ERIC Number: EJ824441
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2001-Aug
Pages: 12
Abstractor: ERIC
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0018-2745
EISSN: N/A
Available Date: N/A
The Uses of Economics in an Integrated Cluster
Abbott, William; Nantz, Kathryn
History Teacher, v34 n4 p447-458 Aug 2001
If a person teaches a history course required of business or other non-history majors he or she may be confronted with student complaints that the subject is boring and of no use to them in the pursuit of their professional objectives. Because they do not know how to deal with history course material and are used to much smaller, denser reading assignments, such students may also complain that they do not know how or what to study for tests, and that there is too much reading in the course. Unlike a hard science or math-oriented social science course, in which most of the reading deals with problem solving methods that build on previous skills, history course reading often appears to these students as a mountain of disparate facts. This article suggests a different response. Confronted with the two student complaints, "What's the use of history?" and "What should I study for the test?", history instructors should consider the benefits of course integrations, or "clusters," particularly with hard- or social-science fields that focus on problem-solving. Under the cluster format, two existing courses are taught to the same group of students, and material from each course is used and applied in the other. In both courses, many of the study questions, discussion topics, and exam questions, together with essay assignments, are designed to make students shuttle back and forth between the textbooks, notes, and readings of each course. (Contains 2 figures and 9 notes.)
Descriptors: Majors (Students), United States History, Social Sciences, Course Content, Instructional Design, Learner Engagement, Unified Studies Curriculum, Teaching Methods, Integrated Curriculum
Society for History Education. California State University, Long Beach, 1250 Bellflower Boulevard, Long Beach, CA 90840-1601. Tel: 562-985-2573; Fax: 562-985-5431; Web site: http://www.thehistoryteacher.org/
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Descriptive
Education Level: Higher Education
Audience: Teachers
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Author Affiliations: N/A