Andrew Payne - Why Archives Make Students Think, and How Digitisation Helps Them

2. The National Archives
Why archives make students think,
and how digitisation helps them
Andrew Payne
Head of Education & Outreach

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5. Archives have the power to make us think!

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Memory is the residue of thought
“Your memory is not the
product of what you want
to remember or what you
try to remember; it’s the
product of what you think
about”
Daniel T. Willingham
Why Don’t Students Like School
Jossey-Bass 2009

7. Archives force us to re-think!

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Challenge preconceptions about the past
“Students come to the
classroom with preconceptions
about how the world works. If
their initial understanding is not
engaged, they may fail to grasp
the new concepts and
information…”
Suzanne Donovan & John Brandsford
How Students Learn p.1
National Academies Press 2005

9. ἱστορ-ίαHistoryEnquiry

10. The Power of
Documents

11. The power of documents
• As source of information
• As identifier for knowledge
• As insight into opinion or motive
• As evidence to substiate an interpretation
• As means of stimulating curiosity
• As illustration or example
• As confounder of preconceptions
• As context to a period
• As artifact
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12. The Power of
Digitisation

13. www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education
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14. To provide access through remote teaching
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15. To provide access to online collections
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16. To create collated collections for schools
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17. To structure historical enquiries
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18. To facilitate engagement and understanding
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22. To enable presentation
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23. But...

24. ...this is all a
waste of time...

25. ...unless we
help teachers to
find and use our
collections!

26. Find out more…
andrew.payne@nationalarchives.gsi.gov.uk
@The_History_Man
@UKNatArchives
Contact…
www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education