AC History Units
AC History Units presents 8 units developed by the History Teachers’ Association of Australia to support teachers in the implementation of the Australian Curriculum: History
The development of these units has been guided by a number of ideas:
- Unit 1, Teaching History, is a foundation unit, providing a brief introduction to the discipline of history. It ‘unpacks’ the skills and concepts, surveys approaches to teaching and provides an essential framework for the other units.
- Units 2-8 focus on topics relevant to particular year levels and are designed to provide very practical support in the form of teaching programs, sample ‘learning sequences’, a wide range of resources and assessment ideas.
- A learning sequence is a sequence of lessons (as opposed to separate learning activities) designed to give students an opportunity to develop skills and understanding in some depth. At the end of a learning sequence students should be equipped to demonstrate their learning by completing a substantial task, appropriate to their year level.
- While there is consistency in the presentation of the units, no attempt was made to impose a particular teaching approach. A variety of valid approaches to teaching history is presented.
- It is expected that these units will be used in different ways. Some teachers may put the programs and learning sequences to immediate use. Others may use the material more selectively. A particular feature of the units is the range of quality resources that have been developed – many will be easily adapted or put to wider use.
- A major goal has been to provide the conceptual background (in Unit 1) and concrete examples (in Units 2-8) to assist teachers in designing their own programs and learning sequences for other topics and year levels.
