Given at the 2015 CORE conference at Jacksonville State University

1. Gordon Harvey | CORE | June, 2015
Rethinking the U.S. History Survey Course:
How My Sons' Lego Play Inspired Me to
Change the Way I Teach
1
Gordon E. Harvey, Ph.D.
Professor & Chair
JSU History & Foreign Languages

2. Gordon Harvey | CORE | June, 2015
We can discover a lot about how
kids learn (and how we should
adapt our teaching) by watching
the evolution of their lego play
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3. Gordon Harvey | CORE | June, 2015
Stage 1: By the BOOK (with a LOT of help)
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4. Gordon Harvey | CORE | June, 2015
Stage 2: by the book (less help)
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5. Gordon Harvey | CORE | June, 2015
Stage 3: By the book, “just watch me dad”
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6. Gordon Harvey | CORE | June, 2015
Stage 4: No book,“Dad come see what I
built”
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7. Gordon Harvey | CORE | June, 2015
Stage 5: Throw the book away, Creativity
unleashed
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Click

8. Gordon Harvey | CORE | June, 2015
They have to learn to think for themselves
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9. Gordon Harvey | CORE | June, 20159
K-12 and Universities talk a
lot about the need for individuality
and creativity.
Yet we do not truly pursue that ideal.
We stifle individualism and force
conformity when it suits us.

10. Gordon Harvey | CORE | June, 201510
Something has to change.
Tell me you are not bored teaching in the same way on
the same material class after class, year after year,
to the same passive and disinterested faces

11. Gordon Harvey | CORE | June, 201511
We’ve conditioned them to sit back
and wait for the learning to happen.
They wait for us to chew up knowledge and
feed them like a mother bird does for her nestlings.

12. Gordon Harvey | CORE | June, 2015
How I learned to teach
(Although there’s still a place for this)
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13. Gordon Harvey | CORE | June, 2015
What do we want to get out of HY courses?
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Historical Consciousness
The fallible memory
Think like Historians

14. Gordon Harvey | CORE | June, 2015
Historical Consciousness
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“Cass Mastern lived for a few years and in
that time he learned that the world is all of one piece.
He learned that the world is like
an enormous spider web and if you touch it,
however lightly, at any point, the vibration ripples
to remotest perimeter…”
All The King’s Men, Robert Penn Warren

15. Gordon Harvey | CORE | June, 201515
What is History if not an
amazingly dramatic story?

16. Gordon Harvey | CORE | June, 201516
So let’s approach the survey
as a three-act play

17. Act 1: A Play
Exposition: establish characters and protagonist
Some issue confronts the protagonists, whose
attempt to deal with it worsens the issue
Leads to a dramatic situation and incident that will
be seen in Act 3
source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-act_structure17

18. Gordon Harvey | CORE | June, 2015
Act 1: US History
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Foundations
Exploration and Native American Encounters
Colonial development and expansion
Geopolitical tension
Revolution and New Nation

19. Gordon Harvey | CORE | June, 2015
Act 2: A Play
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Rising action
Protagonist tries to solve the issue
but the issue worsens
Higher sense of awareness of who they are
and the issue

20. Gordon Harvey | CORE | June, 2015
Act 2: US History
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Growing pains and sectional tension
Republicanism (federal v state)
Expansion of markets and the suffrage
Rise of the “Everyman”
Reform impulse, abolitionism

21. Gordon Harvey | CORE | June, 2015
Act 3: A Play
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Resolution of the story and subplots
Intense and dramatic conclusion
“Leaving the protagonist and characters with
a new sense of who they really are.”

22. Gordon Harvey | CORE | June, 2015
Act 3: US History
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Rise of dual, incompatible political economies
Manifest Destiny and slavery
Sectional Crisis and inevitability of conflict
Secession and war

23. Gordon Harvey | CORE | June, 2015
Structuring the Course
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Begin with the End
Show them the end of the story and
expect them to put the lego pieces together

24. Gordon Harvey | CORE | June, 2015
Structuring the Course
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Group discovery
Each group has a “cause” of the Civil War
and traces the origins and history of this cause
from beginning to end

25. Gordon Harvey | CORE | June, 2015
Structuring the Course
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Journaling
each student journals the day’s info
and “findings” as it relates
to their historical awareness and
the group’s assigned cause

26. Gordon Harvey | CORE | June, 2015
Structuring the Course
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Group collaboration
Groups share the history of their “cause”
with other groups, and compile a fully developed
portrait of the nation’s inevitable march to
disunion and war.

27. Gordon Harvey | CORE | June, 2015
Structuring the Course
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There’s still a place for short,
context-building lectures and
individual assignments.
Variety of assignments, options for different
learning styles, and a mixture
of individual and group-based work

28. Gordon Harvey | CORE | June, 2015
Structuring the Course
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My role
I’ll assume the same role as always,
albeit much less in scale.
I’ll lead micro lectures and facilitate discussion.
The professor doesn’t disappear,
he only becomes a smaller part of
the student’s journey

29. Gordon Harvey | CORE | June, 2015
Structuring the Course
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I’ll show them how to build “historical legos” and
then get out of their way as they create
on their own, with a little guidance from me,
the “historical lego master.”

30. Gordon Harvey | CORE | June, 2015
Contact
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gharvey@jsu.edu