VISUAL SOURCES IN A HISTORY TEXTBOOK AS A TOOL FOR STUDENTS’ CRITICAL THINKING DEVELOPMENT

Abstract

Modern changes in the information space require to understand the didactic potential of visual sources and to develop the methodology for incorporating them into the educational process, in particular into the subject of history. In this article, the authors focused on presenting in a textbook and working at history lessons with primary visual sources, that are the authentic monuments to the activities of people in the past, and which are the information carriers of the times when they were created. These include illustrations in textbooks that document authentic monuments to the period under study — photographs, historical reconstructions, and reproductions of works of the art of that time. An analysis of the textbooks of recent years shows that there is an increase in the quantity of such illustrations in national history textbooks, but the educational potential of these materials has not been used sufficiently. First of all, it is about the potential of visual historical sources in the development in students such thinking operations as analysis, synthesis and assessment, the ability to explain, ask questions, compare, argue, express judgments, attitudes, hypotheses, etc. This is possible only if the authors of the textbook focus students’ attention on:
− description of the source: determining its type, time and place of creation, authorship, purpose of creation, etc.;
− empirical analysis of the source (what is shown): identification of the details of the image, which are key to its understanding;
− critical analysis of the image: its parts, structure, interconnections (for example, people and nature), the basic idea, characteristic signs of the era, common and different features with other sources, etc.
− synthesis of information from the source: in independent conclusions, creative works or projects;
− evaluation of the source: a critical evaluation of its authenticity, information value, expression of the own emotional and value attitude to the source or event (based on the source), aesthetic evaluation of the source. Working with a visual historical source that is contained in a textbook will be efficient from the point of view of critical thinking enhancing if it is carried out using B. Bloom’s cognitive taxonomy, which most teachers consider to be an effective tool for developing critical thinking. Depending on how well students perform this analysis and interpretation of an image or a painting, whether they are working with known historical material, or with new information, the level of their cognitive activity is determined: reproductive, transformative or creative. It is obvious that the systematic formation of high-order thinking in students — analysis, synthesis and evaluation — should be facilitated by the systematic setting of relevant questions and tasks in a textbook.