From Monograph to Classroom: Securing the Future of West African History Through Pedagogical Innovation

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This project will deliver major new benefits and capitalise on the AHRC Leadership Fellowship awarded to Dr Toby Green under the Early Career Route in 2016 for the project Money, Slavery and Political Change in Precolonial West Africa (AH/N004485/1). There were two major impacts associated with this project as funded, both in the education sector: the first was the development and initial promotion of the OCR A level option "African Kingdoms, c. 1400-1800", and the second the development of a new online textbook freely available to all Senior Secondary schoolchildren in English-speaking West Africa sitting the West African Senior Secondary School Examination (WASSCE) in History.This follow-on funding allows the development of a much fuller take-up of these projects than was initially envisaged in the impact funding for the first project. Regarding the WASSCE textbook, this funded the production of the text, the setting up of the website, and the launching of the textbook at the West African Education Council (WAEC) meeting in Banjul in March 2018. Regarding the OCR course it funded a summer school and website. However no teacher training in the WAEC countries delivering this resource was envisaged. Nevertheless, since the project was launched, it has become clear through dialogue with African partners that a full suite of teacher training programs is required for the project to be fully successful, and to reach the maximum number of users, and hence the need for this funded expansion of the original impact is necessary.This follow-on bid is now made with Dr Vincent Hiribarren as co-Investigator. Dr Hiribarren is a colleague of the PI's in the History department at King's College London. His participation as Co-Investigator derives from the heavy participation he has had in the project to date, since he designed the website, wrote two of the chapters, and attended both project meetings in Freetown and Banjul. As website designer, a historian of West Africa, well known to participants in the project from all 4 participant countries, and someone with extensive pedagogical experience at secondary and tertiary levels, he is an ideal participant in the teacher training aspects of the project.The impact of this follow-on funding will be extensive. The launching of these projects has enabled the PI to develop a much fuller suite of new connections and a framework to now ensure full take-up of these projects and training in their implementation, which will be secured by the follow-on funding. In the WASSCE case, the PI and Co-I will co-lead pedagogy workshops in each of the 4 countries which contributed to the development of the new resource, in collaboration with West African partners. These workshops will train teachers in the delivery of the textbook, in new pedagogical models, and in designing new course materials. In the OCR case, a new partnership with the Royal African Society's Education office will enable full connection with a range of schools not previously reached through the promotion related to this option.Both impacts will therefore be radically extended through the follow-on funding. The WASSCE impact will also significantly build towards the development of the Global Challenges Research Fund framework through developing new pedagogical resources and expertise in West Africa, while the OCR textbook helps to deliver on the recognised importance of expanding diversity of perspectives and histories taught in UK schools. Indeed it's to be noted in the latter case that this is something of growing importance to the Historical profession, following the launch of the Royal Historical Society's report on Race, Ethnicity and Equality in October 2018 (https://royalhistsoc.org/racereport/).