How to use the Learning Objects (LO)

European History Crossroads (EHC) means historical topics, which occur in different European history magazines as well as in history curricula. They represent shared histories in Europe’s historical culture: All European states are involved in the topic, each of them in their own particular way.
What you find here is two EHCs being used as learning objects: “Columbus” and “The beginning of WWI”.
To allow teachers and pupils from different European countries to work with the concept of “European History Crossroads“ each learning object is provided with:

• a brief outline of the tendencies, which influence the topic’s presentation in the relevant national history books (1); experts from the countries in question write these texts, which serve to unravel any tendencies in the chosen magazine articles and make them understandable in the national contexts

• possible tasks:

• for critical thinking about the chosen national magazine articles, in terms of contents and media features (2)

• for a bilateral, international comparison with the focus on “media criticism” (3)

• for a bilateral, international comparison with the focus on “trans-national and intercultural historical learning” (4)

• bonus material (5).

There is a national and a bilateral access to each EHC. In the same time, the learning objects allow teachers and students in every country involved to carry out as many comparative studies as they want to – in transnational, media-critical and intercultural ways. They can choose freely which national perspectives they wish to compare. Thus, the national magazine articles can be freely combined and compared. The learning objects allow teachers and pupils in all participating countries to conduct any number of comparative studies: bilateral, trilateral or multilateral ones. They can decide which national perspectives they want to compare. A “multiperspectivic” learning space emerges, in which they can explore Europe’s “shared history” by comparing national magazines and textbooks.

The material provided by EHISTO is especially suitable for project-based learning and learning in combined subjects.

The Learning Objects presented were created for different sets of age:

While the topic “Columbus and the ‘Discovery’ of the ‘New World’” was created for pupils aged 12 to 14 years, the tasks on “The ‘outbreak’ of the World War One“ caters roughly to students aged 14 to 16 years.

Since EHISTO is an European project, it is impossible to go into particulars about all the different national educational systems. Therefore the tasks presented couldn’t be created as learning materials for each and every history classroom in Europe. Rather the tasks should serve as suggestions for teachers in order to create their own questions and targets creatively for their lessons. Furthermore, the suggestions should motivate teachers to develop and use their own ideas based on the EHC-materials.