Teaching Big History
Teaching Big History

Author: Richard B. Simon

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 2015

Total Pages: 442

ISBN-13: 0520283554

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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.

Big History
Big History

Author: David Christian

Publisher: McGraw-Hill Higher Education

Published: 2013-08-02

Total Pages: 353

ISBN-13: 0078116074

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Big History: Between Nothing and Everything surveys the past not just of humanity, or even of planet Earth, but of the entire universe. In reading this book instructors and students will retrace a voyage that began 13.7 billion years ago with the Big Bang and the appearance of the universe. Big history incorporates findings from cosmology, earth and life sciences, and human history, and assembles them into a single, universal historical narrative of our universe and of our place within it.ËË The first edition of Big History: Between Nothing and Everything, is written by the pioneers of the field, and presents a framework for learning about anything and everything. It encourages students to think critically about our cumulative history and the future of the world through a variety of lenses.

Popol Vuh
Popol Vuh

Author:

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 1996

Total Pages: 388

ISBN-13: 0684818450

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One of the most extraordinary works of the human imagination and the most important text in the native languages of the Americas, Popul Vuh: The Mayan Book of the Dawn of Life was first made accessible to the public 10 years ago. This new edition retains the quality of the original translation, has been enriched, and includes 20 new illustrations, maps, drawings, and photos.

Teaching History with Big Ideas
Teaching History with Big Ideas

Author: S. G. Grant

Publisher: R&L Education

Published: 2010-07-16

Total Pages: 231

ISBN-13: 1607097672

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In the case studies that make up the bulk of this book, middle and high school history teachers describe the decisions and plans and the problems and possibilities they encountered as they ratcheted up their instruction through the use of big ideas. Framing a teaching unit around a question such as 'Why don't we know anything about Africa?' offers both teacher and students opportunities to explore historical actors, ideas, and events in ways both rich and engaging. Such an approach exemplifies the construct of ambitious teaching, whereby teachers demonstrate their ability to marry their deep knowledge of subject matter, students, and the school context in ways that fundamentally challenge the claim that history is 'boring.'

Big History and the Future of Humanity
Big History and the Future of Humanity

Author: Fred Spier

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2015-05-06

Total Pages: 371

ISBN-13: 1118881729

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big history and the future of humanity “This remains the best single attempt to theorize big history as a discipline that can link core concepts and paradigms across all historical disciplines, from cosmology to geology, from biology to human history. With additional and updated material, the Second Edition also offers a fine introduction to the history of big history and a superb introductory survey to the big history story. Essential reading for anyone interested in a rapidly evolving new field of scholarship that links the sciences and the humanities into a modern, science-based origin story.” David Christian, Macquarie University “Notable for its theoretic approach, this new Second Edition is both an indispensable contribution to the emerging big history narrative and a powerful university textbook. Spier defines words carefully and recognizes the limits of current knowledge, aspects of his own clear thinking.” Cynthia Brown, Emerita, Dominican University of California Reflecting the latest theories in the sciences and humanities, this new edition of Big History and the Future of Humanity presents an accessible and original overview of the entire sweep of history from the origins of the universe and life on Earth up to the present day. Placing the relatively brief period of human history within a much broader framework – one that considers everything from vast galaxy clusters to the tiniest sub-atomic particles – big history is an innovative theoretical approach that opens up entirely new multidisciplinary research agendas. Noted historian Fred Spier reveals how a thorough examination of patterns of complexity can offer richer insights into what the future may have in store for humanity. The second edition includes new learning features, such as highlighted scientific concepts, an illustrative timeline and comprehensive glossary. By exploring the cumulative history from the Big Bang to the modern day, Big History and the Future of Humanity, Second Edition, sheds important historical light on where we have been – and offers a tantalizing glimpse of what lies ahead.

The Big Resource Guide to Teaching and Learning Texas History
The Big Resource Guide to Teaching and Learning Texas History

Author: Tracey Williams

Publisher: iUniverse

Published: 2016-10-29

Total Pages: 471

ISBN-13: 1491798025

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Offering a one-of-a kind teaching resource for Texas history teachers, The Big Resource Guide to Teaching and Learning Texas History, by author and teacher Tracey Williams, includes everything to make Texas history come alive in the classroom. The teaching units are aligned with the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills and contain activities, assignments, and assessments to help instructors teach the state curriculum. The Big Resource Guide to Teaching and Learning Texas History covers all major topics in Texas history and offers a graphic organizer to help students record the important details of the topics. This resource includes essential Texas history vocabulary, cross-curricular vocabulary, and end-of-chapter assessments. This guide helps prepare students for assessments, and it also aligns with English language arts, offering reading and writing activities. An engaging resource, it allows students to collaborate with their peers, be creative, investigate subject matter, solve problems, and have fun while learning.

Big History
Big History

Author: Cynthia Stokes Brown

Publisher:

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 348

ISBN-13: 9781458786661

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An epic for our time, Big History begins when the universe is no more than a single point the size of an atom, squeezed together in unimaginable density, and ends with a twenty-first-century planet inhabited by 6.1 billion people. Its a story that takes in prehistoric geology, human evolution, the agrarian age, the Black Death, the voyages of Columbus, the industrial revolution, and global warming. Historian Cynthia Brown visits the Vikings, the Mayas and Aztecs, the Incas, the Mongol empire, and the Islamic heartlands. Along the way she considers topics as varied as cell formation, population growth, global disparities, and illiteracy, creating a stunning synthesis of historical and scientific knowledge of humanity and the earth we inhabit.Big History represents a new kind of history, one that skillfully interweaves historical knowledge and cutting-edge science. In an age of global warming, when the fate of the earth hangs in the balance, scientific advances permit us to see the universe as never before, grasping the timescales that allow us to understand the history of mankind in the context of its ecological impact on the planet. Cynthia Browns lucid, accessible narrative is the first popularization of this innovative new field of study, as thrilling as it is ambitious.

Teaching the Big Class
Teaching the Big Class

Author: David Vaught

Publisher: Bedford/St. Martin's

Published: 2010-11-04

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780312571450

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Teaching the Big Class is a practical guide for history instructors at large universities. Drawing on his extensive teaching and mentoring experience, David Vaught provides reliable, “in the trenches” advice on the potentially daunting challenge of teaching large lecture courses. In an engaging and personal style, Vaught speaks colleague to colleague about preparing syllabi, selecting readings, drafting and delivering lectures, incorporating technology, conducting writing, reading, and note-taking workshops, developing discussion strategies, and working with (or without) teaching assistants.

Future-Focused History Teaching
Future-Focused History Teaching

Author: Mike Maxwell

Publisher:

Published: 2018-07-28

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 9781732120112

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This provocative book challenges the status quo in history eduction by proposing that isolated facts from the past be replaced by knowledge relevant to the future. Not a classroom teaching guide, this book examines the fundamental premises and practices that underlie the work of every history teacher from grade school through graduate school.

The Routledge Companion to Big History
The Routledge Companion to Big History

Author: Craig Benjamin

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2019-08-01

Total Pages: 589

ISBN-13: 1000228029

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The Routledge Companion to Big History guides readers though the variety of themes and concepts that structure contemporary scholarship in the field of big history. The volume is divided into five parts, each representing current and evolving areas of interest to the community, including big history’s relationship to science, social science, the humanities, and the future, as well as teaching big history and ‘little big histories’. Considering an ever-expanding range of theoretical, pedagogical and research topics, the book addresses such questions as what is the relationship between big history and scientific research, how are big historians working with philosophers and religious thinkers to help construct ‘meaning’, how are leading theoreticians making sense of big history and its relationship to other creation narratives and paradigms, what is ‘little big history’, and how does big history impact on thinking about the future? The book highlights the place of big history in historiographical traditions and the ways in which it can be used in education and public discourse across disciplines and at all levels. A timely collection with contributions from leading proponents in the field, it is the ideal guide for those wanting to engage with the theories and concepts behind big history.