Collaboration and the Future of Education

Book excerpt: Current educational reforms have given rise to various types of "educational Taylorism," which encourage the creation of efficiency models in pursuit of a unified way to teach. In history education curricula, this has been introduced through scripted textbook-based programs such as Teacher Curriculum Institute’s History Alive! and completely online curricula. They include the jargon of authentic methods, such as primary sources, cooperative learning, differentiated instruction, and access to technology; yet the craft of teaching is removed, and an experience that should be marked by discovery and reflection is replaced with comparatively empty processes. This volume provides systematic models and examples of ways that history teachers can compete with and effectively halt this transformation. The alternatives the authors present are based on collaborative models that address the art of teaching for pre-service and practicing secondary history teachers as well as collegiate history educators. Relying on original research, and a maturing body of secondary literature on historical thinking, this book illuminates how collaboration can create real historical learning.