Images and the History Lecture: Teaching the History Channel Generation

No SENSIBLE HISTORIAN would argue that using images in history lectures is a pedagogical waste of time. We all seem to accept the idea that visual elements (paintings, photographs, films, maps, charts, etc.) enhance the retention of historical information and add greatly to student enjoyment of the subject. Further, many of us remember fondly those professors who enlivened their lectures with well-chosen and well-presented images (usually from slides). Equally, of course, we have all sat through tedious and clumsy attempts to use images, usually accompanied by inexpert use of visual technology and unimaginative balancing of images and lecture notes. But there seems to be very little discussion among historians about how and why images seem to help students understand history, and perhaps most urgently, how to succeed in seamlessly weaving images into lectures without hiring Ken Burns as an technical assistant.2 Based on a two-year study of my own use of images in the classroom, along with other material, this article attempts to address these issues. It provides a brief discussion of the value of images in teaching history and of the recent trends in technology available to aid the history lecturer. It then provides a detailed analysis of how images have been received by my students and offers "pedagogical techniques for success" for any historian who wishes to integrate images more fully into lectures.