TE 401 Teaching Social Studies to Diverse Learners

Class 5September 25, 2008Teaching History

Agenda

Reflections Hook: Clickers Why history? Teaching History For next time Current Events: Economic Crisis

Reflections CWR activity – best practice

Class blog

Diversity

Course movement Foundations →Disciplines→Methods→Planning

Remember this classic?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vq4FC287QXA

History is an integral part of social studies, yet it is often looked at as either boring or a series of facts and dates.

Doing History as Levstik and Barton suggest means connecting it to the life of the child.

What challenge do young students face in studying history (Muir)? They have a difficult time distinguishing

among short and long blocks of time Bruner:

enactive (experiencing an hour, minute) iconic (reading an analog clock)Symbolic (digital clock, writing out symbols

that show time: i.e., 1:30; 9.25.06)

History is…

Substantive and procedural involves knowledge of content and processnote the National Standards for History

Chronologicalgives students a mental timeline (Muir)

Engaging Made up of questions to explore

Historical process skills (history is more than just “knowledge”) Chronological thinking Historical comprehension Historical analysis and interpretation

avoiding “presentism” Historical research capabilities Historical issues-analysis & decision-

making

Our focus: Chronological Thinking

Question – How can students begin to develop chronological thinking? What are strategies teachers can use?

One way is by creating a timeline

Activate Prior Knowledge: The Civil War

For Next Time . . .

Lesson Plan Rough Draft – 10/2/07 (Posted on ANGEL by 9:10 AM)

Levstik and Barton, Chapter 9

Collier and Collier, My Brother Sam is Dead

Hook: Timeliner 5.0 software

The purpose of this activity is to introduce and utilize Timeliner 5.0 software in order to create a timeline around the United States’ Civil War.

Timeliner 5.0 is kid-friendly software that makes timelines.

Demonstration of Timeliner 5.0

Timeliner Software C:\Documents and Settings\Erik Jon Byker\Desktop\TimeLiner 5.0.lnk

What makes an event “significant?”

As a class, let’s establish some criteria for what to include on the timelines

What makes an event significant? What makes an event not significant? Examples from the 20th century?

Timeliner 5.0 Activity

For the next 35 minutes Break into groups – of five Each group will work on creating a different interactive timeline

which will eventually be merged as one. Focus on the time between 1830 – 1870 AD Group #1 – Cultural/Literature influences on the civil war Group #2 – Political/Economic influence on Civil War Group #3 – Civil War events and events leading up to Civil War Group #4 – Significant events in MI leading up to and during the

Civil War. Group #5 – Global events leading up to and during the Civil War

Groups will:

Include at least 5 events with corresponding time periods –

For each event, describe its significance (cause and effect)

Include at least 3 images (please describe why you picked the image you did)

Give a title to their timeline Remember to save your timeline

Sources for the Timeline

Video of the Civil War The Hakim chapters The Internet (ask.com; google; Wikipedia)

Timeliner Pros and Cons

Pros User – friendly software Scale is accurate Meaningful – we select

dates/images to go with the activity

Cons Overwhelmed by the

available information Limited by some of the

technology – sound bites, etc..

Maybe a better activity to work in pairs

Not a good introduction activity, more for the middle of a unit.

Wrap Up on Teaching History

The museum visit will help us see how museum educators and curators make history accessible to the public

This week, you will be reading Collier and Collier, My Brother Sam is Dead – historical fiction

Question to think about- what prior knowledge do you need to understand My Brother Sam is Dead?

Metacognitive Moment: Likert Scale and Survey See class hand out