Cheryl Franklin Torrez and Scott M. Waring
This article highlights some of the experiences of elementary students learning to use primary sources to engage in historical inquiry. Two teacher educators developed and taught…
Abstract
This article highlights some of the experiences of elementary students learning to use primary sources to engage in historical inquiry. Two teacher educators developed and taught social studies lessons in collaboration with 5th and 6th grade teachers. The elementary students had little previous experience evaluating primary sources and artifacts. Using both digital and non-digital sources, the students began to understand historical perspective and use historical evidence as the basis of their conclusions. However, difficulties were encountered during lessons using artifacts to understand historical events. The article presents descriptive evidence and the lessons we learned as educators.
Cheryl Mason Bolick, Cheryl Torrez and Meghan McGlinn Manfra
A team of five researchers set out to document pre-service teachers’ experiences interviewing elementary-aged children about social studies topics. Nearly 200 pre-service teachers…
Abstract
A team of five researchers set out to document pre-service teachers’ experiences interviewing elementary-aged children about social studies topics. Nearly 200 pre-service teachers across three universities participated in this longitudinal study. Collected data include: course readings, syllabi, and pre-service teachers’ History Through a Child’s Eye essays. Themes from the data include: pre-service teachers’ understanding of multiple perspectives, integration of digital primary sources, and development of historical evidences based upon evidences.
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Diane Yendol-Hoppey, Madalina Tanase and Jennifer Jacobs
Teacher education reform in the United States has been an ongoing theme over the past 100 years, particularly since A Nation at Risk in the 1980s, when education became…
Abstract
Teacher education reform in the United States has been an ongoing theme over the past 100 years, particularly since A Nation at Risk in the 1980s, when education became increasingly politicized and less of a public good with which the American public did not tinker. These reforms have four different themes: (1) strengthening the clinical component of teacher education, (2) preparing educators with the tools needed for equity and social justice, (3) participating in heightened accountability demands, and (4) expanding alternative certification. This chapter explores these four strands of reform and concludes they are colliding forces in which the country pours time, resources, and energy. Ongoing collisions on the reform landscape produce increasingly negative consequences for teacher education, teacher recruitment, and retention and America's public schools.