From A to Zinn

2020 ◽  
pp. 144-164
Author(s):  
Stephanie R. Logan
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Social Studies ◽  
Teacher Educators ◽  
Economic Status ◽  
The United States ◽  
Social Studies Methods ◽  
Elementary Social Studies ◽  
Social Studies Teacher ◽  
Social Justice Teaching ◽  
And Gender

Scholars have presented a number of challenges to elementary pre-service teachers gaining content mastery specifically in social studies methods courses. One of those challenges relates to the selection of what social studies content should be mastered by pre-service teachers. Scholars encouraged elementary social studies teacher educators to engage their students in new, challenging, critical, and complex topics, rather than redundant, simple, and general content the students already agree with. In response, this endeavor presents an instructional framework rooted in social justice teaching designed to inspire elementary pre-service teachers with the necessity of teaching social studies for social justice and the content knowledge and skills to do so. The chapter author shares how she supported students in conducting macro-to-micro content analyses of critical and challenging sociological issues of race, economic status, and gender in the development of the United States while sharing the methods for teaching elementary social studies that represented diverse ideas and perspectives.

From A to Zinn

2021 ◽  
pp. 359-379
Author(s):  
Stephanie R. Logan
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Social Studies ◽  
Teacher Educators ◽  
Economic Status ◽  
The United States ◽  
Social Studies Methods ◽  
Elementary Social Studies ◽  
Social Studies Teacher ◽  
Social Justice Teaching ◽  
And Gender

Scholars have presented a number of challenges to elementary pre-service teachers gaining content mastery specifically in social studies methods courses. One of those challenges relates to the selection of what social studies content should be mastered by pre-service teachers. Scholars encouraged elementary social studies teacher educators to engage their students in new, challenging, critical, and complex topics, rather than redundant, simple, and general content the students already agree with. In response, this endeavor presents an instructional framework rooted in social justice teaching designed to inspire elementary pre-service teachers with the necessity of teaching social studies for social justice and the content knowledge and skills to do so. The chapter author shares how she supported students in conducting macro-to-micro content analyses of critical and challenging sociological issues of race, economic status, and gender in the development of the United States while sharing the methods for teaching elementary social studies that represented diverse ideas and perspectives.

Meeting the demands of the C3 framework in elementary social studies methods

2017 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 358-371 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Alan Neel ◽  
Amy Palmeri
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Education ◽  
Social Studies ◽  
Teacher Educators ◽  
Social Studies Education ◽  
Methods Course ◽  
Social Studies Methods ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Elementary Social Studies ◽  
Social Studies Teacher ◽  
Social Studies Teacher Education

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.

scholarly journals Building community using experiential education with elementary preservice teachers in a social studies methodology course

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 111-120
Author(s):  
Stephanie Speicher
Keyword(s):  
Preservice Teachers ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
Social Studies ◽  
Learning Community ◽  
Teacher Educators ◽  
Methods Course ◽  
Social Studies Methods ◽  
Collegial Support ◽  
Teaching For Social Justice ◽  
Teaching Competence

There is urgency for teacher educators to instruct preservice teachers in the tenants of social justice education. This urgency is based upon the American demographic landscape and the responsibility of educators to teach for social justice. Preservice teachers report feeling inadequately prepared to educate for social justice when entering the classroom setting (citations from below). Feelings of incompetence in social justice teaching expressed among preservice teachers coupled with minimal examination in the literature of the effects of teacher education practices that aid in the readiness to teach for social justice provided the foundation for this study. This study examined experiential methodologies that can prepare preservice teachers to teach for social justice, particularly within a social studies context. The study focused on two research questions: (a) How do preservice elementary teachers in a social studies methods course conceptualize teaching for social justice within an experiential framework? (b) In what ways did preservice teachers operationalize teaching for social justice in the practicum classroom? Also examined was how the development of community in a social studies methodology course fostered the understanding of teaching for social justice. The findings highlight how preservice teachers were able to conceptualize building communities with experiential methods to teach for social justice and how doing so created an effective learning community. Although the preservice teachers valued the implementation of experiential methods to foster the teaching of social justice, difficulties were expressed in their incorporation of experiential methods in the practicum environment due to a lack of confidence, teaching competence, or collegial support.

Teaching and learning with morning meeting in elementary social studies methods courses

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ariel Cornett ◽  
Alexa M. Quinn
Keyword(s):  
Social Studies ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Teacher Educators ◽  
Methods Course ◽  
National Council ◽  
Methods Courses ◽  
Social Studies Methods ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Elementary Social Studies ◽  
Morning Meeting

PurposeUsing 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/approachThe 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.FindingsThe 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/valueThis work has implications related to TEs and TCs in elementary social studies methods courses as well as current and future students in elementary classrooms.

Social studies teacher educators who do race work

2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 330-344 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara B. Demoiny
Keyword(s):  
Social Studies ◽  
Pedagogical Content Knowledge ◽  
Content Knowledge ◽  
Teacher Educators ◽  
Methods Course ◽  
Methods Courses ◽  
Social Studies Methods ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Pedagogical Content ◽  
Social Studies Teacher

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore how 11 social studies teacher educators (SSTEs) incorporated race into their social studies methods courses. It examines the instructional practices of the SSTEs using racial-pedagogical-content-knowledge (RPCK) as an analytical framework. Design/methodology/approach The paper is a qualitative interview study. The data sources included two 40–90 min semi-structured interviews per participant, methods course syllabi and reading lists, and university documents such as departmental mission statements and program course requirements. Data were analyzed using three cycles of coding: descriptive coding, focused coding and analytic generalizations. Findings The paper illustrates how the SSTEs incorporated race into their social studies methods courses through developing counter-narrative content knowledge, modeling the application of critical race theory tenets through pedagogical content knowledge, and cultivating a working racial knowledge among pre-service teachers. Originality/value This paper extends the literature of the RPCK framework through illustrating many ways each component of RPCK can be applied within a social studies methods course.

Fostering Inclusive Communities Through Children's Literature

2021 ◽  
pp. 566-592
Author(s):  
Natasha C. Murray-Everett ◽  
Stephanie Schroeder
Keyword(s):  
Children's Literature ◽  
Social Studies ◽  
Explicit Instruction ◽  
Children’S Literature ◽  
Inclusive Classrooms ◽  
Inclusive Classroom ◽  
Social Studies Methods ◽  
Elementary Social Studies ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Social Studies Teacher

This comparative case study explored pre-service teachers' (PSTs) understandings and concerns around creating inclusive classrooms before and after engaging in explicit instruction and practice surrounding issues of inclusion in elementary social studies methods. Findings illustrate that PSTs understood inclusion as an expansive concept, encapsulating various social identities, before and after explicit instruction. Engaging in a lesson planning project involving children's literature and a deep dive into anti-bias and inclusion literature helped to lessen concerns held by PSTs about creating inclusive classrooms but amplified other concerns, such as how to manage parental pushback and how to support students of marginalized backgrounds. This chapter addresses implications for elementary social studies teacher educators, such as the need to provide explicit practice and guidance when emphasizing the need for inclusive classroom communities, and the authors suggest ways PSTs' concerns could be lessened through interviews with parents and panel discussions with inclusive educators.

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