Contemporary Social Studies 2010

[John Lee]

Social studies is a big and sometimes unwieldy subject. Given with the massive body of content in the field and differentiation among pedagogical approaches, social studies educators have the space to be creative and expressive. There are certainly some agreed upon aims in social studies. In fact, there is something approaching consensus that social studies should aim to prepare young people for citizenship. But, what that process entails is a point of considerable disagreement. In a course on Contemporary Issues in Social Studies at NC State, students explored 11 contemporary approaches to learning and teaching social studies. Below are a series of articles reporting of these students' views of contemporary social studies. 

[Taylor Blanton]

The teaching of social studies through contemporary methods can take a variety of different formats. Fortunately for our class, we had a variety of different assignments and experiences in ECI 525 this semester. These gave us an opportunity to take material that was both commonly studied and used in classrooms, as well as material that might be considered outside the mainstream for Social Studies. It also allowed us to use different mediums for completing assignments on this material, and thus, hopefully learning different ways in which to incorporate these items and teaching strategies in the classroom.

My partner, Tyler Anderson, shared his thoughts and experiences with me from our time in the class. His thoughts, of which I agreed, were that the scope of the course was broad enough in that it allowed us to use many different resources but also specific enough to learn about a new topic in detail. For example, Tyler thought that our assignment on “Docsteach” was particularly effective, especially as it used primary sources. Primary sources are viewed as being very important in the classroom, and I can relate to that specifically as we use primary sources on a regular basis in my AP US History class.

Tyler felt that his best assignment in the course was the soundscape (LINK) assignment that he completed on Woodstock. While he had a personal interest in this subject already, as well as a particular interest in the music from the time period, he found it particularly rewarding to use and learn the new technology that was required for the assignment. Audacity, which was used in the creation, is a sound editing program that neither Tyler nor I were familiar with before, but we both found that after getting through the initial frustrations of dealing with the technology, it turned out to be a very useful and rewarding program to use. I also used what I learned through audacity, as well as through podcasting in another class, created a companion website for my AP US History class that I regularly use with my students. This would not have been possible without my knowledge of the material learned in these classes. That website is www.historyissweet.podbean.com.

Tyler felt that the learning curve of learning new technologies was an initial frustration, and the technology aspect might be a limitation on implementation of some of these assignments based upon the fact that many students might not have the technology resources, or even computer or internet access at home in order to complete these assignments. Some schools might also not have the materials necessary to complete these assignments. However, we both found that the scope of the assignments was very useful in that it exposed us to ways in which to incorporate information, or alternatively, ways in which to present it to students in a new and contemporary format. We both felt that that Lincoln Telegraphs, the James Madison assignment, and the Plantation Letters assignment were particularly beneficial because of the primary document usage.

In order to implement this in a K-12 environment, some modifications would need to be made to some of the assignments, such as making them age appropriate and making sure that any technology being used was either available to students either at home or at school. However, we felt that the scope of the assignments done in class was not done in an effort to show how assignments “must” be done in schools, but to show how many different types of ways material can be taught and technologies implemented in the classroom.

[Cristina Fishbane]

Mrs. Candice Brewer presents a candid and in-depth understanding of what entails contemporary social studies and how incorporating these methodologies in the K-12 classroom can increase the engagement and understanding of students. Mrs. Brewer asserts that these contemporary teaching techniques provide a means of thinking outside of the box and encouraging students to think critically while utilizing more inquiry based assignments. The ability to enter into a project with no preconceived notions, such as the exploration of plants at the Arboretum, encourages the independent construction of knowledge. Other projects, such as the James Madison and 21st Century exercise, push historical thinking to new heights. By incorporating technology with an exploration of content viewed through a unique lens students are encouraged to identify a different perspective by relating historical content to current issues.

Mrs. Brewer identifies her favorite activity as the Plantation Letters assignment. Through this activity and the utilization of the Doc Viewer, primary sources can be chosen by category and be compared side by side. The task of making inferences is a pertinent skill for students of social studies and the use of SCIM-C an exemplary tool to aid in this process. Mrs. Brewer intuitively and accurately identifies several pitfalls to the use of technology in the K-12 classroom, but clearly demonstrates her creativity and pedagogical knowledge by identifying various means of incorporating these teaching techniques in her classroom, even when technology is unavailable. For example, to encourage the inferences and side-by-side comparison of plantation letters, Mrs. Brewer points out that by selecting the letters in advance and printing these out for students to compare side-by-side, students can enjoy the same activity when technology is unavailable in the school.

Mrs. Brewer clearly demonstrates how the assignments completed during ECI 525 have expanded her repertoire of pedagogical strategies and increased her content knowledge. She portrays an appreciation of contemporary social studies teaching methods and an understanding of how they can best be utilized in the 21st century K-12 classroom.

[Sarah Roberts]

We were introduced to a variety of different elements in ECI 525 this semester. The projects we completed allowed us to look at issues in social studies from a non-traditional point of view. We were allowed to think outside of the box in approaching contemporary issues. I interviewed Sarah Kate Bartel for this assignment about her overall feelings and concerns regarding this course.

Sarah concluded that three assignments she felt would work well in the classroom were the Historical Soundscape, Beautiful Social Studies, and Narrative Map Histories. The soundscape allows students to use technology in a new and exciting way, while the beautiful social studies provides a blank canvas for creativity and innovation. The map history gives the students an opportunity to explore a place or event that is personally meaningful. She felt some of the obvious constraints to these assignments would be access to technology and programs such as Audacity, also student’s prior knowledge could hinder some of these projects from taking place if the students do not know where to begin (especially on projects like the Narrative Map Histories).

Sarah explained that her best work came in the form of the Beautiful Social Studies assignment. She felt that she worked the hardest on this project, which made her the most proud of it. Sarah said, “I enjoy being able to turn information creatively into an image that is much easier for the viewer or reader to understand.”

She found that two out of the three assignments she enjoyed the most were actually the most frustrating at the beginning. The use of unfamiliar technology (such as Audacity) was very hard to grasp at first, but once she became comfortable with it the project became much more enjoyable and rewarding. The Beautiful Social Studies assignment was frustrating due to the constraints of Excel and Word, and she struggled with the maximizing of information that could be portrayed.

Sarah said that if she could have done certain assignments differently the only one she would change up a bit would be the Historical Soundscape. She would have preferred to conduct a tutorial session on Audacity during class time, to handle any questions that may arise about the program. It would have assured that everyone would be comfortable using the program, especially for those that are not technologically savvy.

Sarah expressed that some of the assignments would definitely need to be simplified if they were going to be used at the middle school level, where she will be teaching. She said that she would give more explicit instructions and not leave every assignment quite as open-ended. If she had any advanced classes, there may be room to leave a couple of assignments open-ended, but for any average class the assignments would need to be tweaked by providing certain statistics and facts to allow the students optimum educational success.

[Candice Gilliland Brewer]

Crissy Fishbane: An interview and perception of contemporary social studies


Contemporary social studies involves discipline, willingness to be creative, and the freedom to test new methods of teaching. In her works, Mrs. Crissy Fishbane demonstrated a high level of understanding of these concepts.

The implications of Mrs. Fishbane’s works seem to derive directly from her teaching philosophy. Mrs. Fishbane mentioned the importance of a diverse and creative curriculum. Her work on the beautiful social studies assignment and the docs teach assignment are certainly indicative of this creative and diverse approach to teaching social studies. Mrs. Fishbane also discussed the importance of “outside the box” pedagogical strategies. Although she appreciates traditional methods of teaching, she has hinged the majority of her works on creativity and enthusiasm. These ideas and teaching philosophy are inherent to contemporary social studies. She claimed that the most important aspect of contemporary social studies is finding and testing creative methodologies that resonate well with students.

The assignment that stood out most to Mrs. Fishbane, was also her favorite work. This was the narrative map assignment. She enjoyed the assignment because of the personal meaning behind the historical map she chose. She believes, and as is clear with her works, that students can learn best if they are able to get involved and interested in the topic at a personal level. As she noted, social studies can be derived from anything. Contemporary social studies can be demonstrated and taught through the use of technological innovations, community events and exhibits, personal histories, and document analysis. We are only limited by our resources and our willingness to experiment.

Through learning and completing assignments in contemporary social studies, Mrs. Fishbane has learned and exhibited the importance of testing new technologies and expanding the traditional curriculum in a very creative and effective way. The outcome of Mrs. Fishbane’s work is consistent with the main tenets and goal of the field of contemporary social studies.

[Palmer Bowman]

Throughout the duration of ECI 525, we have been exposed to a multitude of approaches and techniques in order to effectively implement educational strategies that build upon previous understanding, and enable further exploration within the field of social studies. Nicholas Stump's work throughout the course is further evidence of the unlimited potential to push the envelope in both presenting content matter and delving deeper into the social studies.

Mr. Stump is now in his third year of teaching, and based upon his previous experiences, believes there are many adjustments he could make through employing the various techniques and approaches introduced in ECI 525 into his curriculum, which would further enhance his classroom. The access to these new techniques provide him with a better framework for accommodating all learning styles, and a collaboration of various assignments would identify individual strengths and provide opportunities for developing weaknesses, in the process molding more well-rounded students. For instance, DocsTeach could serve to provide his visual learners with new and engaging ways of exploring content when implemented into WebQuests, while an historical soundscapes project would allow his auditory learners ample opportunities to demonstrate their proficiencies in a dynamic fashion. Nicholas believes that a contemporary approach to social studies is about more than just the textbook and rote memorization of content. It involves incorporating multiple sources and approaches to the delivery of content in order to develop all facets of learning and encourage higher-order thinking.

Mr. Stump believes his strongest assignment was his visualization on the causes of World War I. He did a phenomenal job of providing the students with an image that accurately depicts the factors which led to the onset of the Great War. He believes this is his strongest work because it is an approach which plays to his strengths, and saw it as an opportunity to create something which he could implement into his classroom immediately. Nicholas states that his weakest assignment was his historical soundscape, as auditory learning is a weakness of his. He also noted that this was at the beginning of the semester, and he had not yet gotten back into the role of the student, having only been on the other end of the spectrum the past few years.

Nicholas expressed only a few minor frustrations with the course. He mentioned that time was of the essence throughout the semester, and having not been in the role of a student for a few years, had difficulty early on mapping out his his with all of his other teaching and coaching commitments. If there was one thing that he would change about the course, Nicholas suggested considering the practicality of the assignments and topics, emphasizing that not all students are going to have the time, ability, content knowledge, or resources which would present numerous challenges.

Throughout the semester, Mr. Stump has exhibited his ability to take these approaches to which we have been exposed in ECI 525, and apply them to his classroom. His work reflects the aim of the course, and undoubtedly evidences that he will be able to provide all types of learners with ample opportunities for learning and exploration.

[Sarah Kate Bartel]

Throughout the semester, we were introduced to many original ways of exploring social studies. Faced with the challenge of doing things in a way that we were not accustomed to, we ended up learning even more than we would have had we learned things in a traditional matter. To get better insight into our contemporary approaches and the implications of implementing them in K-12 classes, I interviewed my classmate, Sarah Roberts.

Sarah felt that there were several assignments that stood out during the semester that she definitely thought would work well in the classroom. Sarah plans on teaching high school, so she thought that some of the assignments that were computer-based could be easily accomplished in that setting. She especially likes the idea of using the Lincoln Telegrams assignment in her classroom because it is a great way for students to take ownership in their work by “investigating” the story behind each of the telegrams. According to Sarah, “It allows students to learn about the Civil War while making it interesting in their eyes.” Sarah also thought the narrative map histories was a good exercise that students could do in the classroom or even at home while learning about history. She believes that they provide excellent examples of different cultures and the history of nations as well.

Contemplating whether the assignments we completed would have drawbacks in a K-12 setting, Sarah expressed some concern about assignments such as the Historical Soundscape assignment only because students may not be that familiar with certain programs or have access to them.

The only personal frustration that Sarah had with our class was the amount of work each week. She felt that the reading was a lot to handle on top of the weekly projects, but overall she thoroughly enjoyed completing all the assignments.

There was no question in Sarah’s mind as to what her favorite project was, and that was the Beautiful Social Studies assignment. She felt that she really was able to take a topic that she was interested in (the Holocaust) and give it a “voice.” It allowed her to be able to represent the struggle and emotion that was caused by such a tragic event. She felt that it gave her a chance to express it in an artistic way.

Sarah did state that she would have gone more in depth on some of her assignments, but was often limited by a time constraint. She found the projects that we did insightful and felt that they truly did teach social studies in a completely different way. As a closing statement, Sarah said that learning social studies in these new ways “made it more exciting and honest; I think children need those aspects in the classroom today.”

[Tyler Anderson]

Social studies is one of those unique subjects where a teacher is given the opportunity to work with almost endless subject material; and also have the ability to present their information in numerous ways. ECI 525 (A Contemporary Approach to Teaching Social Studies) focuses on the use of technology to present social studies material. The class challenged graduate students to use different technological mediums to explore staples in social studies(Federalist #10, Lincoln) and to push the boundaries of social studies(soundscapes, visual representations of material, and beautiful social studies). In the end, ECI 525 gave future educators the opportunity to explore the use of technology in teaching first hand, in order to learn new and engaging ways of presenting social studies material.

Taylor Blanton, a classmate of mine, and High School U.S History teacher, gives a unique perspective of ECI 525. Since he is currently teaching, he was able to give a realistic view of the strengths and weaknesses of using the methods learned in ECI 525 in the K-12 classroom. Taylor enjoyed the assignments where we used primary sources to explore topics in U.S history. Especially, the analysis of Abraham Lincoln political cartoons() to explore how opinions affect interpretation of history. For Taylor, these activities were worth while because they expanded on his knowledge of previously known content, and they gave him the opportunity to "dig into the material." According to Taylor, exploring a certain area in social studies as deeply as we did in ECI 525 may be a challenge in the K-12 system. Since many curriculums are set up as a survey of a specific area in social studies. Never the less, with some adjustments, many of these activities could be beneficial to teach social studies in the K-12 environment.

Throughout the semester, Taylor felt challenged with the sometimes unfamiliar technology used in our activities. His most challenging activity involved the use of a software named Audacity to create and edit a historical soundscape. Like many students in ECI 525, this was Taylor's first time working with the Audacity software. However, after a short learning period, Taylor found the software to be a great tool to create a soundscape; and in the end he really enjoyed the challenging assignment. Taylor feels this type of assignment may be too complex for the K-12 system to undertake, however, the use of soundscapes could be a valuable tool in presenting social studies material in a fun and engaging way.

During my interview with Taylor, the constraint of students having access to these types of technology was a common concern. Taylor believes many of our assignments could be implemented into daily work in the classroom, but he is concerned many students may not have the access to the needed technology outside of the classroom. Taylor suggesting two strategies for overcoming this constraint. The first is to allow ample classroom time to make sure the students can complete their assignment. The other, is to tailor the assignments to account for the non-tech students.

In the end, Taylor believes the approach to teaching social studies we explored in ECI 525 can be beneficial to students in the K-12 system. With modification of the assignments, Taylor feels we can make the assignments age appropriate and accessible to all students.

[Lauren Ellott]

Throughout the semester, we had many different projects that could then be used by us in the our own classrooms. Bruce Costner is part of that “we.” He had several projects that he really liked, his favorite was the sounds cape (link included). His sounds cape, which is about the commercialization of the beach, includes ocean sounds, highways, and a song about Myrtle Beach. This work is considered by Bruce to be his best work, perhaps because it was also the most fun to complete.
Besides the sounds cape, Bruce agreed that many of the other projects that we did this semester could be used in the future high school classroom. The top three projects were the painting evaluations, the plantation letters, DocTeach, and the map project. All of these projects encourage students to use primary and secondary sources that in turn force students to work at a high level of critical thinking. By evaluating these sources, students have to think about the source, the time period it is from, background information, and how to blend all of these things into one evaluation.
Some problems that could arise from the activites in the classroom is the involvement of technology. While computers and the internet are more and more available in the classroom, it is still not available everywhere. Since many of these activities involve technology, they may have to be changed or adapted to meet individual classroom needs. There is also the chance that some of the skills mentioned earlier that make these projects valuable may be too advanced for high school students. However, again, they may be able to be adapted or teacher guided to insure that students get all they can out of the activities.
If Bruce could redo this semester, he would have relied less as individual and would have discussed his ideas and projects with his fellow classmates more. This would have helped with the biggest problem he had this semester, that of developing an initial idea to build upon.

[Erin]

One of the criticisms of social studies teaching is that it has failed to change with the times; that teachers continue to teach it the same way they did 20 years ago.  However, ECI 525, Contemporary Approaches in the Teaching of Social Studies aims to combat this problem.  After taking this course, Christopher Dague reflected on what he learned and what he will take back into his classroom.  To start with, Mr. Dague parsed out the difference between traditional social studies methodologies and a contemporary approach.  In his view, the contemporary approach was not a replacement of the traditional way of teaching but more of a revamp of the “old school” approach – one in which previously peripheral capabilities are used to teach central content.  Chalkboards and transparencies, which represented the traditional approach to Mr. Dague, are combined with a variety of other platforms to communicate more information in a more meaningful way.  Because these activities engage more students, they may be more successful.

 

There were a number of activities that Mr. Dague would take back to his classroom.  He did allow that he is a European specialist, specifically in French history, but found that a number of the ideas behind the American history assignments translated to his content area.  Specifically, he found the video-making activity with James Madison and Federalist Paper #10 to be something he thought would captivate his students and encourage them to think more deeply about the material.  He also thought the process of taking an idea and running with it, as in our Plantation Letters document analysis project, was something his students could really benefit from.  In both of these assignments, Mr. Dague appreciated that technology could be utilized to allow students to really show what they know because they were performing in platforms with which most of them are very familiar.  All of this said, Mr. Dague thought his best work of the semester was on the Narrative Map History assignment.  On that assignment the pieces just seemed to fall together and, although he felt the narrative was a bit rushed, he was most happy with the result.  I think it is telling when a student prepares work that he is actually happy with and proud of.

 

However, there were some constraints Mr. Dague felt were necessary to consider when trying to implement a more contemporary approach in his social studies classroom.  First, we used a lot of technology in this course and technology always presents certain issues, especially in public schools.  Budget constraints limit the technology type and date within the schools and teachers must be careful when assigning technology based assignments to do at home that they are not exacerbating differences in students’ economic backgrounds.  To assign these projects, one must first make sure one has access to the resources capable of facilitating the creation these projects.  In addition, Mr. Dague was aware utilizing a contemporary approach is not necessarily an effective accommodation tool on its own and that attention will need to be paid to students who might need the lessons and assignments to be modified.  Although he recognized these constraints, Mr. Dague was confident that he would still be able to implement many of the ideas we learned about this semester in his classroom.

[Shawn Gumbleton]

After interviewing Clayton Traver, I was struck by his ability to integrate the various exercises we accomplished during this course into his future pedagogical strategies.  I will not discuss Mr. Traver's responses to all of what we've done this semester due to interests of space, but one stands out:  his insightful critical approach to Benjamin West's painting of the peace talks between William Penn's Quakers and Native Americans at their settlement in Pennsylvania.  Traver criticized West when criticism was due, but was tolerant of West's mistakes and did not overly dwell upon them.  Instead he chose to also discuss what was good about West's portrait, a very important part of pedagogical practice.  His words on the subject are here:  http://newlitcollaborative.ning.com/forum/topics/the-literacy-of-hi....

 

Too often, we who teach social studies overly dwell upon the sins of the past.  While it is important to teach our students about our past mistakes as a nation and as a world, we should also put historical actors' lives and deeds into the proper context of their times.  

 

Traver agrees, stating that "We blame Abraham Lincoln for not living up to the Emancipation Proclamation, and for his speech in the Lincoln-Douglas debate too.  We need to understand though, that he was a politician and there were some things he couldn't say out loud.  It's impossible for us to have a clear knowledge of the things he thought 150 years ago."  He greatly enjoyed getting into the mind of the Lincoln administration through our use of the telegrams sent during the American Civil War, and said he would likely use similar materials when he teaches it to his students.  Traver also enjoyed using, creating, and discussing what we called "Beautiful Social Studies," a term to describe the performative and creative aspects of graphs and charts which attract attention and communicate information in unique new ways.  His words on this subject are here:  http://teachingdigitalhistory.ning.com/forum/topics/visualization-i....

 

While the specific exercises we performed during this course will vary in their relevance by the subjects we teach in the future, Traver and I both feel that they, and the methodologies they taught us, have improved our repertoire, or "bag of tricks," of ways to excite students about social studies.

 

[Christopher Thomas Dague]

 

ECI 525 was a course for which I had certain preconceived expectations. Coming in to the course, I was under the impression that the course would primarily focus its attention more on the praxis of teaching the various disciplines within the very nebulous confines of what social studies. The class did address, on occasion, pedagogical philosophy and practical application; however, it did it in such a manner that it reached far beyond the constraints of curriculum building and development as well as the standard course of study as prescribed by the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction.

 

For this closing assignment, we had the opportunity to reflect on the class not from our perspective alone but also from the perspective of those that were with us throughout the semester. The notion of perception being reality and viewing ideas, events, and topics from almost kaleidoscopic lenses has been a perpetual underpinning of this course throughout. Thus, it was only appropriate that we cyclically finished in relatively the same place we started.

 

I had the fortune of working and collaborating with Erin Klein and Dustin Adams. Erin has been in the classroom for several years while Dustin is a pre-service teacher. Being interested in how schools of education can further and better aid in the development of pre-service teachers, I was quite interested by Dustin's responses and thus I directed my questions to him as we worked in our three-person group. He, like myself, really enjoyed the assignment concerning Wikipedia as a source of communal knowledge. Wikipedia has become almost ubiquitous in its access and its controversy. Dustin and I certainly agreed that it was certainly interesting to literally write a historical narrative that could be used by millions; it certainly provided me with a different perspective on the entity and its uses.

 

I followed up by asking him about what he thought was his best work and he believed it was the assignment concerning the map narrative (http://teachingdigitalhistory.ning.com/forum/topics/narrative-map-h...). The map narrative opened up my eyes to just how poorly I have treated the use of maps over my first five years in the classroom. Maps, to me, have been a vehicle for providing superfluous and rote information. I even saw the narrative that could be written with my choice of Galileo’s celestial map. The use of that map and the analysis I did on that map opened my mind to new activities that will even further engage my AP Euro students.

 

I believe the one aspect of the class that we all agreed upon was the differentiation of technology. Dustin and I proclaimed our respective technological shortcomings and felt that this class allowed us to develop a new understanding of various technological mediums.

[Madeline Coven]

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Dana St. Juliana, although social studies was not her first interest, finds Raleigh local history important for entertaining visitors, having grown up in Indiana. Students can be keepers of the rich Raleigh history.

 

Thus, she favored the project in which we narrated the historical map. For this, she chose the first Raleigh map. She learned why Raleigh is the North Carolina capitol, and what it was like at its founding, compared with contemporary Raleigh. She wants to learn tools like Google Map overlays. For her, the implications of modern mapping techniques like these in the classroom are these: while she is excited to use them, she says she would get overboard to want to do things that are unavailable to her with the tools and technical knowledge she has. The following URL is the link to her project: http://teachingdigitalhistory.ning.com/forum/topics/narrative-map-h....

 

The hardest for Dana was visual analysis, since she was bad at art history. She sees, however, that visual analysis lends itself well to the middle school classroom, since middle school kids need it in their highly visual world to engage them with history. She herself liked assignments that were more open-ended and not constricting. However, she enjoys structure, since she can get lost in ideas and creativity can only come as an enhancement of the kind of loose structure she needs. The map narrative, for example, required in depth expertise and ability to explain the concepts behind the map, and the same is true in narrative pictures that can give artistic perspective to a time period.

 

Dana believes that social studies should try to engage students and their abstract skills; it is a harder path than rote memorization, but students will feel more fulfilled if they work at it. She anticipates balancing her desired classroom activities with what principal deems suitable.