Making Every History Lesson Count

Book excerpt: Chris Runeckles' Making Every History Lesson Count: Six principles to support great history teaching offers lasting solutions to age-old problems and empowers history teachers with the confidence to bring their subject to life. Making EveryHistory Lesson Count goes in search of answers to the crucial question that all history teachers must ask: What can I do to help my students retain and interrogate the rich detail of the content that I deliver? Writing in the practical, engaging style of the award-winning Making Every Lesson Count, Chris Runeckles articulates the fundamentals of great history teaching and shares simple, realistic strategies designed to deliver memorable lessons. The book is underpinned by six pedagogical principles challenge, explanation, modelling, practice, feedback and questioning and equips history teachers with the tools and techniques to help students better engage with the subject matter and develop more sophisticated historical analysis and arguments. In an age of educational quick fixes and ever-moving goalposts, this carefully crafted addition to the Making Every Lesson Count series expertly bridges the gap between the realms of academic research and the humble classroom. It therefore marries evidence-based practice with collective experience and, in doing so, inspires a challenging approach to secondary school history teaching. Making EveryHistory Lesson Count has been written for new and experienced practitioners alike, offering gimmick-free advice that will energise them to more effectively carve out those unique moments of resonance with young people. Each chapter also concludes with a series of questions that will prompt reflective thought and enable educators to relate the content to their own classroom practice. Suitable for history teachers of students aged 11 to 16 years.