Thinking historically using digital technologies and active methodologies: An educational experience with elementary school students

Abstract

History lessons should focus on opportunities to build knowledge through the development of historical thinking, by working with metahistorical concepts, using digital technologies and more active and participatory forms in the classroom. The purpose of this study is to understand the use of digital technologies combined with active learning methodologies for the historical understanding of the past, with a view to developing the historical thinking and awareness of 1^st and 2^nd grade CEB students. In this article, we will only focus on the participants from the 1^st CEB, in which intervention sessions were developed, in which they had the opportunity to learn to think historically using digital technologies combined with socioconstructivist methodologies. A qualitative methodology and the case study method were adopted, in which various instruments and data collection techniques were applied. Grounded Theory analysis techniques were used to analyze the qualitative data and descriptive statistics were used for the quantitative data. The results show that the digital platforms that most helped the students learn to think historically were YouTube and Book Creator, and the active methodology most emphasised by the students was Peer Instruction.