TLT 431, Spring 2020 - Course record
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Session 1 - Wednesday, 22 Jan
Before class
Buy (borrow, rent) a copy of the textbook
If you can, check out the course resources linked from the main course page: this wiki, the bookmarks list, the Moodle site.
During class ()
Introductions
Tour of course sites, resources
Textbook
Public face of the course: Wiki
Intended curriculum: Map
Enacted curriculum: Record, built session-by-session. See previous version of this course for an example.
Private face of the course: CourseSite.
You're probably familiar with Blackboard; we'll be using a different courseware system called Moodle. Lehigh has named theirs CourseSite.
Note that Moodle is a free tool. If you're interested, you can set up your own Moodle and use if for teaching your classes--an example is here.
Course bookmarks--some websites that you may find useful during the semester.
And in case you don't have one already in front of you: classroom laptops
Reviewing syllabus
Part 1: General overview, expectations
Part 2: Assignments
Conceptual work:
What is social studies? (via Jigsaw(-ish) activity)
Individual work for 10 minutes
Report out: Describe what you looked at, what you discussed. Instructor will make a list.
Consider: Different lenses, overlapping lenses to social studies
Instruction presentation: What is social studies? A natural evolution in education? A historical oddity? An ill-defined object? A battlefield?
What is a social studies methods course?
Content? Techniques? Lesson planning?
Significance of model lessons: LGL / Jigsaw, Hilda Taba
Why does social studies matter?
What does social studies need to look like in the 21st century? Example of shifting needs: Civil Rights Movement: Should we focus on Claudette Colvin and not just Rosa Parks? Should we draw attention to Bayard Rustin? Is Fannie Lou Hamer the hinge between social and political revolution? Or should we look at Emmett Till and juxtapose him with Tamir Rice?
Closure: Discussion of WTL, original instructional materials assignments
After class
Reading
Chapin, Ch. 1
C3 Framework: intro material & history section
PDE standards for history
Common Core (well, "PA Core") standards for reading & writing in "History and Social Studies"
NCSS, 2008. In fact, the whole list of NCSS position statements is probably worth bookmarking!
Optional: Mehlinger, 1988; Crocco, 2004
Assignments
Download and organize relevant standards: C3 Framework, PDE standards on history, geography, civics, & economics, etc.
WTL (start your thread in the CourseSite): Take 20 minutes to ... write the history of the world. Seriously. Just give it your best effort. See what's in the ol' memory bank. Then take a look at and comment on a classmate's work.
Update your profile in CourseSite to include your picture
Complete your first original instructional material and bring it to class next week. Don't forget to include a paragraph explaining its intended use.
Start lining up an HTCE participant
Session 2 - Wednesday, 29 Jan
Before class
Complete and bring in your OIP #1
Complete readings
Download and file the standards; read the history standards
Complete WTL
During class ()
Sharing Original Instructional Materials work. Dr. Hammond's sample is here: –and this .
Frameworks for thinking about being a teacher: TPACK (Mishra & Koehler)
Metaphor of toolbox
Organizing structure for tackling the content areas
Unpacking history ed.
History ed national orgs to note
...and a host of projects from George Mason University
Center for History and New Media.
...their Teaching & Learning resources.
...their Research & Tools list.
...their Collecting & Exhibiting links.
History ed resources – a select few followed by my list of bookmarks
History Matters: The U.S. Survey Course on the Web (again, from GMU).
Historical Thinking Matters, from seminal researcher Sam Wineburg.
DocsTeach, from the National Archives.
Digital Collections at Library of Congress
Historical Scene Investigations at William & Mary
Looking Into the Past (Flickr group)
LIFE Magazine Archive (via Google)
Geography of Slavery database from the Virginia Center for Digital History at UVA.
...and lots more in my bookmarks: http://del.icio.us./tchammond/TLT431+history
The hidden driver of history ed: TEACHER DISPOSITIONS
Closure
After class
Reading
Chapin, Ch. 6 ('Teaching History')
Optional: Evans, 1910
Definitely read: Keeler & Langhorst, 2008 (to help plan for original instructional material product #2)
Read & mark up: History standards (C3 & PDE of your choice)
Read far enough to grasp HTCE assignment: Barton & Levstik, 1996
Assignments
WTL
Complete and turn in HTCE prep work
Session 3 - Wednesday, 5 Feb
Before class
Complete and turn in HTCE prep work. It might help to read Barton & Levstik, 1996 before you do this.
Complete WTL
Complete reading
During class ()
I need your help conducting an experiment: I want to start using Google Assignment, so let's get into CourseSite and see if we can make it work.
Conceptual work
More playing with primary sources: King Phillip's War
Primary source heuristics that you might use with this sort of a thing.
Digging into the research base
Work of Sam Wineburg
Work of Barton & Levstik
Closure
After class
Reading
Textbook: Chapin, Ch. 3 & 4
Barton & Levstik, 2003 (challenges of sourcework)
Optional: Wineburg, 1991 (sourcework)
Optional: Hicks, Doolittle & Ewing, 2004
Optional: Lee & Clark, 2004 (digital history, SCIM-C)
Gross-Loh, 2016 (article from The Atlantic) on a history class at Harvard – lots of great, quick exposure to issues in history ed, some good thoughts on methods
Assignments
Complete and turn in OIP #2, don’t forget to include *reflection*
WTL on history methods & dispositions
Session 4 - Wednesday, 12 Feb
Before class
Complete and turn in your OIP #2; don't forget the reflection! See syllabus for details
WTL
Complete reading
During class (; )
OIP #2 brief sharing
Assignments: Next up is course plan. How to approach it.
Some work on instructional planning
More history ed
Pivoting towards a civic-oriented stance w/Wikipedia
Going bonkers with Wikipedia: Wikipedia as applied epistemology? Something no disciplinarian can resist?
More civics-oriented suggestions
Contemporary parallels?
Local relevance?
"So what?" strategy
The "Secret History" strategy, or (more appropriately) including under-privileged voices
Closure
After class
Reading
Textbook, Ch. 2 (planning)
"What is an Essential Question?"
At least take a brief dip into the folder of materials from Virginia. Look at the standards document first (SOLs), then the framework document. Notice how the standards have been re-framed into the concepts from Wiggins & McTighe / Backwards Design (essential understandings, essential questions, essential knowledge, etc.). It's not all super-awesome, but it's definitely a more useful document than anything you'll find at the state level in Pennsylvania. Finally, look at the scope-and-sequence document – pretty dry, and I'd hate to see someone implement it as-if, but again – it's a good starting point.
Hammond, 2010: I'm generally reluctant to assign my own stuff, but this does directly speak to the issue of civics integration in history ed...and in a (relatively) explicit/direct way. Why I'm making an exception: This study highlights the 'So what?' approach to integrating civics themes into history instruction, plus it illustrates the Virginia instructional regimen. Unfortunately, I can't link you to the actual student work anymore...the website has gone defunct....
Assignments
Complete course plan #1.
Take a look at the course catalog from Liberty High School (or another school, preferably one in Pennsylvania) and pick out a class that you would LOVE to teach.
Don't forget to check the syllabus for the requirements, and don't forget the reflection component.
And feel free to look at my (partial) sample course plan (linked in CourseSite) to give you a sense of the grain-size on this assignment. This is a VERY exploratory assignment – you're walking around in the space, you're sketching out trial balloons....
If you didn't already: Do WTL plugging your OIP work into a Backwards Design framework
Session 5 - Wednesday, 19 Feb
Before class
Complete and turn in your first course plan
WTL
Complete reading
During class
Opening up civics ed
Connections between civics and history
Civics as a "high-stakes" content area:
USCIS – see test questions
PA Act 35 test mandate resources
Opening salvos on content, methods
Analyzing visual images about the branches of government
Mock elections, mock polling
What makes civics special?
After class
Reading
Civics standards: PDE, C3 – read and mark up!
Chapin, Ch. 7 (Civic Education and Global Education)
Optional: Fallace, 2010 (written for professors, not students, but this is the origin / parallel-thinking of the three stances framework)
Assignments
Complete and turn in first installment of Fieldwork (just a short statement)
Complete WTL in CourseSite
Session 6 - Wednesday, 25 Feb
Before class
Complete reading. Please *DO* mark up the civics standards. This is a bigger deal than usual!!
Complete WTL
Turn in update on your fieldwork
During class ()
Any probs with fieldwork update?
More civics
Why is it special?
What about stances?
Some civics methods / materials
'Bill of Rights bingo' activity
Rawls' "Veil of Ignorance" prompt
WebGIS of LV area school districts (requires Lehigh login, I think?)
GapMinder.org; particularly their Dollar Street database
Another school district-oriented lesson: Mock school board hearing
Project Citizen: official explanatory video from Center for Civic Ed
...and a sidebar on the stuff I've been messing about with on computational thinking. A couple of the activities are civics-focused, so why not?
Closure: Think about microteaching!
After class
Reading
Civics standards: PDE, C3 – read and mark up!
Westheimer & Kahne, 2004
Westheimer, 2009
Optional: Heilman, 2010; Passe, 2010
Project Citizen videos – please watch!
Assignments
Complete and turn in Course Plan #2
Start thinking about microteaching! When you want to do it, what you want to teach
Session 7 - Wednesday, 4 Mar
Before class
Complete and turn in Course Plan #2
Complete reading
During class (ppt)
Housekeeping, checking on microteaching
Civics v. history
Civics is special because...it's action-oriented
Giving v. prompting v. making
(Resources used)
Civics is special because it's dangerous
Aligning frameworks
Curriculum map assignment
Time-permitting: civics & current events & embracing the curriculum outside of social studies
After class
Reading
Hammond & Manfra, 2009 (at long last!)
Assignments
WTL: Civics ed, give three lesson ideas (one G, one P, one M) on a topic
Complete and turn in your CURRICULUM MAP – see templates, sample in CourseSite!
Session 8 - Wednesday, 18 Mar
Before class
Complete reading
Do microteaching sign-up
Complete WTL
Complete and turn in your curriculum map
During class ()
Current events: Citizen heroes for our time? Bioethics Lessons From Three of the Early Heroes of Coronavirus Pandemic
Conceptual work: Assessment & social studies
Generic purposes & assumptions of assessment: sequestered, individual tasks; assessment OF learning vs. assessment FOR learning; accountability / the 'bottom line' vs. the challenges of failure (or being passed along)
Reviewing things you (may?) already know – formative v. summative, etc.
Assessment in the context of social studies: What's the bottom line, again? Significance of schema, level of non-information in traditional assessments.
Examination of the work of Sam Wineburg, Gabriel Reich. Test items as text: compare primary source heuristics & test-wiseness
Examples of non-traditional assessment: Quick look back at example of a digital documentary. (This was made using PrimaryAccess.) Other tools: Glogster, Prezi, good ol' powerpoint (albeit perhaps used non-traditionally), a discussion board, etc.
Essay group
Start with the Free Response Question. Individually examine the question and the images, then individually outline an answer. Then read the sample student response and score it with a rubric. Discuss your scoring.
Move to the Document-Based Question. Examine the question and the documents, but skip writing your own answer. Examine the rubric, then look at the sample student response. Score it individually, then discuss.
Collaborative test-taking group
Answer the first ten questions on your own.
Answer the second ten questions on your own; then stop and discuss them. Note places where you changed your answers and provide an explanation of why.
Answer the last ten questions on your own. Then use a computer to explore these questions further. Change your answers as needed, and document your changes (i.e., provide new answer, explain your new understanding, and provide links to relevant sites)
Assessment resources
PDE SAS section on Project-Based Assessment (used to be labeled "Fair Assessment"). None of these are for social studies, but check out the ones on Literature. The "Follow, Follow, Follow" assessment has a particular resonance for today....
NAEP Questions Toolkit – all of the "Big Four" social studies disciplines get their own assessments! Grades 4, 8, and 12
NAEP reports, if you want to see how these things have played out over time – for example, how did students fare on the 2010 vs. 2014 assessments?
Example of publisher items.
Closure: Don't forget that you will be assessed, too! Taking a look at the Praxis.
ETS info on their version of the Social Studies Praxis 2.
After class
Reading: Chapin, Ch. 5; Reich, 2009
Review NAEP & Praxis links (above)
Work on remaining assignments! HTCE, unit (recognizing that you can only tackle the first step at this point)
Session 9 - Wednesday, 25 Mar
Before class
Complete reading
Preview the instructional unit assignment
During class (ppt)
Re-visiting assessment...and I want to discuss that Reich, 2009 article a bit...
Talking about the instructional unit...which necessitates talking about writing objectives
Getting into geography education. Here are a few links that will be handy
I'll be referencing my "What's in a (State) Name?" activity – see it halfway down this page on computational thinking.