How to Teach History in the Classroom

History can be loved or loathed. If you are the one teaching it, it can be hard motivating students to learn. Finding ways to make history more interesting will help students develop an appreciation for people and events from the past. This article discusses fun ways to teach history. It can be adapted for all age levels, although it is meant mainly for high school or college age students.

Things You'll Need

• Computer with Internet access Lesson plans Pop quizzes Final Assessment

Instructions

1. Decide on a historical event or person about which you would like to teach. This could be the Civil War, George Washington or, if you are teaching world history, the Spanish Inquisition.

2. Create a lesson plan for each day that you teach on the subject. The lesson plan needs to include the goals and objectives of the lesson, the materials you will need that day and any activities you plan on doing.There is a great Web site with free lesson plans at school.discoveryeducation.com. You can find a link to the history area in the resource section below this article.

3. Pick activities that will get the students involved with each other. Group work and games or acting out scenes are great ways to do this.

4. At the end of each day, have each student complete a hand-out or give a pop quiz. This will help you determine how much the students learned from that day's activities.

5. At the end of each unit, give a test for assessment. To help them prepare for the test, give them a study guide for review.

Tips & Warnings

• Bring in small facts that would interest your students, such as how Native Americans would slide to one side of a horse to "disappear" from enemies. Information like this is seldom found in school history books. Bring technology and computer use into the lessons.

Resources

• school.discoveryeducation.com