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1 – 10 of over 16000Brian K. Lanahan and Elizabeth Anne Yeager
The threatened status of social studies instruction in elementary schools demands strong methods instruction to preserve the subject. This threatened status and other factors…
Abstract
The threatened status of social studies instruction in elementary schools demands strong methods instruction to preserve the subject. This threatened status and other factors create issues specific to elementary social studies methods instruction. Moreover, university-level methods instruction can be idiosyncratic due to the various educational and professional backgrounds of the instructors. This study examined individuals serving in the “dual roles” of inservice teacher and elementary social studies methods instructor. While teaching the methods, participants encountered issues related to methods students, the filling of dual roles, and the status of elementary social studies and field placements. In addition, filling these dual roles facilitated their methods instruction through their ability to relate/react to methods students’ experiences and concerns.
Cheryl Mason Bolick, Reid Adams and Lara Willox
This article examines the literature related to the marginalization of social studies through the lens of elementary social studies teacher education. This study presents the case…
Abstract
This article examines the literature related to the marginalization of social studies through the lens of elementary social studies teacher education. This study presents the case of two different states wherein one state, Virginia, tests social studies in elementary schools and another state, North Carolina, where social studies is not tested until middle school. The data gathered from both states were originally analyzed to shed light on the question of testing's effect on teacher preparation and subsequent curriculum enactment. Data collected from the study suggest that factors such as field experiences, programs of study, and methods instruction impact teacher education in elementary social studies in more important ways than student testing.
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This study seeks to understand the factors and orientations that are relevant to preservice teachers' (PSTs) beliefs about their ability to design lessons for inquiry-based K-6…
Abstract
Purpose
This study seeks to understand the factors and orientations that are relevant to preservice teachers' (PSTs) beliefs about their ability to design lessons for inquiry-based K-6 social studies instruction.
Design/methodology/approach
Seventy elementary PSTs participated in a series of inquiry-based learning activities in a social studies methods course. The study uses exploratory factor analysis, a quantitative method to explore teacher self-reported efficacy for designing inquiry lessons.
Findings
The findings revealed that three capabilities related to design are relevant to elementary social studies PSTs' self-efficacy for designing inquiries: lesson design competence, lesson design disposition and lesson design practices. Most PSTs expressed low self-efficacy in all three capabilities. PSTs with a higher disposition for designing inquiry lessons may show a strong sense of self-efficacy for inquiry-based curricula design and practice in elementary social studies education.
Originality/value
The article discusses the importance of understanding PSTs sense of efficacy and categories of such self-efficacy beliefs at the level of lesson design within the context of teacher education. It discusses the need for teacher educators to facilitate educationally sound critical reflection on lesson design skills, disposition and practices that foster PSTs' sense of ability to teach via inquiry in elementary classrooms.
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Ariel Cornett and Alexa M. Quinn
Using morning meeting, an evidence-based practice that is part of the responsive classroom (RC) approach, the authors (two teacher educators [TEs]) created opportunities for…
Abstract
Purpose
Using morning meeting, an evidence-based practice that is part of the responsive classroom (RC) approach, the authors (two teacher educators [TEs]) created opportunities for teacher candidates (TCs) to experience representations, decompositions and approximations of practice in multiple iterations of an elementary social studies methods course.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors detail how TEs can expose TCs to social studies content (e.g. the National Council for the Social Studies themes) that can be incorporated into structured, daily classroom routines, such as morning meeting.
Findings
The authors include TE-created morning meeting facilitation guides with components such as a morning message, greeting, share, group activity and theme justification. Furthermore, the authors outline TCs' reflections on planning and implementing a morning meeting with a partner in addition to their own reflections on the TCs' feedback.
Originality/value
This work has implications related to TEs and TCs in elementary social studies methods courses as well as current and future students in elementary classrooms.
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Michael Alan Neel and Amy Palmeri
In both elementary schools and elementary teacher education programs, social studies is marginalized while standards require increasingly more ambitious reasoning, reading, and…
Abstract
Purpose
In both elementary schools and elementary teacher education programs, social studies is marginalized while standards require increasingly more ambitious reasoning, reading, and writing in social studies than has historically been documented in American elementary schools. The purpose of this paper is to explain the challenges that elementary social studies teacher educators face in preparing elementary school teachers to facilitate the kind of ambitious social studies envisioned in the NCSS’s C3 Framework and advocate an approach to successfully address these challenges.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper articulates a targeted and ambitious approach to elementary social studies teacher education. The authors describe five recommendations from the teacher education literature for supporting preservice teachers in learning disciplinary-oriented social studies teaching, recommendations that guided the redesign of the social studies methods course. The authors then highlight key aspects of the redesigned methods course and demonstrate how the authors engaged the challenges inherent in the work of elementary social studies teacher education.
Findings
Although this paper is not arranged in such a way as to substantiate empirical findings, the purpose of the paper is to demonstrate an approach to elementary social studies education aligned with extant literature on preparing teachers to engage in reform teaching practices, specifically those disciplinary oriented practices suggested in NCSS’s C3 Framework. As such, the paper should be read as a perspective on practice.
Research limitations/implications
The type of disciplinary-oriented approach described here is increasingly under investigation in secondary teacher education research and similar approaches are under investigation in elementary math and science education research. To the authors’ knowledge, the approach is novel in elementary social studies education. Furthermore, the authors believe it offers a direction for researchers interested in gaps in the literature related to practice based teacher education and disciplinary-oriented social studies teacher education.
Practical implications
The approach described here offers specific guidance and resources for teacher educators who are struggling with the challenges of the contemporary social studies education landscape and/or who wish to focus methods courses in disciplinary ways.
Social implications
Research in social studied education has demonstrated that when students are exposed to disciplinary practices in social studies, their literacy skills improve and they learn analytical skills that support their development as citizens (consumption of media, participation in public discourse, ability to discern arguments).
Originality/value
As noted above, the approach described here is novel in elementary social studies education. Combining a disciplinary approach with a practice-based frame in elementary social studies represents an opportunity for empirical research and offers new approaches to the practice of teacher education and early career professional development.
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Ariel Cornett and Erin Piedmont
Place-based, social studies teaching and learning has the potential to foster engaged citizens connected and committed to improving their communities. This study explored the…
Abstract
Purpose
Place-based, social studies teaching and learning has the potential to foster engaged citizens connected and committed to improving their communities. This study explored the research question, “In what ways do classroom and field-based experiences prepare teacher candidates (TCs) to make connections between place-based education and elementary social studies education?”
Design/methodology/approach
This qualitative case study examined how elementary TCs learned about, researched, curated and created place-based social studies educational resources related to community sites. Data collection included TCs’ Pre- and Post-Course Reflections as well as Self-Evaluations, which were analyzed using an inductive approach and multiple rounds of concept coding. Several themes emerged through data analysis.
Findings
The authors organized their findings around three themes: connections (i.e. place becomes personal), immersion (i.e. learning about place to learning in place) and bridge building (i.e. local as classroom). The classroom and field-based experiences in the elementary social studies methods course informed the ways in which TCs learned about and connected to the concept of place, experienced place in a specific place (i.e. downtown Statesboro, Georgia), and reflected upon the myriad ways that they could utilize place in their future elementary social studies classrooms.
Originality/value
TCs (as well as in-service teachers and teacher educators) must become more informed, connected and committed to places within their local communities in order to consider them as resources for elementary social studies teaching and learning.
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Preparing future elementary teachers to connect social studies content and skills with technology necessitates the integration of technology into teacher preparation methods…
Abstract
Preparing future elementary teachers to connect social studies content and skills with technology necessitates the integration of technology into teacher preparation methods courses. Such integration hinges on the identification of pre-service teachers’ level of Technological, Pedagogical, and Content Knowledge (TPACK). These three knowledge areas help shape smart uses for educational technology beyond entertainment that utilize technology in educationally profitable ways. The TPACK model is useful for identifying the knowledge required by pre-service teachers for the purpose of wedding instructional technology to social studies content and instruction. The purpose of this mixed-methods study was to describe and to analyze the integration of an instructional technology lesson in an elementary social studies methods course in a large Midwestern university. The study, specifically, describes and reports on 25 pre-service teachers’ perceptions of the utilization of a social studies software technology called Timeliner. The study reports on the level of TPACK awareness of the study’s pre-service teachers and offers implications related to instructional technology integration in elementary social studies methods courses.
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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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Maggie Struck and Stephanie Rollag Yoon
The purpose of this paper is to explore how preservice teacher’s beliefs change over time in a literacy methods elementary licensure course that encourages critical literacy and…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore how preservice teacher’s beliefs change over time in a literacy methods elementary licensure course that encourages critical literacy and connects learning. The authors were interested in the interplay among identity, agency and structure within this process and how this connected with other literature on teacher beliefs and technology use.
Design/methodology/approach
Utilizing data from a larger ethnographic study and mediated discourse analysis (Scollon and Scollon, 2004), this paper follows preservice teacher’s use of digital tools and beliefs about using digital tools in the classroom over a semester-long hybrid course.
Findings
Findings show changes in preservice teacher’s beliefs about technology use, interest-driven learning and her own agency. These changes were influenced by the framework of the course and course practices.
Research limitations/implications
This research study offers practical ways to support preservice teachers’ implementation of digital tools with an emphasis on equity. Ultimately, preservice teachers’ experience shapes the opportunities students have with digital tools in schools.
Practical implications
Recognizing the competing discourses and pressures preservice teachers’ experience, the results of this study offer tools to support preservice teachers’ agency through the implementation of connected learning principles and critical literacy theories in preservice education courses, leading to the potential to expand equity in school settings.
Originality/value
While there is research around connected learning in classrooms, there is limited research on a connected learning framework in preservice education programs. Additionally, this paper brings a new perspective on how pairing an emphasis of equity to a connected learning framework supports teachers’ implementation of digital tools.
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With numerous and ambiguous sets of information and often conflicting requirements, construction management is a complex process involving much uncertainty. Decision makers may be…
Abstract
With numerous and ambiguous sets of information and often conflicting requirements, construction management is a complex process involving much uncertainty. Decision makers may be challenged with satisfying multiple criteria using vague information. Fuzzy multi-criteria decision-making (FMCDM) provides an innovative approach for addressing complex problems featuring diverse decision makers’ interests, conflicting objectives and numerous but uncertain bits of information. FMCDM has therefore been widely applied in construction management. With the increase in information complexity, extensions of fuzzy set (FS) theory have been generated and adopted to improve its capacity to address this complexity. Examples include hesitant FSs (HFSs), intuitionistic FSs (IFSs) and type-2 FSs (T2FSs). This chapter introduces commonly used FMCDM methods, examines their applications in construction management and discusses trends in future research and application. The chapter first introduces the MCDM process as well as FS theory and its three main extensions, namely, HFSs, IFSs and T2FSs. The chapter then explores the linkage between FS theory and its extensions and MCDM approaches. In total, 17 FMCDM methods are reviewed and two FMCDM methods (i.e. T2FS-TOPSIS and T2FS-PROMETHEE) are further improved based on the literature. These 19 FMCDM methods with their corresponding applications in construction management are discussed in a systematic manner. This review and development of FS theory and its extensions should help both researchers and practitioners better understand and handle information uncertainty in complex decision problems.
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