Pedagogical Content Knowledge: History

"The term pedagogical content knowledge, coined in the mid-1980s by Lee Shulman, captures a notion that dates to John Dewey in the early 20th century: that teachers must find a way to connect the subjects they teach to students’ ideas and experience in ways that yield deep conceptual understanding and build skill and competence. Broadly defined, pedagogical content knowledge is the practical knowledge that enables teachers to transform the content and epistemology of a subject discipline for purposes of teaching." - Judith Warren Little (italics added)

When it comes to pedagogical content knowledge, the central questions for a history teacher are:

• How do historians think and understand their discipline?
• How do I teach my students to understand the discipline in that way?

Below are several conceptual frameworks for thinking about the pedagogical content knowledge of history. Ultimately, the pedagogy of history is about teaching students to practice/demonstrate some combination of these skills.

National Council for the Social Studies (2012) Historical Thinking Requires:

• Change, Continuity, and Context
• Perspectives
• Historical Sources and Evidence
• Causation and Argumentation

Stanford History Education Group (2016) Historical Thinking Skills:

• Sourcing
• Contextualization
• Corroboration
• Close Reading

National Research Council (2005) How Students Learn History in the Classroom:

• Three key principals of learning:
  • Preconceptions
  • Conceptual understanding of the tools of inquiry
  • Meta-cognition
• Key dimensions of studying history:
  • Factual knowledge
  • Time
  • Change
  • Historical empathy
  • Cause
  • Evidence & accounts

At UVEI & UVGSE, we require social studies teachers to demonstrate these in practice by: Helping students use facts, concepts, and interpretations to make and explain judgments about a significant historical event or social science phenomenon.

Sources:

National Council for the Social Studies. (2012). The college, career, and civic life (C3) framework for social studies state standards: Guidance for enhancing rigor of K-12 civics, economics, geography, and history. Silver Spring, MD: Author.

National Research Council. (2005). How students learn: History in the classroom. Washington, DC: National Academies Press.

Stanford History Education Group. (2016). Historical thinking skills. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University.