Rethink. Collaborate. Create.
We build the future
of history education
Our team creates innovative resources to develop multi-perspective active historical thinking.
We apply
Ethical innovation
Design thinking
Research & Collaboration
Sustainable democracies require citizens with strong democratic values
Citizens who apply multi-perspective active historical thinking have better chances to evade 'historical truth' indoctrination through schools and media, assess the legitimacy of historical claims and interpretations, differentiate between the uses and abuses of history, and acknowledge that 'historical facts are cooked and served' through interpretation.
Historically literate citizens can think about historical significance, use primary source evidence, identify continuity and change, analyze cause and consequence, take historical perspectives, and understand the ethical dimension of historical interpretations.
What We Offer
No means work for all the variety of aims. Paradigma takes a differentiated approach. We replace textbooks with graphic histories to appeal to children, create guidebooks for teachers and gamified resources for young students, and produce podcasts for young adults. We are a lab. We keep testing our approaches.
Graphic histories
Textbooks, like old phonebooks, are weary means of learning. We create graphic novels (containing primary sources) that develop active historical thinking. You read them, discuss them in and out of the classroom, and strive for the next episode. You love them!
Gamified archival source cards
Unless history charms one, working with primary sources is a tedious and laborious act. We work with archives to transform primary sources into gamified resources for young audiences. Our detailed guides for educators help use primary sources effectively.
Teacher guidebooks
We produce guidebooks with detailed lesson plans to apply or adapt based on the classroom needs. Our guidebooks come with the theory (a bit of philosophy of history) and practice (strategies that can help develop multi-perspective active historical thinking).
Multi-medium learning packs
Learning history is a multi-medium effort. We produce resource packs that combine print media (e.g., sources) with digital learning environments that automate up to 60-70% of mundane teacher activity in the classroom (e.g., grouping students, assigning resources).
We produce guidebooks that help to question
"Why, How" is a guidebook for history teachers in Armenia. It introduces the concept of active historical thinking and more than 60 strategies with detailed examples that teachers can adapt to the needs of their students.
Used by 70% of history teachers
Ministry recommended
Our resources help to re-imagine through a gender lens
History#5 covers five topics of Armenian history from the 19th-20th century. These topics are women’s liberation policies and propaganda in the early Soviet era, pre-wedding, and post-wedding ritual behaviors in traditional and modern Armenian societies, Armenian women’s social and civic activism in the Ottoman and Russian empires and Persia, labor migration of Armenians from the Armenian Provinces of the Ottoman Empire, and public debates on the role of Armenian women in the Ottoman and Russian Empires.
240 primary source cards
5 thematic reviews
1 teacher's guide
We collaborate to co-create...
We collaborate with historians, anthropologists, political scientists, economists, sociologists, and experts from other fields to create rich experiences for teaching and learning history. To date, we have collaborated with 40+ experts from Yerevan State University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, UC Davis, UC Irvine, UCL, American University of Armenia, UCLA, Oxford University, Haigazian University, Clark University, LSE.
"...the most profound and comprehensive approach was presented by the Paradigma Educational Foundation. That’s how we started working with them. This is radically different from the textbook approach, where certain groups claim to write the one and the only true history."
Nvard Manasyan Gender Equality Officer UNICEF
"Why and How? presents an innovative and brilliant work that will certainly get any history instructor to rethink their pedagogic approaches. The multiple assignments presented are specific enough for an instructor to directly apply them in the classroom, but their strength particularly lies in that they serve as models to fit any historical topic of choice."
Dr. Dzovinar Derderian
Visiting Lecturer
UC Berkley
My students love the primary source cards. I have students who'd be silent in classes when working with the textbook, and yet, they become surprisingly alive when working with the primary source cards. I did not have to force students to read additional materials. They were intrigued to find more sources.
Middle school history teacher, Armenia
We research history education
We continuously research the interrelationship between perceptions/interpretations of history, history/civic education, and political values among representative groups of teachers and students (aged 10-18) in Armenia. We also regularly monitor and evaluate how teachers use the solutions we create. We often engage in classroom observations and design experiments to analyze history teaching.
700 teachers surveyed
2 ongoing researh projects
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