Historical Thinking Institute

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Since 2007 the Historical Thinking Project has collaborated with various partners to organize Historical Thinking Institutes (HTI) in different cities across Canada. The HTIs have been attended by teachers, graduate students, curriculum developers, professional development leaders, historians, and museum educators who wanted to enhance their understanding of historical thinking and how to apply it in their varied contexts.

For 2024-2025, we are pleased to share two professional learning opportunities:

What’s the Story? Supporting Inquiry through Heritage Fairs

This series is designed to provide teachers with tools and strategies for helping students select meaningful topics, design strong inquiry questions, and locate and analyze relevant evidence. Teachers will also learn how to assess heritage fair projects effectively.

Available in both French and English. Hosted on Zoom.

Dates: October-December 2024

Registration coming soon!

Virtual Historical Thinking Institute (VHTI)

The Virtual Historical Thinking Institute will offer an introduction to historical thinking and enhance your expertise in designing history programs, courses, units, lessons, projects, or educational resources that explicitly focus on historical thinking.

Available in both French and English. Hosted on Zoom.

Dates: January-April 2025

Registration coming late 2024!

Interviews with 2023 Governor General History Award Recipients

André Boutin-Maloney

Finding Common Ground: A Treaty Walk (& Roll) of Fort Qu'Appelle, Saskatchewan is an innovative project that evolved into a digital, self-guided walk that explores local history through a Treaty lens.

Chantal Clabrough

The Westmount High School Memorial Project was a decade-long endeavour to research and commemorate the lives of the school’s alumni who served and died during the Second World War.

Erin Doupe

Erin Doupe led her high-school students through a local history project called The Story of a Soldier, which centred on the experiences of Guelph’s soldiers and their families during the First World War.

Leone Andrea Izzo

The No. 2 Construction Battalion Project delves into the history of the First World War with a specific focus on Canada’s first segregated unit.

Interviews with 2022 Governor General History Award Recipients

Cynthia Bettio

Cynthia Bettio’s students undertook a year-long project to investigate Canadian history from 1914 to the present through the lens of traditionally underrepresented groups, including Indigenous people, racialized Canadians, and women.

Carla Cooke and Tracey Salamondra

Carla Cooke and Tracey Salamondra designed a cross-curricular, community-based project for their grade eleven students to investigate the histories of their rural community.

Luisa Fracassi

Luisa Fracassi developed her project “Immigrant Voices” as an experiential learning opportunity for her diverse class of grade ten students.

Barbara A. Giroux

Through age-appropriate resources and books, Barbara Ann Giroux introduced her young students to the history and legacy of the residential school system and encouraged them to consider their role in reconciliation.

Jen Maxwell

With the support of her school and colleagues, Jen Maxwell created a cross-curricular project that allowed grade twelve students in her large urban high school to earn multiple credits towards social studies, English language arts, and career education.

Interviews with 2021 Governor General History Award Recipients

Jacqueline Cleave

Elementary teacher Jacqueline Cleave led a project to make the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s ninety-four calls to action more accessible to younger learners.

Kelly Hiebert

The Westwood Historical Society, a school organization led by teacher Kelly Hiebert and his students at Westwood Collegiate, has created a documentary on the rise of hate and antisemitism in Canada.

Mark Perry

For more than a decade, high school history teacher Mark Perry has guided his students in commemorative research projects that research key moments in the first and second world wars and share the stories of soldiers and veterans from their community.

Michel Blades Bird

Designed by teacher Michel Blades Bird, Keeping Tobacco Sacred is an initiative that fosters a reconnection to land, culture, and language for youth growing up in government care.