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Modeling Powerful Social Studies: Bridging Theory andPractice with Preservice Elementary TeachersJason K. Ritter aa Social Studies Education, Duquesne University , Pittsburgh , Pennsylvania , USAPublished online: 28 Feb 2012.

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The Social Studies (2012) 103, 117–124Copyright C© Taylor & Francis Group, LLCISSN: 0037-7996 print / 2152-405X onlineDOI: 10.1080/00377996.2011.596857

Modeling Powerful Social Studies: Bridging Theoryand Practice with Preservice Elementary Teachers

JASON K. RITTER

Social Studies Education, Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA

This article reports on the practice of a teacher educator in an elementary social studies, teacher education course while he attemptsto promote a view of powerful social studies teaching and learning through modeling powerful social studies lessons and publiclysharing his thinking about the lessons as they unfolded. Findings from this self-study of practice describe the challenges and highlightthe potential of using modeling in teacher education as an intellectual and pedagogical method to facilitate preservice teachers’learning about teaching social studies.

Keywords: preservice teacher education, social studies education, elementary education, self-study

A recent speech delivered by Secretary of Education ArneDuncan at the University of Virginia has led to furorin many university schools of education. In the speech,Duncan (2009) was quoted as saying: “In all but a fewstates, education schools act as the Bermuda Triangle ofhigher education—students sail in but no one knows whathappens to them after they come out. No one knows whichstudents are succeeding as teachers, which are struggling,and what training was useful or not.” Although these wordsmay incense those of us in teacher education who take se-riously our responsibility to prepare future teachers, theanger does not justify reactions that ignore the veracity ofDuncan’s critique.

Indeed, earlier reviews of research similarly indicated thequestionable influence of university-based preparatory pro-grams on teachers’ beliefs and practices (Clift and Brady2005; Wideen, Mayer-Smith, and Moon 1998). Robert Bul-lough and Andrew Gitlin (2001, 198) observed how “be-ginning teachers often do not think their teacher educationhas had much of an impact on their learning.” It would ap-pear many—having undergone extensive apprenticeshipsof observation as students (Lortie 1975)—tend to teach inthe same ways they were taught, as opposed to teaching inways that align to how they were instructed in their teachereducation programs. In social studies, this often translatesinto the adoption of a view of teaching as simple transmis-

Address correspondence to Jason K. Ritter, Assistant Professorof Social Studies Education, Duquesne University, 600 ForbesAve., 102A Canevin Hall, Pittsburgh, PA 15282, USA. E-mail:ritterj@duq.edu

sion of information for student absorption, lacking in anyserious degree of thoughtfulness (Newmann 1990).

All of this demands us to question how it is possiblefor preservice teachers to spend so much time in schoolsof education only to come out on the other end relativelyunchanged—embracing views and enacting practices thatconform to their default assumptions about education. Ofall the reasons offered by Duncan (2009) in his speech (someof which border on the offensive), one explanation doesresonate with my experiences and the feedback often sharedwith me by preservice teachers: “The programs are heavyon educational theory—and light on developing core areaknowledge and clinical training under the supervision ofmaster teachers.” Although the latter part of this criticismsuggests a need to reconsider the general structure of mosteducation programs, the first part represents an issue thatcan, and should, be dealt with in the immediate context ofsocial studies teacher education classrooms.

Some may disagree with the notion at its core, that it ispossible for teacher education programs to be too heavyon theory. Notwithstanding the merit of such a convic-tion, it does seem evident that some preservice teacherssuccessfully complete their education programs without aclear understanding of how theory informs practice. Tobe clear, this claim is not universal. A number of factorsinfluence what preservice teachers actually learn duringtheir preparatory experiences, as well as how they per-ceive that learning. Still, the theory-practice divide seemsworthy of our sustained focus because a weak understand-ing of this relationship positions theory as something forteachers to know rather than as something for them to do.Indeed, many demonstrate an amazing ability to talk the

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talk of educational theory but then struggle to walk thatsame talk.

Given these issues, the purpose of this article is to discussone promising method, the teacher educator acting as a rolemodel (Lunenberg, Korthagen, and Swennen 2007) is capa-ble of strengthening preservice teachers’ understandings ofthe relationship between theory and practice in social stud-ies. To this end, a rationale for teacher educator modelingis elaborated in the next section, followed by a brief reviewof the existing literature on social studies methods courses.After that is a description of the methods used to collectand analyze data focusing on my own attempts to modelpowerful social studies in an elementary teacher educationcourse. Then, an examination of the conditions surround-ing modeling as an intellectual and pedagogical method forteaching others how to teach is presented. This examina-tion is couched within the sparse body of existing literatureand my own experiences as a social studies teacher educa-tor. The article concludes with a discussion of what appearas the most significant issues for the future study and theuse of modeling in social studies teacher education.

A Rationale for Modeling

That many preservice teachers resort to teaching in thesame ways they were taught appears linked to the fact thatmany do not fully grasp the connections between theoryand practice espoused in their teacher education courses.This simultaneously points to the source of tension as wellas a possible solution. Simply put, teacher education pro-grams might exert greater influence on teachers’ beliefs andpractices if more attention is paid to the actual process ofpreparing teachers (Putnam and Borko 1997). This realiza-tion begs us to consider how preservice teachers in socialstudies are being asked to engage in their own processes oflearning how to teach.

An important, but under-researched, player in the pro-cess of teacher education is the teacher educator (Howeyand Zimper 1990; Korthagen, Loughran, and Lunenberg2005; Lanier and Little 1986). Recent scholarship suggeststhat “the way teacher educators model the promotion ofcertain views of learning could be a more important fac-tor in shaping teacher behaviour than the content of themessages they are sending, despite inherent differences be-tween the university and school contexts” (Lunenberg,Korthagen, and Swennen 2007, 588). In other words,how one teaches is an essential part of what one teaches(Grossman 2005; Loughran and Russell 1997). For socialstudies teacher educators interested in facilitating the goalsof the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS), thismeans increased attention should be placed on building thesocial understanding and civic efficacy of students throughmodeling the promotion of a view of social studies asmeaningful, integrative, value-based, challenging, and ac-tive (National Council for the Social Studies 2008).

Modeling in teacher education consists of intentionallydisplaying certain teaching behaviors, techniques, or ap-proaches to students with the objective of facilitating theirlearning about teaching. But modeling is not intended toencourage preservice teachers to simply mimic what theyexperience as part of their teacher education programsin their future instruction as teachers. Instead, modelingrests on a perspective of teaching that emphasizes preser-vice teachers critically engaging with, and reflecting on, theprocess of being taught—both in the past and, equally im-portantly, in the present as students of teaching.

Although modeling places responsibility for construct-ing understandings of how to teach on preservice teachers,teacher educators still have a pivotal role to play. JohnLoughran (2007, 1) described this as follows:

Enacting a pedagogy of teacher education is enmeshed inthe ways in which teacher educators knowing and purpose-fully create opportunities for students of teaching to seeinto teaching. It is about how teacher educators are ableto make teaching a site of inquiry. In so doing, students ofteaching might see into practice (both their own and thatof their teacher educators) in such a way as to gain a gen-uine appreciation of the skills, knowledge and abilities thatshape practice. Such inquiry opens teaching to questioning,probing, reflection, and critique that goes way beyond thetechnical.

Hence, modeling fits with the idea of teaching as a learningproblem, not as a technical, rational pursuit of best practice.

Within the field of social studies, when teacher educa-tors effectively model the promotion of a view of powerfulsocial studies via the NCSS framework, they contribute tothe professional development of preservice teachers in atleast two ways. First, preservice teachers are provided withopportunities to actually experience teaching and learningaligned with NCSS standards to build the social under-standing and civic efficacy of students. Second, as describedabove, preservice teachers are made privy to the complex-ity of teaching. This can send powerful messages to disruptdangerous myths associated with teaching (i.e., good teach-ers have all the answers; good teachers are always in control;etc.) and to facilitate the skills and dispositions required ofreflective practitioners.

Literature Review

Literature reviews conducted in the field of social stud-ies over the last twenty years have consistently indicated adearth of studies focused on methods courses (Adler 1991;Armento 1996; Banks and Parker 1990). This trend seemsto be reversing itself as a number of recent publicationshave featured social studies teacher educators actively writ-ing about their own practice and learning. Indeed, much ofwhat we currently know about methods courses in socialstudies has been gleaned as a result of this burgeoning line

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of action research and self-study scholarship (Adler 2008).One drawback to the existing literature concerns the factthat it mostly comprises individualistic studies and descrip-tive accounts of particular practices. Although more shouldbe done to purposefully connect these studies and accountsso that interested readers might consider broader general-izations of the literature, the current body of work doeshelp to shed light on teacher education practices within avariety of contexts.

For instance, using case studies to link how the preserviceteachers in his secondary social studies methods course ac-tually taught as student teachers, Todd Dinkelman (1999,2000) described how his instructional focus on collabora-tive inquiry around issues of critical democracy and cur-riculum building may have facilitated preservice teacherthinking about, and engagement with, critically reflectiveteaching practices. Brian Sevier (2005) similarly detailedhis attempts to sensitize the preservice teachers in his socialfoundations teacher education course to diversity throughexaminations of culturally relevant teaching practices. In asocial studies methods course aimed at middle-level learn-ing, Hilary Conklin and her colleagues (2010) describedhow structured teacher education coursework, includingcourse readings, small group discussions, and interviewswith students, could be used to help beginning teachersinvestigate and potentially better plan for middle schoolstudents’ intellectual capabilities.

Similar examinations of social studies methods are alsopresent in teacher education courses for preservice teachersinterested in teaching at the elementary level. For example,Sally Beisser and Diana Schmidt (2001) addressed theirattempts to incorporate service-learning and community-based teaching and learning into an elementary social stud-ies methods course through close collaboration with thelocal school district. Barbara Cozza and her colleagues(2001) described their attempts to create collaboration be-tween preservice teachers and elementary schools throughlessons with global connections and high levels of parentalinvolvement. And issues associated with democratic teach-ing in elementary social studies methods have been ad-dressed by both Marilynne Boyle-Baise (2003) and RahimaWade (1999).

However, within the current literature focusing on socialstudies methods courses, teacher educator modeling re-mains virtually unexamined as an intellectual and pedagog-ical method to facilitate preservice teacher learning aboutteaching. In one of the only examples, Michael Marino andBenjamin Jacobs (2009) effectively described five types ofmodeling experiences potentially useful for students learn-ing how to teach social studies, including the “bad lesson,”lesson planning, “do-now,” simulations/experiential learn-ing, and assessment. Although not empirical, the authorscouched the value of modeling these kinds of lessons interms of preservice teacher learning. In view of that, theyargued crucial learning is made possible with modeling be-cause preservice teachers get to experience lessons as both

students and teachers, and contemplate ways to adapt com-mon instructional strategies to best suit their own futurecontexts. Similarly, in a recent chapter of a book focusedon the use of self-study in social studies teacher education,Jason Ritter (2010) described how modeling in his ownpractice may have helped to facilitate preservice teacherlearning about teaching for democratic citizenship bypushing him to publicly think about, and consequentlyprovide his students with access to, his own decision-making as related to content selection, pedagogy, andclassroom management.

Taken as a whole, the literature reviewed in this sec-tion makes it clear how social studies methods are begin-ning to garner more attention as focal points in improv-ing the teaching and learning of social studies. Althoughthe research base is expanding, more studies are neededto flesh out understandings of what may or may not workin the preparation of social studies teachers. In particular,the intellectual and pedagogical method of teacher educa-tor modeling seems under-researched. In no way does thismean that social studies teacher educators are not mod-eling in their courses; however, it does seem that few areactively examining or writing about their efforts. Increas-ing the literature base around this method seems importantin thinking about the preparation of social studies teachers.

Methods

In an attempt to further enrich the relatively scarce body ofliterature on modeling, in general, and social studies meth-ods, in particular, this study focused on my own practice inan elementary, social studies teacher education course asI attempted to model powerful social studies lessons. Myplan to use modeling as an approach in my teaching wasmade clear to my students at the beginning of the semester.The preservice teachers enrolled in my course were advisedhow they would be expected to play two distinct roles dur-ing most of our time together. First, they would be askedto participate in elementary social studies lessons as stu-dents, and then, following the lessons, they would be askedto critique them as future teachers.

To this end, after providing an overview and describingthe different theoretical orientations for the field of socialstudies during the first two course sessions, the remain-der of our meetings together followed the same pattern. Iwould teach an elementary lesson for about an hour oncontent I deemed important from each of the social sci-ence subject areas taught in the public school curriculum.During the teaching of those lessons, I made it a point to ex-pose my thinking about my teaching as it seemed necessaryor beneficial for student learning. After having the preser-vice teachers participate in the lessons as students, the sec-ond half of our time together was usually spent discussinghow—or if—what they experienced constituted powerfulsocial studies. The standing homework assignment for thecourse was to write a reflection after each of our course

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meetings addressing how the lesson did or did not meet thefive criteria of powerful social studies (meaningful, inte-grative, value-based, challenging, and active), as well as tosuggest some ways in which the lesson might be improved.

To effectively capture the degree to which I was modelingthe promotion of a view of powerful social studies in mypractice, this study employed a couple of data collectionmethods. First, and most important, a research assistantwas invited in for each course meeting to keep field notes.Her field notes were intended to be objective accounts ofeverything I said and did during the course sessions. Inaddition, I wrote reflections after each course meeting inwhich I attempted to explain what I planned to happen,what actually happened, and my perceptions of how well Ihad modeled powerful social studies teaching and learning.

The data sets were analyzed, with the help of my researchassistant, for their content in relation to modeling power-ful social studies. Categories for the data were predefinedaccording to the four types of modeling elaborated in thefollowing section. This content analysis involved reviewingeach unit of analysis (i.e., my attempts at modeling as re-vealed in the data sets) and then categorizing it according tothe predefined categories (Ezzy 2002). After the data werecategorized, the final stage of analysis involved interpret-ing the results. This involved providing justifications forwhy certain statements were categorized in certain ways.

Modeling in Practice

Four types of modeling have been identified and describedin the literature, including implicit modeling, explicit mod-eling, explicit modeling and facilitating the translation tothe student teachers’ own practices, and connecting exem-plary behavior with theory (Lunenberg, Korthagen, andSwennen 2007). Despite the considerable potential of mod-eling in teacher education as an effective way to bridge the-ory and practice with preservice teachers, research aroundthis method is still in its infancy and very little is knownempirically. For these reasons, the remainder of this articlewill consider the merit of each of the four types of mod-eling identified by Mieke Lunenberg and her colleagueswithin the context of a self-study of my own practices ina teacher education course focused on elementary socialstudies methods.

Implicit modeling

Implicit modeling occurs when teacher educators effec-tively teach as they preach but neglect to draw explicit at-tention to how or why their pedagogical choices were made.When I was successful in my attempts at modeling, which Ifound was not necessarily the norm despite the emphasis Itried to place on it, it was this implicit type that dominatedmy work. The most common ways in which I engaged inimplicit modeling included deliberately planning lessons toaddress the five criteria of powerful social studies, teachinglessons that contained all of the parts of my school of ed-

ucation’s model lesson plan, and choosing what I deemedas enduring themes of social studies to frame the subjectmatter presented.

Perhaps the most obvious limitation of implicit modelingconcerned the fact that I was never sure if the preserviceteachers in my course even recognized my attempts to con-sistently engage in powerful social studies. For instance,even though I made it a point to always frame my lessonsaround enduring themes (i.e., an economics lesson on pri-vate gain versus public good, a history lesson on inalienablerights versus Machiavellian rationalizations, a political sci-ence lesson on absolute freedom versus shared governance),I largely failed to explain or provide my students with op-portunities to think about the reasons for this structureeither in action as I taught or in debriefing exercises afterthe fact.

From the outset of the course I knew I could not nec-essarily force my preservice teachers to think in certainways. I reasoned that the only way I could help to expandtheir worldviews was to get them to inquire into enduringthemes for themselves. The following description of a teach-ing episode drawn from my reflective journal highlights oneof those attempts:

I started my class today by engaging my students in a chalktalk. This is essentially a silent discussion protocol in whichstudents come up to the board one at a time and respond toa prompt. The idea is to make sure that everyone considersthe input of everyone else. I asked my students to respondto the question of what it means for them to have the rightto pursue life, liberty, and property. I did this to betterunderstand their thinking, and also as a way to point outthe inevitable tensions that exist between their rights and therights of others. This introductory activity was then used asa jumping off point for us to begin considering the strengthsand weaknesses of different forms of government in relationto their ability or willingness to protect the inalienable rightsof citizens. (January 1, 2009)

As this example indicates, I attempted to facilitate preser-vice teachers’ reflection and thought through open-ended,student-centered activities designed to explore ongoing so-cietal tensions. Collaboratively seeking clarity on such ten-sions represented the means through which I believed wemight engage in powerful lessons that were meaningful,integrative, value-based, challenging, and active.

However, reflecting on the semester now, I imagine manyof the preservice teachers may have thought I was simplytrying to demonstrate how content could be more excit-ing or fun than how they originally learned it in K–12.Although not a terrible outcome, my reasons for structur-ing my lessons around enduring themes are much deeper.Drawing from democratic theory and its associated out-comes, I use enduring themes in social studies to promptstudents to mutually explore and discuss the “closed ar-eas” of our society (Hunt and Metcalf 1955), with thegoal of both fostering their practical competencies andheightening their moral sensibilities as citizens in an in-creasingly diverse and interdependent world.

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This focus for my instruction is linked to my views onthe nature and purpose of social studies, a topic coveredduring our second class of the semester but then never ex-plicitly revisited. In this way, I only implicitly modeled theimportance I place on ideology in planning and teachingsocial studies content and never gave my students overt op-portunities to consider how their own ideological perspec-tives should be used to inform their approach to contentand selection of pedagogical methods. The challenge forteacher educators interested in bridging theory and prac-tice with preservice teachers is to make such connectionsexplicit—not as a means to indoctrinate, but as a means toencourage students to critically think about teaching as itmay relate to what they value and the messages they want tosend through their approaches to social studies instruction.

Explicit modeling

Explicit modeling is accomplished when teacher educatorsmake clear to preservice teachers their curricular and ped-agogical choices, and the reasons for their choices. This isusually accomplished through thinking aloud in the mo-ment, but it can also take place before or after the teachingepisodes if teacher educators write reflective journals andshare them with students (Loughran 1996). Although Ihave experimented with writing reflective journal entries tomy students for their consideration in the past, I only usedthe strategy of thinking aloud during the semester in ques-tion. After implicit modeling, explicit modeling was easilythe most prevalent type found in my practice. Whereasmy implicit modeling was usually wrapped up in issues ofcontent selection and presentation, my attempts at explicitmodeling were almost exclusively tied to my use of certainpedagogical and behavioral techniques.

As an example, at one point during a history lesson, Iasked my students to write reflections in their journals onsome of the value-laden topics they had learned as studentsthat were taught to them mostly as facts. While the studentsworked on their assignment, I circulated the room and wasrecorded as saying:

Keep in mind that I am going to ask some of you to shareyour responses. I am walking around the room to see whatyou all are doing . . . so I can learn a little about yourprevious experiences in school and think of how I wantto frame the discussion we will have in a minute . . . notnecessarily just to make you stay on task, though that helps.It is just part of my style to walk around, so don’t getnervous. (field notes, February 16, 2009)

In this example, I was attempting to publicly reveal to mystudents why I was moving around the room and, at times,standing over them. For me this was not an issue of over-sight (which I imagined many of them were thinking) asmuch as it was an issue of student engagement and inform-ing my next steps as their teacher.

During a different course meeting, I conducted a mov-ing debate in which I read factual excerpts about our na-tion’s westward expansion and asked my students to liter-ally move to different corners of the room depending onwhether or not they agreed that the outcomes described inthe excerpts represented positive features of our past. Twiceduring this exercise I was recorded explicitly modeling mythinking about my instruction. In the first example, afterasking my students to only consider the contents of eachexcerpt from a specific viewpoint (i.e., cultural, environ-mental, financial), I was recorded as saying, “This is oneway to try to get people to think about events from dif-ferent perspectives” (field notes, February 18, 2009). Andthen, later in the same course session, I told the preserviceteachers in my class that “the reason I did today’s lesson theway I did is because k-8 students may respond to the mov-ing debate better than traditional styles of debate. So thatis something you might consider in your own instruction”(field notes, February 18, 2009). In both of these examples,explicitly drawing attention to my pedagogical reasoningallowed the preservice teachers enrolled in my course toaccess the reasoning behind my teaching.

For the semester under study, I found it relatively easy toremember to explain to students why I might be circling theroom during their group work or why I might periodicallybreak up lectures with questions directed at them. One ofmy private journal entries helps to explain why this ped-agogical focus for my modeling may have been foremostin my mind: “Teaching just seems different with elemen-tary majors because they want to teach students more thanthey want to teach social studies” (February 26, 2009).Regardless, elementary majors should be given the sameopportunities to explore the complexity of teaching socialstudies as secondary majors. Especially important for theirfuture social studies practice is to make clear how variouspedagogical techniques or methods can foster skills usefulfor democratic living. Indeed, such connections are neces-sary to achieve most, if not all, of the criteria for powerfulsocial studies. How can we even begin to define a lessonas meaningful, without first considering the question of“what for”? Although explicit modeling moves us closer tomaking teaching a site of inquiry for students by reveal-ing the motivations and intentions of our practice, moreshould be done to ensure preservice teachers are activelyconstructing their own understandings of practice throughthese efforts. This leads into a consideration of the nextform of modeling.

Explicit modeling and facilitating the translation to thestudent teachers’ own practices

The third type of modeling builds on explicit modeling byalso providing preservice teachers opportunities to trans-late how the teaching modeled in their teacher educationcourses might be incorporated into their own future teach-ing. The second part of this form of modeling, facilitating

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the translation to student teachers’ own teaching, is im-portant because the point of modeling is not for preserviceteachers to simply mimic or copy the kinds of teaching theyexperience in their teacher education programs when theyeventually enter the classroom as teachers themselves. In-stead, preservice teachers need to be given opportunities toconsider how their experiences might be incorporated intotheir future teaching practices.

Surprisingly, this type of modeling was not at all com-mon in my practice at the beginning of the semester. How-ever, because I was engaging in self-study of my practices,I eventually recognized this shortcoming, as evidenced inthe following journal entry: “It is only as I am writing thisthat I realize we never took time today to explicitly connectour work in class to their future roles as teachers. Therewas no critique or discussion around my lesson. The stu-dents weren’t asked to think about it” (journal, March 9,2009). I often cited a lack of time as the culprit for myinability to facilitate student translation of my modeling,but I recognized this was not a valid excuse for hinderingwhat amounted to potentially more valuable learning formy students.

Thus, as the semester went on, I attempted to addressthis perceived shortcoming in my practice by purposefullybuilding in questions during and/or after my lessons toencourage my students to translate their experiences to theirfuture practice as teachers. For example, after a geographylesson on Pangaea and the continents, I was recorded assaying to my students:

If you were going to do this activity (putting together apuzzle of the continents into the shape of Pangaea) withyoung children, you would probably want to make somemodifications that did not occur to me because I am dealingwith you as college students. What are some examples ofmodification you might make to facilitate learning withyour students? (field notes, March 20, 2009)

Similarly, a little later in the discussion, I asked, “And ifyou were to do this within the context of Early Childhood,where do you see such an activity fitting in? Or do you?”(field notes, March 20, 2009). The contents of both of theseexcerpts highlight conscious attempts by me to facilitatemy students’ translation of our experiences in class to theirfuture practice as teachers.

It was not always easy to remember to take such steps.Indeed, I oftentimes literally wrote the questions I intendedto ask on the hard copies of my lesson plans for the day soI would not forget to pose them. Even when I rememberedto ask them, however, it occurred to me that I was onlygetting an idea of what was going on in the minds of mystudents who shared their thinking with me. So anothermethod I employed to address this issue involved augment-ing our time in class with reflective assignments. Some ofthose assignments asked the preservice teachers to identifyhow the lessons they experienced met the criteria of pow-erful social studies and to expound on ways each might be

strengthened. Others asked the preservice teachers to de-vise interdisciplinary lesson plans that would advance theirgoals as future social studies teachers.Although the aforementioned questioning strategies andassignments marked a step in the right direction, their rel-ative worth was connected, in part, with how well I hadexplicitly modeled certain aspects and tensions of teachingsocial studies. When I fell short, I found the answers and as-signments provided by my students tended to be rooted inthe same ideas and values they possessed when they walkedinto my classroom rather than on a careful consideration ofteaching as a learning problem. This highlights the impor-tance, but also some of the challenges, of getting students tomake connections between that which is modeled in theirteacher education classes and their own notions of whatmay constitute meaningful, integrative, value-based, chal-lenging, and active social studies teaching and learning.

Connecting exemplary behavior with theory

The last type of modeling encourages a better understand-ing of the links between practice and theory by connectingexemplary behavior modeled as part of the teacher edu-cator’s pedagogy with the public theory that supports it.Although widely acknowledged as important, little is writ-ten about how teacher educators link theory and practice intheir work, let alone how students learn when such links aremade explicit. According to Lunenberg and her colleagues(2007, 592), “The dismissal of public theory can be danger-ous if student teachers start reinventing the wheel, on thebasis of a limited theoretical framework.” This can occurwhen individuals rely more on their personal experiences orcommon sense than what is widely accepted as credible inthe existing body of educational research. Despite the pos-sible dangers of not connecting exemplary behavior withtheory, this type of modeling was almost nonexistent in mypractice during the semester in question.

As one of the only examples when I did attempt to con-nect my actions with public theory, consider the followingverbal exchange from class as captured in my research as-sistant’s field notes:

He put students into random groups and had them countoff from one to five to determine their group. After thishe asked, “what’s the point of random groups?” Studentsresponded with answers like “to control behavior” and “tohelp with assessment.” After some other answers, he said,“You are not saying what I want you to say.” And a stu-dent said, “Well tell us what you want us to day.” Aftersome more questioning, he pointed out that “switching upperspectives is important.” (field notes, February 2, 2009)

Although far from flawless as an attempt at modeling, thissomewhat awkward exchange does illustrate an attempton my part to connect my behavior (in this case usingrandom groups for a discussion around a text) with public

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theory in social studies education on deliberation (Parker2003).

Still, it was not at all common to even find attemptsat this fourth type of modeling in my practice. Again, aprivate journal entry illustrates my feelings about missingsuch opportunities:

I am failing to connect any of my attempts at modeling tobigger theories in the field. I don’t think I ever drew at-tention to how my methods today fit with my conceptionof teaching for democratic citizenship by actively tryingto get students interacting with each other around press-ing social issues. And, even though sharing this might nothave ensured the students truly grasped my point, at least Iwould have known that I tried to be more explicit about it.(journal, February 18, 2009)

This reflection highlights a significant issue by implicitlyraising the question of what it means, in the first place,to connect teaching behaviors with theory in ways bene-ficial for learning about teaching. Obviously this questiondeserves further scrutiny.

Moreover, to go back to a point raised under the sectionon implicit modeling regarding the importance of ideology,I came to the realization that the five criteria of powerfulsocial studies are not theoretical in their own right. Viewson how to achieve each characteristic of powerful socialstudies actually depend, at least in part, on the ideology ofteacher (Ross and Marker 2005; Stanley 2005; Vinson andRoss 2001). Thus, teacher educators must acknowledge thisin their work, especially while modeling, and provide op-portunities for students to consider their own ideology andhow it should drive their decisions in the classroom whenattempting to enact powerful social studies instruction.

Discussion

It makes good sense that any inquiry into the usefulness of aparticular teaching method should incorporate the perspec-tives of those who are expected to learn from it. Althoughthose perspectives are missing from this article, I remainconvinced there is enormous potential in using modelingas an intellectual and pedagogical method to facilitate pre-service teacher learning about teaching social studies. Atthe very least, I can attest to the fact that attempting tomodel my practice forced me to be more deliberate andpurposeful in what I did, and how I explained it to my stu-dents. In this way, when successful, the preservice teachersin my course were given explicit opportunities to becomestudents of teaching through being made privy to its com-plexity while also taking on the role of learners in lessonsaligned with NCSS standards to build social understandingand civic efficacy.

This article demonstrated some of my struggles and ques-tions as I set about the task of modeling. Despite havingboth the advantage of knowing the focus of the study and

the intention to use modeling as a way to promote a view ofpowerful social studies, this study revealed that translatingmy ideals into action was considerably more difficult thanone might assume. More so than any other challenge, it ap-pears my biggest obstacle in regularly engaging in the sortof practice I desired was related to my own lack of practiceusing modeling as a tool for preservice teacher learning. Tobe clear, I do not hold myself up as an example of a teachereducator with any sort of extraordinary talents; however,it is my sincere belief that most teacher educators, if theywere to conduct similar inquiries into their own practices,would be surprised at how little they actually engage inmodeling with their students. This is of critical importancefor those of us who believe students learn more from theirtime spent in classrooms than what is formally presentedas content.

Although each type of modeling presumably has someeducational value, my experiences and/or proclivities onstudent learning suggest the latter two, despite being mostoften neglected, may be most desirable because of their fo-cus on preservice teachers actively constructing personalunderstandings of teaching rooted in established theory.Actively constructing personal understandings of teachingis important for preservice teachers to be able to engage inconscious modes of professional activity—to not replicatethe practices of their teacher educators but, instead, to con-sider how their experiences as students of teaching mightbe incorporated into their future practices. This is of theutmost importance because the five criteria of powerful so-cial studies do not represent static concepts that exist apartfrom classroom contexts. Further to this, connecting pre-service teacher learning to public theory is important forthem to recognize that their personal experiences and com-mon sense are not necessarily suitable to facilitate learningwith the multitude of diverse students they may encounteras teachers.

Of course, further empirical studies must be developedto examine how exactly modeling exerts its influence, anda conscious effort must be made to track the views andpractices of preservice teachers beyond their teacher edu-cation programs, if we are to fully understand the efficacyof teacher educator modeling as an instructional approachfor teaching about teaching. Still, if social studies teachereducators consciously approached their tasks of teachingteachers with theory in mind, and then made the con-nections explicit enough to the point where their studentscould intelligently discuss their merit in relation to the fivecriteria of powerful social studies, it seems safe to assertpreservice teachers might leave their education programswith a more solid understanding of how theory informspractice and a set of analytical and reflective skills to en-act this relationship in their own practice. Consequently,our secretary of education and other skeptics would cometo recognize teacher education programs for what mostrightfully are—lighthouses for ships lost in the BermudaTriangle.

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