gms | German Medical Science

In evaluations of history courses at Heidelberg, students tend to articulate a vague dissatisfaction with the practical relevance of what they learn in class. Student feedback shows that the students largely do not perceive their course-activities to be particular disciplinary practices. This has two main reasons: a) the skills practiced in class that are essential for historians (reading, writing, arguing, criticizing etc.) are hardly explicitly framed as such; and b) students very rarely do research on the ground themselves, but have to rely on published (source)material. The paper suggests that this dissatisfaction can effectively be resolved by conceptualizing courses focusing on research and inquiry [1], [2] that make use of (local) archives to investigate (unknown) histories. The case-study presented here depicts a course dealing with the seemingly marginal topic of “Indian students in Heidelberg at the beginning of the 20^th century”.

Relying on the findings drawn from this course-experiment that is based on students in autonomous, yet intertwined “research-groups” conducting their own research in local archives, I will argue that in the discipline of history in particular, a research-based approach to teaching throughout a whole semester is perfectly suited to foster self-determination and thereby intrinsic motivation among the students [3]. As a result, the students are assuming responsibility in an extraordinary manner, while becoming active partners in a common and original project. Furthermore, the explicit nature of skills and methods practiced in class is directly translated to “real” historical work in the archives. The latter is directly transferred into production of written knowledge that is accessible online. This makes the process of learning through inquiry visible and measurable.