Looking at the past: Eighth grade social studies teachers and historical visual texts

Teachers in the 21st century are confronted with students who are mass consumers of visual texts via social apps on smart devices, media on television, and information in textbooks. Teaching students to analyze and question visual texts may help them construct meaning and critique what they see. Yet, very little is known about teachers’ pedagogical decisions when planning and teaching with visual texts. This study attempted to fill that gap. The purpose of this study was to explore how eighth grade history teachers utilize historical visual texts in their classrooms. Three eighth grade history teachers participated in this study. Data collection consisted of semi-structured interviews, teacher analyses of visual texts, video recorded lessons, and teacher reflections. Data obtained in this study addressed the following questions: How do teachers analyze a historical visual text for use in the classroom? What previous experiences do teachers utilize when planning to teach with a historical visual text? What do teachers’ reflections of a video recorded lesson reveal about the teachers’ instructional experiences with historical visual texts? What do video analyses of teachers utilizing historical visual texts reveal about teachers’ historical thinking and visual literacy pedagogical decisions? The results of this study indicated that the participants lack formal pedagogical content knowledge and prior experiences in teaching with historical visual texts. Yet, the participants reported that their lessons in this study were engaging and meaningful for students. Findings from this study suggest that historical visual texts can be effective in the teaching and learning of history

What does it mean to teach history well? Exploring the practice architectures of exemplary history teaching.

The work of teachers is under increasing scrutiny. Regimes of teacher professional registration and accreditation have had the effect of dramatically increasing the regulation around teachers’ classroom practices as they seek to codify and articulate the meaning of 'good' classroom teaching. Similarly, public and political discourse has been captivated by various discussions and concerns around the meaning and importance of ‘quality teaching’ in our schools. For secondary teachers of history, this scrutiny is coupled with an already acute public anxiety about the way their subject discipline is taught to school students. Partly in response to this anxiety, there has been a growing interest in researching and explaining the nature of good history teaching through describing the ways in which students engage in deep disciplinary learning in the history classroom. The development of various (but interrelated) frameworks of ‘historical thinking’ have sought to make explicit the concepts and questions that work to scaffold students’ growing understanding of history not merely as a knowledge set, but as a suite of skills and procedures that can encourage a particular way of thinking about the past (Lévesque, 2005, 2008; Seixas, 2006a; Seixas, Morton, Colyer, & Fornazzari, 2013). In a short period of time the ‘historical thinking’ movement in history education has become synonymous with good history teaching – to teach history well has been seen as engaging students in this deeper disciplinary thinking. But despite this increased interest around quality teaching and research around the nature of historical thinking, we know very little about the nature of history teaching as classroom practice. Research around historical thinking has been largely driven by the field of cognitive science and has been primarily concerned with student learning and assessment, without a similarly detailed focus on the nature of pedagogical practices that encourage deep engagement in history and historical ways of thinking. Similarly, the promotion of ‘models’ or ‘frameworks’ of historical thinking often present deep disciplinary engagement in history as a neat matrix of questions and related skills without due acknowledgement of the way in which different learning communities in different contexts may engage in the process of learning about history. This thesis provides insight into the nature of good history teaching as a social practice, exploring how it is constructed and encountered in the classroom by teachers and students. The research was conducted using a multiple case study methodology examining the classroom teaching practice of four history teachers, identified by their peers as exemplary practitioners. Findings were drawn from interviews with the teachers and multiple observations of their classroom teaching, as well as focus group interviews with their students. The research represents a rich portrayal of what good history teaching looks like in a practical, pedagogical sense and adds to our existing understanding of what it means to teach history well through research that is grounded in the reality of teachers’ everyday work. Using the theory of practice architectures as a framework for analysing and interpreting classroom interactions, as well as both teacher and student beliefs about history education, the research reveals the importance not only of teachers’ subject expertise in defining their success as history teachers, but also their knowledge of their students and the communities in which they work. Whilst the four teachers in the study all face varying constraints on their teaching by virtue of the sites within which they practice, the relational dimension of their practice emerges as particularly significant in determining the ways in which different teachers navigate these constraints in their pursuit of praxis. The research contributes new knowledge to the existing discourses around history teaching by highlighting the varied and complex ways in which historical thinking is enacted in different teaching contexts. Similarly, at a time when teachers are increasingly being asked to account for and describe their practice against generic criteria and descriptions of ‘quality’, this research represents a rich and contextualised understanding of what successful pedagogy looks like in different school communities

Mission Possible: Teachers Serving as Agents of Social Change

A case study was conducted to learn about the formation of social justice teachers, and the methods used by radical educators to engage students in social change. Interviews conducted with eight junior and senior high school social studies teachers identified several types of formative experiences inspiring teachers to become radical educators. Personal and family experiences of oppression during their youth and early adult years, childhood multicultural experiences, social activism, volunteerism, and contact with adult mentors influenced teachers to become social justice educators. Adopting critical thinking as the cornerstone of their social justice practice, social justice teachers employed strategies to foster critical thinking and moral action as a central feature of social justice pedagogy. These included (1) adopting alternative texts and supplemental resources to focus on social justice issues, (2) emphasizing active learning and 21st century learning skills (Rosefsky, Saavedra, & Opfer, 2012), (3) engaging students in service learning and civic action projects, and (4) integrating the arts within the social studies curriculum to raise cultural awareness and appreciation. Data gathered from interviews, observations, and documents were analyzed using a transformational learning (Mezirow, 2000) and critical thinking theory (Brookfield, 2012). Findings reveal the importance of contact with diverse others and the important role that critical thinking and awareness play in raising social consciousness leading to moral action

Exploring Three Fifth-Grade Teachers\u27 Understanding of Historical Thinking: A Case Study

Deanne R. Murray at Utah State University conducted a qualitative case study aimed at examining the understanding and practice of historical thinking of three fifth-grade teachers. These three teachers had each been a participant for 3 years in a federally funded Teach American History (TAH) grant project aimed at increasing teachers\u27 historical knowledge and classroom practices. This TAH project in Utah was particularly focused on teachers learning to use cultural tools in socially mediated settings with the ultimate goal of improving their students\u27 performance in history. This study sought to understand the development of these three teachers\u27 historical thinking through their participation in this TAH project and explore how this development influenced their teaching of history to their students. It was the aim of the researcher to probe the understanding of these three teachers regarding historical thinking after 3 years of professional development. If we are interested in strengthening the historical thinking competence of students in our schools, it makes sense to begin by gaining a better understanding of teachers\u27 professional development experiences that are intended to foster historical thinking. This study required the collection of data from teacher interviews, teacher observations in the TAH setting, teacher lesson reflections, and teacher analysis of their students\u27 work and understanding of historical thinking. Teacher participation in this study was voluntary and uncompensated and no outside funding was used during this study. The researcher, Deanne R. Murray, volunteered her time and resources for the study to fulfill the requirements of a Doctor of Philosophy in Education degree

The Historical Thinking Gap: High School History Teachers’ Self-Reported Practices, Beliefs, and Identities

This quantitative study explored the practices, beliefs, and identities of history teachers in Oregon high schools. In recent decades, research from the field of history education has advocated for a shift in the way history should be taught in high school—away from a content-based curriculum to one that emphasizes “historical thinking” skills, i.e., “thinking like a historian.” But scholars have expressed concern as to what extent these skills are indeed being taught in high school classrooms. Very few research studies regarding actual high school history teacher practices exist, and those that do are primarily qualitative case studies. We also know little about why high school history teachers teach the ways they do. The study addressed three main questions related to history teaching in high schools. The first question was, who is teaching high school history? What is their education background and their demographics? Secondly, how is history being taught? Does it tend towards traditional content and instructional methods? To what extent is historical thinking being taught? And finally, why is history being taught the way it is? Two theoretical frameworks that emerged from identity theorists—community of practice (Wenger, 1998) and discourse community (Swales, 1990)—framed these questions and provided the basis for a teacher survey asking questions about teacher educational backgrounds, beliefs, communities, and identities. 186 Oregon high school history teachers anonymously responded to the survey. The data from this study suggested important patterns in the educational backgrounds and teaching practices of Oregon high school history teachers. High school history teachers tend to be veteran teachers with graduate degrees. They reported using primary sources often with their students as well as more traditional resources and instructional methods. Correlating teacher practice data with data on their educational backgrounds, beliefs regarding the purpose of teaching history and historical thinking, communities, and identities as historians, the study also showed significant relationships between teacher practices and their education experiences and beliefs but only limited relationships between their communities and identities. Further analysis revealed that teachers have complex and divergent understandings and beliefs about the role they play and the role historians play in the community of practice of history and its relationship to the discourse community of history. Teachers see themselves as historians when they understand the role of historians as the passer-on of knowledge. They do not feel like historians when they see the role of a historian as a researcher and creator of history. Both beliefs reveal they do not believe the role of a historian to be that of a teacher of the historical process. The results of this study will guide those interested in helping high school students learn how to “think like historians.

Historicizing the Uses of the Past

This book presents new developments in Scandinavian memory cultures related to World War II and the Holocaust by combining this focus with the perspective of history didactics. The theoretical framework of historical consciousness offers an approach linking individual and collective uses and re-uses of the past to the question how history can and should be taught. It also offers some examples of good practice in this field. The book promotes a teaching practice which, in taking the social constructivist notions of historical consciousness as a starting point, can contribute to self-reflecting and critical thinking – being fundamental for any democratic political culture

Unravelling Second-Order Concepts in South African History Textbooks

This paper explores the progression of second-order concepts in seven purposively sampled South African CAPS-compliant history textbooks. History knowledge encompasses both the substantive and procedural knowledge types, with second-order concepts forming an integral component of the latter. Textbook writers and educators use this knowledge in their domains without a predetermined trajectory. These concepts are not mere skills but fundamental notions guiding historical practice. Their meaningful integration into learning materials forms a necessary toolkit for historical inquiry. Drawing from a broader PhD study, a Bernsteinian (1990) framework and the ‘big six’ concepts articulated by Seixas and Peck (2004) are used to analyse the content of seven chapters, one per book, telling the story of the history of South Africa across grades three to nine in the foundation, intermediate, and senior phases of the South African school curriculum. A continuum was populated, articulating the strengths of the second-order concepts ranging from a powerful presence to those weakly incorporated. The findings indicate a sporadic presence of the six concepts—historical significance, continuity and change, cause and consequence, historical perspectives, and the moral dimension across the textbooks. There is a more inclusive focus in the senior grades and less so in lower grades. The concepts also lack continuous and cumulative development. If these ‘structural’ historical concepts provide the basis for historical thinking, it is unclear how they advance through the grades with increasing levels of complexity. The methodology of history is thus not a universal or one-size-fits-all endeavour but an iterative process inculcating concepts that are nuanced and inherently abstract

Historicizing the Uses of the Past: Scandinavian Perspectives on History Culture, Historical Consciousness and Didactics of History Related to World War II

This book presents new developments in Scandinavian memory cultures related to World War II and the Holocaust by combining this focus with the perspective of history didactics. The theoretical framework of historical consciousness offers an approach linking individual and collective uses and re-uses of the past to the question how history can and should be taught. It also offers some examples of good practice in this field. The book promotes a teaching practice which, in taking the social constructivist notions of historical consciousness as a starting point, can contribute to self-reflecting and critical thinking - being fundamental for any democratic political culture

Whose history? Engaging history students through historical fiction

Somebody once quipped that any work of Australian historical fiction is a ‘burning fuse’, travelling over decades through Australian culture and society. In some manner, every newly published Australian historical novel is connected to what it has preceded. Each work belongs to a proud history. Through multiple examples, Grant Rodwell encourages readers to see how a work of historical fiction has evolved. Thus, under various themes, Whose History? examines the traditions in Australian historical fiction, and ponders how Australian historical novels can engage teachers and student teachers. Whose History? aims to illustrate how historical novels and their related genres may be used as an engaging teacher/learning strategy for student teachers in pre-service teacher education courses. It does not argue all teaching of History curriculum in pre-service units should be based on the use of historical novels as a stimulus, nor does it argue for a particular percentage of the use of historical novels in such courses. It simply seeks to argue the case for this particular approach, leaving the extent of the use of historical novels used in History curriculum units to the professional expertise of the lecturers responsible for the units.Grant Rodwel

World religions: seeing with, not looking at

The traditional World Religions construct instantiates a nineteenth-century, Christian, male, Western worldview. Despite its apparent objectivity, it catalogues the peoples of the world according to extrinsic values and descriptors, and parades them in a pageant for the gaze of students. The valorization of historical origins, texts, and doctrines leads students to frame religions as static, logical, and intellectual, leaving them none the wiser as to the lives and feelings and motivations of those around them. This dissertation will situate World Religions in its historical background and critique the worldview it promotes as both misrepresenting contemporary religious experience and simultaneously privileging and repressing students. I will propose instead a World Religions course based on cosmopolitanism, care, and postmodern pedagogy that embeds the students in lived experiences, honors their humanity, and engages them in the worldwide human enterprise