Big History is a new field on a grand scale: it tells the story of the universe over time through a diverse range of disciplines that spans cosmology, physics, chemistry, astronomy, geology, evolutionary biology, anthropology, and archaeology, thereby reconciling traditional human history with environmental geography and natural history.
Weaving the myriad threads of evidence-based human knowledge into a master narrative that stretches from the beginning of the universe to the present, the Big History framework helps students make sense of their studies in all disciplines by illuminating the structures that underlie the universe and the connections among them.
Teaching Big History is a powerful analytic and pedagogical resource, and serves as a comprehensive guide for teaching Big History, as well for sharing ideas about the subject and planning a curriculum around it. Readers are also given helpful advice about the administrative and organizational challenges of instituting a general education program constructed around Big History. The book includes teaching materials, examples, and detailed sample exercises.
This book is also an engaging first-hand account of how a group of professors built an entire Big History general education curriculum for first-year students, demonstrating how this thoughtful integration of disciplines exemplifies liberal education at its best and illustrating how teaching and learning this incredible story can be transformative for professors and students alike.
Author(s): Simon, Richard B.
Edition: 1
Publisher: University of California Press
Year: 2015
Language: English
Pages: 443
Tags: History Study and Teaching Secondary Case studies
Cover
Contents
List of Illustrations
List of Tables
Acknowledgments
Introduction
PART ONE: THE CASE FOR BIG HISTORY
1. What Is Big History?
2. Big History and the Goals of Liberal Education
3. Summer Institutes: Collective Learning as Meta-Education
4. Assessing Big History Outcomes: Or, How to Make Assessment Inspiring
5. Big History at Other Institutions
PART TWO: A PRACTICAL PEDAGOGY FOR TEACHING BIG HISTORY
6. Teaching Complexity in a Big History Context
7. Teaching Threshold 1: The Big Bang
8. Teaching Threshold 2: The Formation of Stars and Galaxies
9. Teaching Threshold 3: Heavier Chemical Elements and the Life Cycle of Stars
10. Teaching Threshold 4: The Formation of Our Solar System and Earth
11. Teaching Threshold 5: The Evolution of Life on Earth
12. Teaching Threshold 6: The Rise of Homo sapiens
13. Teaching Threshold 7: The Agrarian Revolution
14. Teaching Threshold 8: Modernity and Industrialization
15. Threshold 9? Teaching Possible Futures
16. Reflective Writing in the Big History Classroom
17. Activities for Multiple Thresholds
18. Igniting Critical Curiosity: Fostering Information Literacy through Big History
19. A Little Big History of Big History
PART THREE: BIG HISTORY AND ITS IMPLICATIONS
20. Big History at Dominican: An Origin Story
21. Teaching Big History or Teaching about Big History? Big History and Religion
22. The Case for Awe
Conclusion
Annotated Bibliography of Big History Texts and Resources
List of Contributors
Index
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
Z
