Preface

Summary

THIS BOOK IS about teaching medieval history. The purpose of this book is to demonstrate how incorporating formal educational research and pedagogy into the undergraduate medieval history classroom can benefit the educational experiences of both instructors and students. It is our hope that medieval history instructors, most of whom have not had formal training in pedagogical theory and instructional strategies, will be convinced of the benefits of incorporating some of the ideas in this book into their own classrooms. Utilizing these educational best practices does not require instructors to gain mastery of an entirely different discipline or delay their research schedule in any significant way. It likely only requires a shift in instructional perspective towards intentionality. In the world of education research, intentionality means a continuous evaluation of what you are teaching and how your students are responding to it. Not only that, but intentional teaching necessitates deliberate and purposeful action in every phase of the teaching process from course design to small group discussion protocols, all geared toward specific outcomes you intend for your students to reach.

In many ways, this intentionality mirrors the process many of us use in the development of a research project. There are many occasions where a well-written section of a paper must be abandoned for the overall success of the project. Manuscripts and sources are not chosen at random as the evidence-base for a presentation at a conference, they are carefully selected for the anticipated audience. A book project cannot cover all topics associated with its subject matter, the scope must be carefully crafted and articulated in order for its arguments to reach a cogent conclusion. The same is true for teaching the Middle Ages. A well-liked lecture that is not cohesive with the rest of the course content should be left on the sideline as it is likely to confuse students who have thrown themselves into the medieval past for the first time. Source material and readings should not be selected only because of their importance in the medieval studies historiographic timeline, but also according to their accessibility and interpretability to novice medievalists, and their utility in helping students reach specific learning outcomes.