General C. L. Chennault

Because of recent legislation, many students with mild disabilities enroll in high school social studies courses in general education rather than special education settings. Therefore, teachers may have students with learning disabilities, behavioral disorders, communication disorders, and attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder in their history, geography, economics, and political science courses. Typical characteristics of these students include lowlevel reading and writing skills, processing problems, memory disorders, language problems, organizational deficits, and behavioral problems. These characteristics present challenges for the students and social studies teachers; however, there are strategies that will help the students succeed. The author summarizes the disability categories and related characteristics and describes textbook, writing, memory, organizational, and instructional modifications to address the challenges.     

The Civil War in Song

Human history is often shaped by the outcomes of arguments, not only in the sense of disputes between people or governments, but in the sense of the more rational pursuit of trying to convince others to accept or do certain things by offering reasons that are presented as compelling for so doing. Yet history teachers have done little to help students learn how to identify arguments in this sense, figure out what the arguments being offered are, and evaluate them. This article shows how a generic instructional technique—infusing direct instruction in skillful thinking into content instruction—can be used in the teaching of American history in ways that help students develop and use these thinking skills and that enhance their deep content understanding of the history being taught. The context is a secondary school classroom studying American history.     

“Unless You Were Native American…Everybody Came From Another Country:” Language and Content Learning in a Grade 4 Diverse Classroom

Set amidst an increasingly tense discourse about immigration and substantial pressures on educators, this study examines a three-week fourth-grade social studies unit as taught to a class with a large number of English learners located in a low-income school in the Pacific Northwest. Using ethnographic and sociolinguistic perspectives, we provide evidence of how the teacher leverages a wide array of instructional strategies and scaffolds to build language skills and content knowledge within a fast-paced unit on 19th-century Westward Migration. Embedded within such instruction is the construction of narratives that highlight regional examples of a linguistic and ethnically diverse community and that connect immigration trends on a global scale to local history. These strategies and narratives are then used in a summative lesson about immigration that affirms students’ family stories as part of the U.S. history still being written.     

The Historical Newspaper

Education in the twenty-first century requires that all students learn the social studies skills that help them understand the complex issues related to civic ideals and practices. One of these skills is developing multiple perspective-taking. Many educators believe that this critical thinking ability is not only for upper level students but also plays an important role in elementary social studies education. The author shows how he has worked with elementary preservice teachers to develop multiple perspective-taking. Immigration history is one of the areas that is especially appropriate for using multiple perspective-taking. This article shows how to develop these skills by comparing two main immigration stations, Ellis Island and Angel Island, during the first half of the twentieth century. It challenges the commonly held perspective that both immigrant stations served very similar functions. Indeed, it shows how to teach the perspective that the treatment of the Chinese immigrants at Angel Island was more inhumane and racially discriminating than that experienced by their counterparts on Ellis Island. It is important for students of all ages to learn that the immigration policies of our nation have not always lived up to the civic ideals and practices of a democratic pluralistic society.     

Elementary Preservice Teachers’ and Teacher Educators’ Perceptions of Financial Literacy Education

The authors conducted an online survey of elementary teacher education programs within a large midwestern state to assess preservice teachers’ and teacher educators’ beliefs about and preparedness to teach financial literacy. Very few preservice teachers had meaningful experiences with personal finance in high school, college, or personal decision making. No teacher educators reported ever teaching financial literacy in their higher education roles. Only 13% of teacher educators and 25% of preservice teachers thought that it was very important to teach financial literacy in elementary education. Most teacher education faculty and preservice teachers reported that they were not well qualified to use state economics standards or the JumpStart standards for financial literacy. Preservice teachers were more confident in meeting financial literacy standards than teacher educators. Both preservice teachers and teacher educators expressed openness to collaborating with other faculty members, members of the financial service industry, and parents to teach financial literacy. Follow-up phone interviews affirmed that elementary preservice teachers and teacher educators value social studies education (and financial literacy) less than reading and mathematics education. Qualitative results also suggest that elementary preservice teachers and teacher educators would like more easily accessible resources for teaching financial literacy.     

Preservice Teachers’ Sources of Information on Mandatory Reporting of Child Sexual Abuse

Teachers in many countries are mandated by law, professional codes, or education authorities to report child abuse and neglect, including child sexual abuse. However, teachers may not receive adequate preparation for such sensitive interventions, as preservice teacher education degrees provide very few or no compulsory courses on child protection and crucially related, lifelong health and well-being issues. So, where do preservice teachers source their information regarding the mandatory reporting of such abuse? This research examines preservice teachers’ professional university education for their sources of information about mandatory reporting and child sexual abuse. A sample cohort of 56 final 4th-year university bachelor of education (primary school) student teachers in Australia identified the sources they used regarding 10 important aspects of child protection. The results suggest that most did not learn about mandatory reporting or child sexual abuse, and others cited sparse and sporadic public media as their primary information source. These findings, building on previous evidence about inadequate or nonexistent preservice mandatory intervention courses in primary teacher education, may guide the design of appropriate training responses enhancing educational professionals’ knowledge, competencies, skills, and efficacies as mandatory reporters of child sexual abuse.     

A High School Course in Sociology

Because of the importance that geography plays in our understanding of economics, history, and politics, it has been argued that the subject should be taught to students beginning at the early elementary level, usually focusing on the family unit and local communities. However, when the proper technology tools and strategies are used, students at the kindergarten level can learn more complex concepts of geography and other social studies ideas and Common Core Standards. This article is a narrative about how a kindergarten teacher's discovery of “website widgets” brought the world to her classroom while helping her students learn important social studies knowledge and skills.     

“Beating the Bad Rap:” A Qualitative Study of Social Studies Educators Using Film

Abstract

The film-based practices of four social studies teachers were examined using a qualitative methodology. The research interviewed teachers twice over a 2-month period, collected handouts, and collected audio-recorded teacher logs. Three of the teachers taught social studies primarily, while a fourth teacher was responsible for both English and social studies content. The findings indicate that teachers used film in addition to a wide range of other visual practices. Teachers used film actively rather than passively to facilitate dialogic connections, as well as elicit thinking about their content areas.     

Preparing Teachers for English Learners: Integrating Academic Language and Community Service Projects

In this article we highlight elements of culturally and linguistically responsive pedagogy that prepare teachers to work with English Learners (ELs) from a variety of backgrounds. Specifically, we focus on the learning experiences and practices of one secondary social studies teacher to explore promising practices with ELs and effective teacher preparation strategies. This article highlights two specific strategies used by the teacher: the intentional integration of academic language instruction through sheltered instructional observation protocol (SIOP) and community-engaged service learning. The findings suggest that the teacher improved his EL instruction, specifically within the context of his social studies curricula, and his experiences and reflections offer insights for teacher educators who seek to better prepare in-service and preservice teachers to serve ELs and their families.     

A Challenge to Teachers of the Social Studies

When teachers in elementary and middle school classrooms portray history as an immutable sequence of certain facts, dates, and events, young learners tend to view the past, and by extension the future, as something fixed and inevitable. Learning about the past through investigating biographies can help counter this tendency by teaching students to recognize that individuals and groups have the agency to make history and shape the future. In this article, the author presents three instructional strategies in which learners make use of graphic organizers to investigate the historical contexts and chronologies of individuals' lives. Students learn how people have effected historical change and worked together to preserve continuity with the past. They also learn that the values and attitudes that motivated individuals and groups to act as they did were in large measure the result of historically specific social structures and institutional arrangements.     

Reframing a Social Studies Methods Course: Preparing Elementary Teacher Candidates for the Common Core

The emphasis on disciplinary literacy skills embedded within the Common Core State Standards requires a shift in preparing teachers to explicitly address the craft of reading and writing within social studies instruction. As teacher educators, we think it is imperative to understand the ways in which our teacher candidates integrate literacy within their social studies instruction and strive to modify our own practices to support their needs. Using practitioner research, we share the instructional changes we made to better prepare teacher candidates to meet the standards, and we consider how our teacher candidates responded to those changes in their work. Our implications suggest research-based practices must be utilized in social studies methods courses while maintaining an emphasis on key historical thinking skills. Such practices include using essential questions to guide deeper thinking, integrating appropriately modified informational texts, developing skills in close reading, using graphic organizers, and emphasizing content integration.     

Teaching the Use of the Library

The purpose of the study was to examine if and how elementary preservice teachers’ perceptions about history were changed upon their completion of a class project that engaged them in a discipline-specific inquiry as a method of teaching history. Surveys were administered to assess any changes in their perception of the history before and after they participated in the class project. The preservice teachers’ reflective writings were used to explore any themes that emerged about historical inquiry as well as to understand their development of pedagogical knowledge about teaching history. The study results provide implications for inquiry-based teaching in social studies education.     

Science,Invention and Society

Social studies teacher educators highlight the importance of oral stories and histories in the social studies classroom, leading social studies learners to seek multiple perspectives and encourage historical thinking in the classroom. However, preservice teachers are given few opportunities to internalize this idea. In this article, the author examines the collection of oral stories and creation of performances in a social studies methods course. The process involves preservice teachers conducting oral history interviews, choosing material to explore, creating and performing stories, and sharing their representations with peers. As preservice teachers become storytellers of someone's history, they are made aware of their own subjectivity.     

Two Teacher Educators Go to the Source: Teaching an Interdisciplinary Class in an Urban Charter High School

The authors of this article are two teacher educators who worked collaboratively to co-teach an interdisciplinary English and US history class to eleventh-grade students in an urban high school. They wanted to ensure the methods they were teaching preservice teachers were current and effective. The article discusses the foundational beliefs that influenced their teaching, the interdisciplinary curriculum they taught, some of the challenges they encountered, and a brief snapshot of the students' views of the curriculum. The authors discuss that putting their beliefs into practice outweighed the challenges they encountered—a culturally relevant, authentic, interdisciplinary curriculum can be effective in an urban classroom. The experience also assisted them in teaching their English and social studies methods classes.     

Cooperative learning in intercultural education

Implementation of intercultural education implies that teachers command the strategies to use the skills and knowledge that children bring into the classroom, to create opportunities to communicate and cooperate in heterogeneous groups, and to provide equal opportunities to participate in the learning processes which are organised in the classroom. The use of small groups in which students learn together and benefit from each others skills and knowledge is a logical option, but conditions have to be fulfilled on the levels of teachers’ communication and management skills, curriculum and pedagogical climate in order to achieve the aims of ‘doing justice to diversity’ and the provision of equal opportunities to participate.     

Preservice Teachers and Religion: Serious Gaps in Religious Knowledge and the First Amendment

Recognizing the influence of religion on people's worldview and daily lives, we wondered if elementary and secondary social studies preservice teachers knew enough about religions not only to be culturally responsive in a classroom but also whether they knew enough to teach about these religions within the appropriate curriculum. We used questions from previously tested surveys to ascertain the students’ knowledge about world religions, the First Amendment's religion clauses, and the application of religion in schools. Our findings suggest that preservice teachers’ knowledge about all religions, including their own, and about the First Amendment's intent, is lacking.     

Student Life in the Medieval Universities

Oral history research projects are assignments that can foster student engagement and learning in undergraduate survey history courses. However, existing scholarship indicates that these assignments are seldom used in undergraduate survey courses. Since the aims of undergraduate survey history courses are to satisfy graduation requirements, foster critical thinking skills, and provide options for potential major areas of study, there is a need to examine whether engaged learning strategies, such as oral history projects, can serve as a high-impact practice (HIP) in undergraduate history courses. With these premises in mind, the purpose of this action research study is to evaluate whether my five-step oral history research project could serve as a HIP in the undergraduate history survey courses I taught at a two-year college located in metropolitan region of the Southeast. Major findings indicate that oral history research projects can be considered a HIP when grounded in pedagogies that emphasize community-based field work that encourage students to consider diverse perspectives on topics and make real-world connections to content and experiential knowledge.