Epilogue
- Appendix A Historical Standards
- Appendix B Sample Content and Skill Rubrics
- Appendix C Planning and Implementation Tools
- Appendix D Survey of Undergraduate Medieval History Courses in US Colleges and Universities
- Index
Chapter 3 - Active Construction of Knowledge and Intentional Planning
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 October 2022
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Preface
- Chapter 1 Changing Perceptions in Teaching Medieval History
- Chapter 2 Medieval History Course Design
- Chapter 3 Active Construction of Knowledge and Intentional Planning
- Chapter 4 Project Management
- Chapter 5 Technology in the Medieval-History Classroom
- Chapter 6 Medieval Studies Project Examples
- Epilogue
- Appendix A Historical Standards
- Appendix B Sample Content and Skill Rubrics
- Appendix C Planning and Implementation Tools
- Appendix D Survey of Undergraduate Medieval History Courses in US Colleges and Universities
- Index
Summary
IN THIS CHAPTER we
– Connect activity theory with project-based learning.
– Explore elements of the project cycle.
– Examine intentional planning templates.
– Analyze construction of outcomes-based rubrics.
Introduction
A common difficulty in a medieval history course is to find ways to make content relatable to students. For medieval history, in general, we have observed similar trends as the study by Leah Shopkow et al. that students have difficulty, first, in maintaining appropriate distance from topics, second, in understanding the limits of knowledge of people in the past, and, third, in identifying people from a much different time and place. Medieval history courses should address charged topics such as gender, race, and religion in their appropriate medieval settings, but it may be difficult for students to address such topics in the context of historical investigation. Take the following passage from a text on women's health and gynecological issues in Sloane MS 2463 from the first quarter of the fifteenth century:
Although women have various maladies and more terrible sicknesses than any man knows, as I said, they are ashamed for fear of reproof in times to come and of exposure by discourteous men who love women only for physical pleasure and for evil gratification. And if women are sick, such men despise them and fail to realize how much sickness women have before they bring them into this world. And so, to assist women, I intend to write of how to help their secret maladies so that one woman may aid another in her ill-ness and not divulge her secrets to such discourteous men.
There are some obvious talking points in this passage about how medieval people viewed gender, gender roles, and femininity that students would likely pick up on: women may not seek out needed health services from men because women were viewed as sexual objects of temptation, and it was therefore a moral quandary for men to assist with women's maladies; medieval men saw women's health concerns as a cause for shame due to the moral turpitude linked to a belief that Eve's original sin had tainted all women; a recognition of women's inherent weakness that results in them having more severe and greater varieties of illnesses compared to men; women keep their illnesses secret because they know men will view it as shameful;
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Medieval History in the Modern ClassroomUsing Project-Based Learning to Engage Today's Learners, pp. 65 - 96Publisher: Amsterdam University PressPrint publication year: 2022