Innovative Modules
This section showcases innovative modules/courses for undergraduates and postgraduates in different HE History settings.
Posts include environmental history, global history, regionalism and minority nationalism in modern Europe, and ways to decolonise the curriculum. Posts give details of the student year group, an outline of the module structure, modes of assessment and some key readings.
We welcome contributions to this section that reflect on academic content as well as activities which facilitate student inclusion, engagement and progression; discuss the ways in which the module enhances students’ conceptual understanding of the discipline; or critically appraise how the module enhances skills, graduate attributes and cultural capabilities.
We hope to assemble a series of accounts of innovative modules as a resource for teachers to refresh their own modules or take inspiration from these case studies to devise their own.
If you would like to contribute a module to this section, please get in touch using the contact form.
Browse the Resources
‘Historical Research in the Digital Age’, Part 5: ‘Digitising History from a Global Perspective; and what this tells us about access and inequality’
In this post we continue our series — ‘Historical Research in the Digital Age’ — which explores historians’ use and understanding of the digital tools and sources that shape modern research culture. The series explores the impact and implications of digital...
‘Historical Research in the Digital Age’, Part 2: ‘Tools for the Trade: And how historians can make the most of them’
In this post we continue our new series -- 'Historical Research in the Digital Age' -- which explores historians' use and understanding of the digital tools and sources that shape modern research culture. The series explores the impact and implications of...
Studying history in a secure environment: legacies, challenges, opportunities
In July, Rosalind Crone was awarded this year's Royal Historical Society's Innovation in Teaching Prize, for the creation of Exploring the History of Prisoner Education, an open online course for the Open University which launched in October 2022. The 8-session...
New to Teaching History 2022: An Interactive Workshop, Part 6 – ‘Creativity in History Curricula’
In September 2022 the Royal Historical Society, in partnership with History UK, organised an interactive workshop hosted by Professor Jamie Wood (Lincoln). This workshop aimed to open discussions on the challenges and opportunities of teaching History at UK...
New to Teaching History 2022: An Interactive Workshop, Part 5 – ‘Module Design and Delivery: Challenges and Opportunities’
In September 2022 the Royal Historical Society, in partnership with History UK, organised an interactive workshop hosted by Professor Jamie Wood (Lincoln). This workshop aimed to open discussions on the challenges and opportunities of teaching History at UK...
New to Teaching History 2022: An Interactive Workshop, Part 3 – ‘Small Group Teaching in History’
In September 2022 the Royal Historical Society, in partnership with History UK, organised an interactive workshop hosted by Professor Jamie Wood (Lincoln). This workshop aimed to open discussions on the challenges and opportunities of teaching History at UK...
Creating Public History: a Guide to Co-production and Community Engagement
About this event ‘Creating Public History: a Guide to Co-production and Community Engagement’ is part in the Royal Historical Society’s series of online training events designed for early career historians. This session was held online in December 2021 and the...
The Future of (Teaching) the Past
What happens when a university lab-based Digital History module goes online due to lockdown? You might think the imposed digital switch would be straightforward for 'born digital' digital history students. But as Dr Jessica van Horssen of Leeds Beckett University...
Creating an Online Community: A Pre-Pandemic Initiative
Professor Marjory Harper won the 2020 RHS Jinty Nelson Award for Inspirational Teaching and Supervision in History. Here, she reflects on the process of planning an online Master’s Programme in Scottish Heritage in 2017. The RHS annual teaching prizes recognise...
Putting the Past in its Place: Teaching Environmental History in the Age of the Anthropocene
In this post, Karen Jones, Professor of Environmental and Cultural History at the University of Kent, provides a brief methodological introduction to the field of environmental history, together with a short reflection on teaching innovation and practice. She draws...
Small Group Teaching in a Large Class: ‘Understanding History’
In this post Dr Marcus Collins, Senior Lecturer in Cultural History at the University of Loughborough, shares his knowledge and experience of teaching the course 'Understanding History', a compulsory module for second-year undergraduates which aims to develop the...
Teaching with BME Students
The cohort of students who study History at SOAS is one of the most diverse in the UK but the findings of the RHS’s Race and Equality Report have been highly pertinent to departmental discussions about inclusive pedagogy. Dr Eleanor Newbigin, Senior Lecturer in the...
Teaching Black and South Asian British Histories
In the current political juncture, we are witnessing wide-ranging calls to decolonise the curriculum. Many are now campaigning to ensure that history teaching within the UK incorporates histories of British imperialism and, more specifically, Black British History....
‘Imagined Communities’: Regionalism and Minority Nationalism in Modern Europe
In this guest post, Dr Andrew Smith, Senior Lecturer in Contemporary History & Politics at the University of Chichester, shares and reflects on a module he created for undergraduate-level students at university. The module introduced students to unfamiliar...
Teaching World History
What does world history look like if you approach it through a BA History programme focused on the histories of Asia, Africa and the Middle East? What are the challenges of introducing such an approach to students who have, up until they join the programme, largely...
Beginning with Unfamiliarity – Justin Bengry
Dr Justin Bengry is a cultural historian specialising in history of sexualities and the queer past. Lecturer in Queer History at Goldsmiths, University of London, he convenes the MA in Queer History, the first masters course of its kind. He was the lead researcher on...
Teaching History in a Digital Age
Digital transformations in society and culture have fundamentally changed the historian's relationship with the past. So how do we incorporate this into our teaching? In this post for Historical Transactions, Dr Sharon Webb and Dr James Baker, winners of the 2019 RHS...