The History Discipline: What Does it Entail?
Focal Disciplines Workshop
types of questions
n order to generate thought and critical thinking, social studies classes have to ask two types of questions, according to the National Council for the Social Studies,
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“compelling and supporting questions” (National Council, pg. 23).
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Each one is broken down into what exactly these types of questions generate in a student’s thought-process.
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For compelling social studies questions the main focus is thinking of how exactly certain situations or events occur in United States history, world history, etc. (National Council, pg.23).
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This involves the idea of applying concepts and interpretations of certain concepts to a situation in order to further the understanding of the ‘why?’. Supporting questions on the other hand answer the ‘what?’.
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They go into depth about what exactly is a part of a topic or what it is made of (National Council, pg. 23).
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For example, this would be asking students about what they already know about the process of passing a law and asking questions about what type of words go into it.
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Methods of inquiry
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Best way of teaching is to distinguish what type of content that is being taught
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Conceptual and curricular are two types that require specialized instruction
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Conceptual focuses on bigger picture
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Curricular focuses on smaller aspects
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Teachers decide what they want to focus on it.
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Types of Texts
Texts vary based on what type of sources are necessary for the content being taught. In Social Studies classes, primary sources are highly looked upon for its accuracy to the time. But secondary sources may be just as informative. The only issue students must be aware of, according to the National Council for the Social Studies, is that their sources must be relevant (pg. 54). Now there are different mediums that sources can be found from such as online or print, but the major factor is how relevant they are to the topic (pg. 54).
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Texts vary in a Social Studies classroom
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Primary source, secondary sources, and tertiary sources are all incorporated
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Sourcing, contextualizing, and corroborating are necessary when using texts
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Sources must be relevant, relevant to a particular topic
Disciplinary Literacy Practices
It is important when teaching social studies to think about how students will take the lessons and apply them to future experiences. This could be informative for civil public duty, perspectives in history, etc (pg. 62). With this in mind, it is important to the teacher that the lesson get through to the student while at the same time following the discipline being taught (pg. 62).
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Recognize the types of governments and warning signs of government changes
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Understanding the power of your voice in a democracy
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Understanding the importance of historical event on a personal, political, and emotional level for cultures
Engaging Students in Cycles of Inquiry
List-Group-Label
+ Develop categorizing skills
+ Build background knowledge
+ Uses critical thinking skills
+ Grows vocabulary
-- Doesn't apply to what is being taught
-- "Waste" of time
-- Unstructured if "loose" instructions are given
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True or False Helps
+ Self problem solving
+ Provides correct information
+ Explanations
-- "Loose" explanations could lead to lack of focus on the task
-- Potential lack of depth of questions
-- Time management problems
Engineering & Scaffolding Their Success
Pre-teach Vocabulary: Frontloading specific vocabulary before a lesson or chapter to help students get a sense of new and challenging words. Examples of helping students pre-learn vocab terms can be simply going over the terms a day before the lesson or right before the lesson to let students know these should be known. If you were to pre-teach the words a day before teachers in the past have added a word puzzle for bonus points.
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Students understanding terms that further their understanding during lesson.
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Save time during lesson due to students knowing terms.
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Students do not learn terms, either too difficult or not interested in doing so until lesson is happening.
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Students get terms confused and leads to confusion during lesson.
Chunk Text: Full chapters in thick textbooks can intimidate some struggling readers and make them hesitant to participate in class. History teachers in my experience have chunked the text into smaller amounts of reading that still provide valuable information. By using a piece of paper or even creating copies of the textbook shortened with the same information(a lot of work done by teacher).
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Students learn more effectively.
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Anxiety is less apparent during reading.
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Some information is lacking from chunking.
Examining Words and Ways with Words
Evaluating Claims and Ways with Words
Teachers can help students evaluate the quality of claims according to the standards based off of certain disciplines such as providing certain examples to help the student understand the discipline. The best way to do this is to understand your students and understand what works for the individual. Everyone has different ways of understanding content and studying, for say. The benefits are that the student will hopefully always ask questions and try to learn more and the limitations are the ones that do not ask questions.
History teachers will on occasion use words in a historical or foreign context that means something different in a modern or local context. An example of this could be when teachers talk about the rise of liberalism in the 19th century they are not talking about promoting medicare and free college, but promoting democracy. Teachers must make an effort to ensure that students are aware that the words they use may have a different meaning given their disciplinary context. A benefit to this is that students grow their vocabulary and understand how words change meaning over time. A potential limitation to this is that students may struggle to separate the two meanings and could use them mistakenly in the wrong context.
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Be clear when words have a different meaning due to a different historical context
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Encourage students to use the words in the new context in class