GH One of Only Six Schools to Teach Big History in Fall
The big news in the history department is Big History!
“We are really excited about Big History coming to Greenhills,” says history department chair Tammy Shreiner. “It incorporates all we know about the past from multiple disciplines – biology, sociology, anthropology, geology, etc. – and fits it all together to form one coherent story. It’s just a fascinating way to approach history.”
Greenhills was selected to be one of the pilot schools because of Shreiner’s connection to her former graduate advisor Bob Bain, associate professor of educational studies and history at U-M who was tapped by the Big History project to be its academic advisor.
Earlier this spring Shreiner and the other pilot teachers met in Seattle (in Bill Gates’ office, in fact!) to collaborate on the Big History curriculum, still a work in progress. They will meet again in June on the U-M campus, where a big focus will be on developing a research component to the course. Throughout the year data will be collected and analyzed to see how well the course is working – a practice rarely (if ever) seen in education.
Click here to watch Bill Gates talk about Big History.
