Inverting the Past: The Flipped Pedagogical Model and Historical Understanding

This thesis explores how a flipped pedagogical approach can foster historical understanding. The study adopts the model of historical thinking advanced by Seixas (2017) and the Historical Thinking Project (2015). Historical thinking encompasses substantive and procedural knowledge: the former is concerned with the content of the past, the latter with the method of history. They are interrelated concepts that are equally important to historical thinking. Effective historical thinking enables students to demonstrate historical understanding. The flipped pedagogical model requires teachers to invert the teaching and learning process. Work traditionally learnt in class is completed prior to class as preparatory activities. Class time is subsequently devoted to in class activities that facilitate higher-order thinking. The flipped pedagogical model advanced in this study contains four interrelated components: required preparation, consolidation activities, in class activities, and summative assessment. This model can be applied to history curricular in order to facilitate historical understanding. Substantive knowledge is learnt prior to class as required preparation and reviewed during consolidation activities. Procedural knowledge is then learnt during in class activities as historical thinking concepts are applied to substantive matter. In the final component, students complete summative assessment to showcase historical understanding. There is a dearth of study evaluating the flipped pedagogical approach in history education generally, and the flipped pedagogical approach in Australian history classrooms specifically. This study is therefore concerned with examining the four components of the approach and the extent to which they can foster historical understanding. An action research strategy was used within a teacher research framework to investigate students’ perception of the flipped pedagogical approach in a Year 10 History classroom. Three forms of data were co