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This practice-oriented article aims to describe the origins of the Learning Labs PD model and theory behind it, explains what it involves in social studies and illustrates this model by sharing examples from one PD session focused on facilitating inquiries into justice via Hammurabi's Code and Black Founders with seventh and eighth graders.

As the authors developed Learning Labs for Social Studies (LLSS), they used a Design-Based Research approach to study and iterate such that the model is supportive of teachers' and students' learning (e.g. Jennings et al., 2022). In this practice-oriented article, the authors offer a conceptual orientation to the model and some of the take-aways relevant to the demands of offering professional development in polarizing times by sharing examples from one PD day.

LLSS PD in combination with curriculum that structures critical inquiry has supported the authors and their teacher-partners by fostering a community of practitioners who work as a collective to reframe content, support one another while teaching in new ways and learn from students. Specifically, the authors have observed teachers (1) approach social studies topics with greater criticality and center Black identity and history as more than oppression, (2) develop instructional practices that create space for students to make sense of the past in the context of their lives in the present and (3) listen to and center students' thinking and knowledge.

This article presents and illustrates Learning Labs for Social Studies for the first time, offering a professional learning model that supports teachers in polarizing times as they work collaboratively to translate theory into practice and to problem-solve challenges that emerge within their school and classroom contexts.

Using the systematic search and coding procedures of a meta-synthesis, this paper reviews the extant literature on English language learners (ELLs) in the social studies classroom. The 15 studies making up the corpus adhere to both topical and methodological criteria. The Language-Content-Task (LCT) Framework informed the coding and analysis of the results. Discussion of the findings provides three primary implications: (1) the need for linguistically and culturally responsive instruction for ELLs in social studies classes, (2) the need for increased training for inservice and preservice social studies teachers in preparation for teaching ELLs, and (3) the need for future research among ELLs in the social studies context.

In such a diverse society, some have suggested that teachers use primary source documents to increase history knowledge and build historical thinking skills. These calls come from a myriad of works that have been critical of textbooks. While these concerns may be appropriate, textbooks are still frequently used in the classroom. In an attempt to better use textbooks in light of such criticism, I propose that teachers and students analyze their textbooks as if they were primary sources. Discussion about how this analysis might be accomplished as well as a sample classroom handout is provided.

Purpose – To provide educators with an overview of issues and strategies important for preparing preservice teachers to plan instruction, engage students, and assess learning in culturally and linguistically diverse classrooms.

Design/methodology/approach – The chapter reviews sociocultural, sociolinguistic, and cognitive literature that informs differentiated instruction for linguistic diversity. It then offers a case study example of a preservice student teaching seminar where this knowledge was put into practice.

Findings – Content provides detailed information about the design of a preservice seminar that included the role of a nationally piloted performance assessment. It demonstrates how preparing the assessment portfolio provided a vehicle for a structured and useful focus on diversity within the seminar.

Research limitations/implications – The chapter highlights literature that is specifically useful for preservice teachers and their instructors who are seeking to address the specific needs of English Language Learners and the culturally diverse population of students found in U.S. classrooms. This is important to those who seek to expand this attention to diversity within general teacher education practices.

Practical implications – This chapter serves as a resource for all clinical instructors, providing ideas for incorporation into their clinics and classrooms.

Originality/value of paper – Culturally responsive teaching and a specific focus on teaching English Language Arts for linguistically diverse students are infused in clinical teacher education practices rather than as “add-on” practices.

This study aims to explore the authentic questioning practices of English Language Arts teachers. Although language arts (LA) education emphasizes the value of authentic questions in discussions about literature, teachers still tend to ask known-answer questions that guide students toward one literary interpretation. However, outside their classrooms, teachers talk about literary texts from stances of openness and curiosity. Helping teachers recognize and draw on their out-of-school literary practices might help them disrupt entrenched known-answer discourses. The authors studied how the same teachers asked questions about literature in different settings. The authors asked: To what degree and in what ways did teachers’ questions about literature change when they took on different roles in discussions of literature?

Drawing on theories of classroom discourses and everyday practices, this study compared and analyzed types of questions asked by high school teachers as they took on three roles: teacher in the high school classroom, discussion leader in a professional development and everyday reader in discussion.

Analysis showed that as participants moved further away from their teacher role, they were more likely to ask authentic, curiosity-driven questions that engaged fellow readers in exploratory, dialogic interpretation. They were less likely to attempt to maintain authority over students’ interpretations.

The authors hope researchers will build on these explorations of teacher stances and language in different roles, so we can work toward disrupt entrenched known-answer discourses in the classroom.

Drawing on this study’s findings about questioning practices of participants in their role as reader (as opposed to discussion leader or classroom teacher), the authors suggest that teachers and teacher educators consider the following: First, teachers need to understand the power of interpretive authority and known-answer discourses and compare them explicitly to their own everyday practices through rehearsals and reflection. Second, teachers might focus less on theme and more on exploration of individual lines, patterns and unusual authorial moves. Finally, when preparing to teach, if teachers can reconnect with the stance and language of uncertainty and curiosity, they are likely to ask more authentic questions.

These findings suggest both the power of entrenched known-answer discourses to constrain and the potential power of making visible and drawing on teachers’ literary reading practices in out-of-school contexts.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, no studies have made an empirical comparison of the relationship between the role a teacher takes on during discussion and the kinds of questions they ask about literature. This study offers insight into the value of everyday curiosity and other out-of-school resources that teachers could – but often do not – bring to their facilitations of classroom discussions. The findings suggest that teachers, teacher educators and researchers must recognize and recruit teachers’ everyday practices to the LA classroom.