NT historian wins national award

A Darwin historian has gained national recognition for his article about teaching history in Australian universities.

Charles Darwin University History lecturer Dr Steven Farram won Best Article of the Year in the publication, Circa: The Journal of Professional Historians.

Dr Farram said he was happy the prize acknowledged the importance of his article, “Assessment Methods Appropriate for Teaching History in Australian Universities”.

“I’m hoping to start a dialogue because there hasn’t been much written about the use of assessment for history subjects in Australian universities,” he said.

“My question in the article is: how do we get a quality historian from the way we teach students?”

Dr Farram said assessment methods should reflect learning outcomes. Outcomes in history units included an understanding of a period or culture of the past, identifying and interpreting primary and secondary sources, and understanding changing representations of the past.

He said students should also gain effective communication skills from studying history.

“There’s no use understanding facts about the past unless you can explain it to someone else,” Dr Farram said.