Developing a Source Criticism Learning Activity for a Digital Learning Environment in History

Abstract: Source criticism is an important part of the national curriculum in the history subject in middle grade schools. This master thesis presents the development of a digital learning activity for teaching students about source criticism concepts. The learning activity was developed by first researching the history curriculum and how source criticism is taught within the subject. A conceptual design was drafted based on these findings and the design of an existing framework for teaching students within the history subject. The existing framework, and the developed learning activity, is based on learning-by-teaching implemented in the form of a teachable agent. The teachable agent act as a tutee that students have to teach themselves, increasing students' motivation and learning. By teaching the agent, students improve their own learning. The final implementation of the activity is integrated into both the technical framework and the narrative of the existing environment.