TEAC 451

I found this article very interesting because I had never before questioned the way in which we teach students throughout the entire history education curriculum. The focus on national identity and community is something I considered universal, just like the author states in the introduction. It wasn't something I had ever thought about before.

I especially connected with the idea that educators in Northern Ireland view that the goal of history education is to teach students historical skills that they will be able to use throughout their lives. I was honestly kind of appalled when I read that some even consider our methods as "unacademic" "immature" and "unreliable". And while I agree that often they are unreliable and immature, I don't think the way we view and teach history is specifically unacademic.

I was particularly struck by the ways in which we as teachers can raise ourselves from the "stories" and national identity-centric view of history we have now to a more well-rounded one. For myself, I still sometimes struggle with the idea that "those people just didn't know any better" especially when confronted with a time and place in history that I don't know a lot about. I think the melding of societal factors in with the focus on individuals is key in allowing students to see these connections. I also believe that introducing contrasting or comparative global events alongside US events is a relatively easy thing to do and will bring lasting effects for students. I, for one, never learned about the French Revolution specifically, so using the American Revolution as a stepping stone to learn about global history would have had a great impact on my life.

TEAC 451: Blog #9

I really enjoyed reading this article, although I was a bit worried about the length of it when I first opened the document. I think all three "types" of citizens are important to have in a democracy. Not everyone can be a participatory or justice-oriented citizen, and the personally-responsible ones contribute to society and democracy as well.

I did find the differences between participatory and justice-oriented citizenship compelling. Both are important, but in different ways. I think the examples from the two schools that they studied really brought out the contrasts well. Although the Madison County students were actively involved with issues in their community and working to make it a better place, they didn't get the background knowledge of the social, political, and economic ideas that brought those issues into place. They also didn't learn about the reasons people would be for or against the things they studied, but they gained the experience to participate in the community and (hopefully) it instilled a desire to continue to participate in civic activities. The Bayside students, on the other hand learned more about those social, political, and economic issues that underlie the problems in their community. But, as the article points out, they didn't gain the experience in social change initiatives that revolve around personal involvement, only the collectively driven ones. So, they would be less likely than the Madison students to participate in further community enhancement projects.

I think both of these types of education involve lots of planning on the teacher's part. For the Madison County school, there were two teachers who planned and followed through with these lessons. As a pre-service educator, this seems kind of daunting to me. I think maybe if I could partner with a more experienced teacher and have both our classes do this, I would be more comfortable. Or maybe this type of learning could be something I do as I gain more experience and become more comfortable in my school and with my own teaching style.

TEAC 451: Blog #8

I really enjoyed the Ladson-Billings chapter on culturally relevant social studies. I think when I first saw the term "culturally relevant" I thought that it meant something other than what it does. For me, the words picked up the connotation that it was more about connecting subject matter to current issues and things that students care about in the here and now. While it is partially that, it is also more inclusive of diverse students. It's the ability to use what students know, their language, culture, background, upbringing, etc. and connect it with the content in a way that is relevant to the larger culture of the US, but also to each particular student and their experiences as a person.

One part of the reading that stood out to me was during the part about Gertrude Winston. In the explanation for her lesson, the author says that she doesn't expect students to cover material, or to get through a certain amount of required curriculum, but what she wants is for them to see themselves in it and make connections that will last them through their lives, rather than just until they pass the test. I think that's a powerful stance to make as a teacher in this day and age. I think it's a great one, too. Being able to go against the grain like that and to value the abilities and uniqueness of your students so highly is admirable.


http://cargocollective.com/kristinlangerud/Take-a-Stand

TEAC 451: Blog #7

I thought the reading for this week was really interesting. I particularly liked how Dr. Johnson primed us for it in class last week without really telling us that he was doing that. By asking us to create our own lists of the top ten most influential/important figures in American history, he made sure we all understood our own perspectives and biases before doing this reading.

Seeing as this article is over ten years old, I'd love to see how high schoolers' perspectives have changed or if they haven't changed at all. I also wish the researchers had asked adults in the middle range (post high school to 45 years old) the same question so we could compare the gap between the generations more.

As I read over the lists of the top 10 most frequent answers I was struck by the seeming diversity, and then upon further inspection, at the lack of true diversity. Sure, there's black Americans and women (although that's skewed due to Part B of the study, as they stated), but where are the Native Americans, the Latinos, the Asian Americans? Furthermore, where are the gay people, the Muslims, the Jewish people, and the people who cross multiple of these categories? I suppose that those groups have historically been less prominent in US history, but it also showcases the fact that those groups' histories and contributions aren't taught in formal settings. Or at least not taught as widely.


https://culturela.org/event/latino-american-heritage-month-celebrations/

TEAC 451: Blog Post #6

I thought the Journell article was very useful. When I took TEAC 259: Instructional Technology I spent a lot of time concerned that many of the things we talked about wouldn't work in my classroom. This was one of the first points that Journell made: Students studying social science education hardly get the instruction needed in how to apply technology in their classrooms in a meaningful way. I think this article and the things we talked about in class last week truly enhance the way I think about utilizing technology in my future classroom.

I like the idea that inquiry-based instruction can take place through webquests. I think the important thing to remember with activities like this is that they shouldn't just be another research paper or presentation. The student needs to care about the topic they're looking into and want to make a great final product because they enjoyed doing the work behind it. I think the idea that these webquests lead to discussions amongst the students and in the class is unique. Never in my educational background did we discuss what we learned from other students' presentations, and I think that empowers the students who then feel like they have taught their peers something new.

The other two areas where we can use technology effectively, I don't necessarily agree with. In my personal experience as a secondary student, asking students to look around a museum website or a newspaper article just turns into social hour. There is little motivation to actually do the thing assigned to them with much effort put in. I wish the article had said more about how to get students engaged in that type of inquiry.

TEAC 451: Blog #5

I didn't find this reading nearly as compelling as any of the other readings for this class. I think perhaps it's because the term "assessment" as a bit of a negative connotation in my mind. Assessment means boring, it means a summary or memorization, not anything useful. I realize, after reading the chapter, that assessment merely means that it's an assessment of knowledge and what the student understands, but it still retains that negative feel.

I liked the idea of the backward design model, where you decide what your students need to know and how you will know that they understand it and then work on how to teach it to them. I think using the ABCD method paired with Bloom's Taxonomy is the way to go for creating those learning targets/objectives. I can remember in one of my IB classes when my teacher was explaining the way IB tests work, she showed us the language they used: "give an example" "explain" and "analyze" and how each of those encompassed the lower expectations on the scale. For example, to analyze you would have to give an example, explain, and analyze. This reminds me of Bloom's Taxonomy, where to be able to do #4 you must be able to do #3, #2, and #1 as well.

One question I had was about the authentic and performance assessments. How well do those rank in terms of usability? It seems to me like they might be harder or take longer to grade than other methods of assessment. I think the key thing there is to use a variety of assessment methods in the classroom, not to stick with the same type for every unit. 

I never thought about the subjectiveness of grading before. I always just assumed that teachers used rubrics for students benefit only, not to remain objective while grading. Now that I think about it, though, it makes a lot of sense. If I don't feel great or a certain student made me mad that day, I would be more likely to give harsher grades, but utilizing a rubric would help stop that.

TEAC 451: Blog #4

I found the readings for this week difficult to interact with. They are mostly ideas about how to get students to interact in a historical mindset with the subject or topic area. While I like and find a lot of the suggestions useful, it was hard for me to form an opinion or raise any sort of questions with the text.

While I read I began to recall instances from my practicums and in my personal education experience where a teacher used these strategies. When Levstik and Barton wrote about imaginative entry into the historical mindset, I remembered in fourth grade history when we studied the Alamo and each student made a project of a person from the Alamo and then our parents were invited come and listen to our presentations. I don't recall much from the experience other than that we were all really excited to do it and that it was fun. While reading Schmidt's chapter, I flashed back to when we studied the Silk Road in 7th grade using roleplaying and in 11th grade when we did a mock 1919 Paris Peace Conference. For these experiences, I can remember more than the feeling of having fun; I remember putting what we learned into action and truly experiencing the history we discussed in class.

I had a real connection to Schmidt's idea of the Paper Trail activity where students review their last 24 hours and examine what sort of artifactual evidence they left behind and what a future historian would piece together about them from those sources. I think that this activity has great potential. I can remember learning the "book definition" for primary sources and looking at some in class, but never have I had an experience that truly allowed me to understand the significance of them in such a profound way. This would be a great activity to use at the beginning of the year to bring the concept of primary sources to the forefront and develop a deep understanding of them and then continue to use them throughout the year.


https://www.britannica.com/place/Alamo

TEAC 451: Blog #3

I really enjoyed the readings for this week! I liked that both were structured in a way that laid out issues within history education currently, why they don't work, and what we can do to fix them. I appreciated that there was educational theories and easy to understand practical examples in both chapters.

I immediately picked up on this quote from Bain: "students of history actively construct the past in their own minds" (p. 332). I was drawn to this because I do believe that history and the past in general are highly based upon our own prejudices and wants and cultural ideas. I think that it is very important to bring this up in social studies classes at an early age. The sooner students understand this, the more likely it is that they will see the subject of history as a study of people, not just to be memorized, but to be understood and interpreted. I was drawn back to this idea while reading Chapter 2 of Levstik and Barton, when they write about "constructive assessments". If each student has a different understanding of a historical event, then why do we test them all the same way? This was actually a question I had while reading Bain, and Levstik and Barton answered it well: we shouldn't. I was so thankful that they then explained how teachers could assess students on a case-by-case basis. I think project and inquiry based learning can be a great way to determine how much students have learned about a subject, rather than critiquing what they DON'T know on a test. I really liked that way of thinking; it put into words a lot of my own feelings on the current grading systems we have in place in a clear and concise way.


https://www.maturedrivertuneup.com/more/no-tests-to-pass.html

TEAC 451: Post #2

When I first began reading the Lee text I had some issues trying to understand what he was talking about. The concept of "doing history," "metahistorical," "second-order," or "disciplinary" knowledge was a bit much for me to wrap my head around in this reading. However, once I was able to connect it to what I already knew, it made sense. In my junior year of high school, when I was just starting the IB program, my history teacher introduced the concept of "historiography" to help us get a sense of what the class would look like. When I was able to make the connection back to that, I felt like I understood what the idea of "doing history" was.

I think this reading was very interesting and engaging. There were a lot of concepts that I agreed with, understood, and felt at some point in my academic career, but had never really thought about or put into words. The injection of adolescent development (in the form of how students think) was a real high point of this chapter for me. The examples of students thinking that people didn't know as much, or weren't as smart, in the past hit home for me because I can remember myself thinking similarly. It makes sense that as you grow up you can have better grasps on these sort of concepts, although I wish the text was more specific on how to help students get over these misconceptions.

Near the end of the chapter, one specific part confused me. On page 68 there is a paragraph on how teaching a larger scale framework of events and then breaking it down into smaller, more in-depth chunks is useful in teaching history in a way that is more than just facts thrown together. I had to read this section multiple times to get to the core of what Lee was trying to say. Being able to see something as a full picture, then adding specifics to it is often easier than looking at specifics and trying to gain a full perspective. It made me think of how when writing an essay you should state your thesis and then your supporting arguments, not the other way around. I think this method is useful, although perhaps not applicable on a lot of topics. I think that there are some things that should be taught chronologically rather than in groupings; for example, learning US history by moving from topic to topic rather than looking at migration patterns, racial issues, politics, etc. makes more sense to me. However, I think that this would be something useful as an end of the year type of project, maybe.


https://www.slideshare.net/FaHadHassanNooR/narrowing-thesis-statement 

TEAC 451: Blog #1

I agree with many parts of the readings for this week. I think that social studies is a great discipline, but often the way it is taught is not engaging, not just in real life, but in examples in the media (just about any children's or teen's TV show has a boring teacher, and they usually teach history or social studies). All three of the articles we read this week reflect what it means to teach social studies authentically and with meaning.

The NCSS Position Statement serves as a benchmark of how social studies can be a great and powerful subject; however, it seems very idealistic. The goal of education, in my opinion, is to make everyone have an equal playing field where each student has similar educational backgrounds and can think critically about most subjects to draw their own conclusions. This article argues much the same perspective, although specifically about social studies education. While this goal is commendable, and many parts of it can be implemented, there are some issues in the feasibility of it on a larger scale. Students should be able to have a meaningful, integrative, value-based, challenging, and active experience in every social studies classroom, but with current emphasis on test scores and quantifying data, it isn't possible for every student to have it. My wish is that eventually we can use the social sciences as a way to teach "critical thinking, problem solving, and cooperative skills", but many are still teaching to the test and expecting students to regurgitate information back to them. 

This issue melds into the concepts in Scheurman's article From Behaviorist to Constructivist Teaching. I personally consider myself to be part of the constructivist point of view, however I can see the usefulness of teaching from a behaviorist perspective. Students must have a baseline knowledge of well-accepted facts on a subject before they can be expected to problem-solve and think critically about it. For example, students should know about Jim Crow laws, segregation, the history of slavery, and their atrocities before they can answer "Why was the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s necessary?". 

I think that inquiry-based learning can be a great way to tie these things together. Having students discover their own curiosity about a subject and allowing them to dive in and state that desire for knowledge is a wonderful way to stimulate learning. Again, prior knowledge is needed to be able to choose a topic and understand it completely enough to form an opinion on it. 

Perhaps using all the perspectives in Scheurman's article together is the best way to get to the goal of instilling students with the knowledge to make their own decisions about subject-matter, which is a skill that can be applied outside the classroom.