Teaching About Religion Within Early Childhood and Elementary Social Studies: Exploring how Preservice Teachers Perceive their Rights and Responsibilities as Educators

The purpose of this qualitative multi-case study is to explore the ways in which preservice teachers seeking either early-childhood or elementary licensure understand their roles and responsibilities in regards to the teaching of religion. Seven participants participated in the study and provided a range of data including – though not limited to – interviews, lesson plans, questionnaires, teaching philosophies, and in-class comments. Findings suggest that preservice teachers have neither the confidence to teach religion nor a strong enough foundation to understand their constitutional rights to expose students to various religions in a non-proselytizing manner. Future scholarship should present practical, meaningful programmatic suggestions for how to best help preservice teachers understand the benefits of teaching various religions and means for doing so effectively

Preservice Social Studies Teachers’ Conceptions of and Experiences with Discussion as a Pedagogical Approach: A Case Study

An extensive body of empirical data emphasizes the numerous benefits of incorporating discussion into the social studies classroom. Therefore, it is necessary to better understand how educators view discussion and what experiences they have with in throughout their college courses. The authors conducted a single-case study at a large southeastern university that sought to explore how 12 preservice social studies teachers experience discussion in their college-level coursework. The study also sought to discover the extent to which the participants valued discussion within their coursework and whether they considered discussion as a practical approach for their own classroom. Findings suggest that the participants mostly experience lecture in their lower-level core curriculum courses as well as their teacher preparation coursework. Additionally, the study demonstrates that the participants valued discussion as a pedagogical approach, but they viewed it as a less practical strategy than more traditional forms of pedagogy such as lecturing

Preservice Social Studies Teachers’ Conceptions of and Experiences with Discussion as a Pedagogical Approach: A Case Study

An extensive body of empirical data emphasizes the numerous benefits of incorporating discussion into the social studies classroom. Therefore, it is necessary to better understand how educators view discussion and what experiences they have with in throughout their college courses. The authors conducted a single-case study at a large southeastern university that sought to explore how 12 preservice social studies teachers experience discussion in their college-level coursework. The study also sought to discover the extent to which the participants valued discussion within their coursework and whether they considered discussion as a practical approach for their own classroom. Findings suggest that the participants mostly experience lecture in their lower-level core curriculum courses as well as their teacher preparation coursework. Additionally, the study demonstrates that the participants valued discussion as a pedagogical approach, but they viewed it as a less practical strategy than more traditional forms of pedagogy such as lecturing

The Common Core and Democratic Education: Examining Potential Costs and Benefits to Public and Private Autonomy

This conceptual paper assesses prevalent critiques of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and analyzes content from the CCSS in language arts and literacy to determine whether the standards are likely to support or undermine key democratic aims of education. The authors conclude that critiques of the CCSS have some merit but are generally overstated and misdirected, and the standards give inadequate attention to the development of public autonomy but an ideal amount of attention to development of private autonomy

\u3ci\u3eWiley Handbook of Social Studies Research\u3c/i\u3e by Meghan McGlinn Manfra and Cheryl Mason Bolick (Eds.)

Review of the Wiley Handbook of Social Studies Research, edited by Meghan McGlinn Manfra and Cheryl Mason Bolick. New Jersey: Wiley-Blackwell, 2017

Preservice Social Studies Teachers' Perspectives and Understandings of Teaching in the Twenty-First Century Classroom: A Meta-Ethnography

This meta-ethnography explores the conceptions preservice social studies teachers have toward broad theories of democratic education. The author synthesizes and analyzes empirical research to find a consensus on preservice teachers’ conceptions of the social studies. Findings suggest that social studies teacher candidates enter teacher education programs with limited understandings of the broad aims of education and often exit programs unable to make proper associations between the classroom and theories of social justice, democratic education, and equality and equity. The author calls for more research exploring the extent to which preservice teachers internalize theories advocated for within teacher education

Test Review: J. L. Wiederholt & B. R. Bryant. (2012). Gray Oral Reading Tests—Fifth Edition (GORT-5). Austin, TX: Pro-Ed.

The first edition of the Gray Oral Reading Tests (GORT, 1963) was written by Dr. William S. Gray, a founding member and the first president of the International Reading Association. The GORT was designed to measure oral reading abilities (i.e., Rate, Accuracy, Fluency, and Comprehension) of students in Grades 2 through 12 due to the noteworthy advantages this type of assessment has over silent reading assessments (e.g., ability for the examiner to analyze miscues and identify an individual’s ability to make letter–sound correspondences). Through the years, revisions of the GORT were published in 1986 (GORT-R), 1992 (GORT-3), and 2001 (GORT-4). The latest edition published in 2012 (GORT-5) includes updated norms extending from 6 years 0 months upward to 23 years 11 months, streamlined basal and ceiling rules, revised items that are pas-sage dependent, and additional studies showing evidence of sound psychometric properties (Wiederholt & Bryant, 2012a). The purposes of the GORT-5 are to identify students with oral reading difficulties, determine strengths and weaknesses, evaluate student progress, and provide a standardized norm-referenced test that is appropriate for conducting reading research with school-age children (Wiederholt & Bryant, 2012a). The GORT-5 should be administered individually by examiners trained in formal assessment such as teachers, school psychologists, and diagnosticians

Social Media, Social Studies, and Social Justice: Finding the Intersection Between Sports Culture and American Pluralism

In this article, we explore three cases at the intersection of sports and social studies: the backlash related to Sherman’s 2014 post-game interview with Andrews, the broadcasters of the 2014 NFL Combine, and the Coca-Cola advertisement. We offer some essential questions and a brief idea to guide teaching—a broad overview of the potential for each case within the aims of the social studies