Teaching Social Studies = Overcoming Barriers, Part 4

We have arrived at the fourth and final installment in a series of four about the challenges that students have with using primary sources for historical inquiry as presented in the Jeffery Nokes’ article “Recognizing and Addressing the Barriers to Adolescents’ ‘Reading Like Historians’” (Nokes 2011). After a review of the research on historical thinking in the classroom, Nokes identifies four barriers to student success and presents some ideas for what teachers can do about it in the classroom. Nokes says that analyzing historical documents taxes students’ cognitive resources beyond their bounds; students have limited historical background knowledge and misapply the background knowledge they have; and students tend to hold unsophisticated views of the world. Our final barrier to successful historical thinking is that students have a false sense of what it means to study history.

Teaching Social Studies = Overcoming Barriers, Part 3

Welcome to the new year! This blog is the third installment in a series of four about the challenges that students have with using primary sources for historical inquiry as presented in the Jeffery Nokes’ article “Recognizing and Addressing the Barriers to Adolescents’ ‘Reading Like Historians’” (Nokes 2011). Nokes has reviewed the research on historical thinking in the classroom and has identified four barriers to student success with historical inquiry. For each barrier he presents some ideas for what we can do about it in the classroom. In last month’s blog I discussed the issue of students lack of background knowledge and their tendency toward “presentism” – applying today’s values and ways of thinking to the past that prevent them from successfully analyzing historical documents. This month we’ll explore the issue that students often have unsophisticated world views that pose barriers toward their being able to think historically.

Teaching Social Studies = Overcoming Barriers, Part 2

This blog is the next installment in a series about the challenges that students have with using primary sources for historical inquiry as presented in the Jeffery Nokes’ article “Recognizing, Based on a synthesis of research, Nokes discusses four barriers to student success with historical inquiry and some ideas for what we can do about it in the classroom. In last month’s blog I discussed how analyzing historical documents overtaxes students’ cognitive resources so that managing all of the tasks of inquiry becomes untenable.

Teaching Social Studies = Overcoming Barriers

Not surprisingly, the BIG emphasis this year in social studies is on inquiry using primary sources with students which involves teaching them skills and practices to analyze and evaluate those sources and use them as evidence in creating claims and arguments. The Social Studies Framework is based on the Inquiry Arc of the C3 Framework which is all about this process. The Frameworks themselves promote a balance of content and skill and the Toolkit Inquires are built on investigating sets of primary sources related to a compelling question. It’s the rainbow, folks!

Teaching Social Studies = A Balancing Act

I have been doing far too much thinking this week, and by Jove it’s got to stop! I have been working on a presentation for the CNY Council for the Social Studies Fall Conference and it has led me to cogitate on the idea of the balance of content and skill that is at the heart of the NYS Social Studies Framework and the Toolkit Inquiries. I have been using that phrase (“a balance of content and skill”) a lot in the past few months and every time I do I stretch my hands out in front of me, palms upward, and seesaw them back and forth to symbolize balance. Can you see it in your mind’s eye?

Teaching Social Studies = Being (and Creating) Critical Consumers

Simon Cocks

One of my goals this year has been to finish reading some of the books that I started over the past couple of years. As I organized field trips and events for the Teaching American History grant, there were often wonderful books that I would start to read, but would not have the time to finish because I would have to move on to the next task/event/workshop/topic. In addition to my pile of gotta-gitr’-done books, I read several others, just because I could (one of the perks of being retired – well, semi-retired, at least.) Although most of the books have something to do with history, there is a memoir on the list, and a more “sciency” book about redwood trees (Thank you Jay!) Here’s the list so far:

Teaching Social Studies = Comfort with Discomfort

As Summer 2015 winds down and we start to look forward to a new school year, I thought that this blog from last December still had some thoughts that would resonate with those of us who are:

1. Mapping our curriculum, planning units and designing lessons to align with the NYS K-12 Social Studies Framework.
2. Exploring the Inquiries on EngageNY or C3Teachers.
3. Anxious about change.

Change is hard. Change is good (and inevitable), but change is hard. We are in the midst of change in Social Studies in New York State and it is both exciting and difficult.

Teaching Social Studies = A Corps of Discovery

We are just finishing up two weeks of social studies professional development with teachers from many of our districts. Teachers have spent their time working very hard to understand and use the Social Studies Framework to build curriculum maps, plan units and think about Toolkit Inquiries in order to teach for understanding and transfer. Some my blogs from the last year remain relevant in light of everyone’s hard work, so I will be recycling some favorites! This blog first appeared last September.

Welcome to the first edition of the transformed Teaching American History blog, now the Teaching Social Studies blog! Although I will continue to write about historical and critical thinking, standards and teaching and learning in the classroom, the focus will widen to all social studies content.

I just (finally) finished the book Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West by Stephen Ambrose, the story of the Corps of Discovery and their trip of exploration of the Northwest from 1803 to 1806. I had started it in the spring in preparation for our first TAH book giveaway, but I was not able to finish it as the school year got busier and busier. I am now on a mission to complete the pile of books that I have started and half-read, so that I can move along to the pile of books that I want to read but have yet to start. So many books and so little time!!

Teaching Social Studies = Go Slow to Go Fast

I have twin granddaughters, Rose and Mae, who are soon to be 11 months old and have recently transitioned from crawling to walking. The process has been fascinating to watch (from afar on Face Time, since they live in Wyoming). They have almost totally abandoned crawling, and they seem highly motivated to walk, no matter the consequences. At 11 months, walking looks more like controlled falling than actual walking. My son (the twins’ dad) has compared them to the frilled lizards that you see on the Nat Geo channel running like crazy across the northern Australian savanna. More often than not they fall or run into something (mostly pillows, but sometimes each other), but they rarely hurt

Teaching Social Studies = Argument (but not that kind…)

I have been thinking a lot about argument this week. No, not that kind. I am getting along fine with parents, spouse, children neighbors, co-workers…at least, as far as I know. I am thinking about how we teach students to create and write arguments based on evidence from text. Using evidence to write an argument is all over the placed once you start looking for it: the C3 Framework, the NYS Social Studies Framework, the NYS Toolkit Inquiry Design Model and, course the Common Core Learning Standards for Literacy. I am also trying to include the idea of argument writing in the class I teach at SUNY Cortland (AED 310 Writing in Social Studies). The thing is – I was never explicitly taught how to do this. Ever. So my personal understanding of writing argument is inadequate, if not downright meager. So as I prepare for upcoming workshops and social studies curriculum work in the summer, I have started gathering resources that will help me think about not just what a good written argument, but how we teach our students a complex and demanding process.