Pitching Big History as a new school course

Jim Jaeger Great idea! I'm sure Bridgette OConnor will have some tips to make the case for Big History.

Hi Jim Jaeger and thanks for your question! I did this about 12 years ago and I'm happy to share what our process was to get Big History approved to replace World History at the high school level (9th grade). I created a curriculum map that outlined the Big History curriculum and the World History state standards that Big History fulfilled. But I was using the older (high school) version of the course, which you can still find on our site here, however, it will be retired after this school year. All the materials have been archived in our Google Drive and you can find those here. I'm not sure which state you are in but we do have some older standards alignment docs using the high school version of the course that we could dig up (Becca Horowitz might be able to help this with as well since I'll be out of the office for the rest of this week). Let us know and we'll do everything we can to help!

Dear Bridgette, Thank you for sharing this. I piloted BH in my previous organisation in 2017. Thoroughly enjoyed setting up the program and then passed on the mantle to other teachers when I took on a larger role. I am now introducing BH within my new school community. I am familiar with the old website ( shared by you here) but completely new to the OER PROJECT site. Is there a way I can familiarise myself to the new site? Back then we a BH page on YAMMER and the community of teachers was as thriving as the one here.

I have a few questions - How do students login and how do they access the materials? Do investigations still get assessed on the platform and do students receive feedback on it? Please let me know, I can sense you are the trusted source here ( and thank you for that!) :-)

Dear Bridgette, Thank you for sharing this. I piloted BH in my previous organisation in 2017. Thoroughly enjoyed setting up the program and then passed on the mantle to other teachers when I took on a larger role. I am now introducing BH within my new school community. I am familiar with the old website ( shared by you here) but completely new to the OER PROJECT site. Is there a way I can familiarise myself to the new site? Back then we a BH page on YAMMER and the community of teachers was as thriving as the one here.

I have a few questions - How do students login and how do they access the materials? Do investigations still get assessed on the platform and do students receive feedback on it? Please let me know, I can sense you are the trusted source here ( and thank you for that!) :-)

Hi Fizza, happy to help! We have a site tour video that explains many of the features of the OER Project site and you can also book a time to chat with one of us about the course on our booking page. 

Site tour video: https://www.oerproject.com/OER-Materials/OER-Media/PDFs/BHP/Teacher-Resources/BHP-Info-Session 

Booking page: https://outlook.office.com/book/OERProjectTeam@oerproject.com/?ismsaljsauthenabled 

Info about LMS and Google Classroom: https://www.oerproject.com/help 

The new site no longer requires a login for students so they can access all materials either by going to the site or in your LMS—all of our materials can be imported into Google Classroom and we have cartridges for Canvas, which I believe also work with other LMS. We no longer have Score—the program that assessed students’ investigations—but we do have a partnership with Khan Academy and students can use Khanmigo to help them with writing skills. 

Let us know if you have any other questions!

Bridgette

Bridgette OConnor Awesome!  Thank you so much for the insight!!

Dear Bridgette OConnor  thank you for sharing the resources. Everything you have shared is what I am most familiar with :-)  I can see that the OER project has a different flow than the previous site but many activities are still available. There are no videos on the OER site. Is all information now available only as reading scripts/articles/infographics? I will first go through the site a little more and surely fix a meeting to see further guidance. Thank you once again! 

Hi Fizza, we still have lots of videos! Some of the older David Christian videos have been shortened and we have new videos on topics such as the Big Bang, Egypt, and the future of space exploration. Here’s a link to the new course outline which should help you find things: https://www.oerproject.com/OER-Materials/OER-Media/PDFs/BHP/Teacher-Resources/Big-History-Outline 

Thank you Bridgette OConnor This is very helpful! <3

 Jim Jaeger I read your post and thought about a video my senior students recorded as part of their view of Big History for students in our school. I did not include their faces so I edited the video using images to illustrate their ideas. I hope this helps your school see the value of this amazing course. Our students spoke eloquently about the benefits of learning Big History. Becca Horowitz Bridgette OConnor