Theories to Practice
In the History Classroom
Embedded Files
"History is made by masses of people, not just by three or four great leaders. If all you teach is the history of icons, it doesn't place any of our students in that history."
-Robert Roth
Working for Racial Justice as a White Teacher
Working for Racial Justice as a White Teacher
Strategies of the Article
Going beyond the traditional narrative of Civil Rights history is very important in the classroom. The textbooks may include major events of the movement but teachers should go a step further to include narratives not written by white people. Robert Roth, a former high-school history teacher, explains in this interview how the U.S. History class should include other significant events that were connected and simultaneously occurring with the Civil Rights movement. This should be done by studying the work of the many known and lesser-known African-American leaders of the time. Some activities used by Roth to get this objective accomplished are group presentations, acting out scenarios of the past, and getting students to imagine themselves as being part of a historical moment.
Adopting Strategies into the Classroom
Putting yourself in someone else's shoes is something that should be done in a history classroom. I would want my students to be open-minded above all else in my class. We may never be able to actually fully understand how people in another time or another group of people lived, thought, or felt. However, if we get enough background information about the time we can push to try and understand what the environment was like for people of a different race. We can get to this point by including specific events that relate to the majorly mentioned events in a specific part of history. These events would be introduced and then students can even introduce their own researched topics that relate and interest them. This type of class would be beneficial for students to better understand what they are learning and makes more room for inclusion.
By Kristina Rizga
How to Teach Students Historical Inquiry Through Media Literacy And Critical Thinking
How to Teach Students Historical Inquiry Through Media Literacy And Critical Thinking
Strategies of the Article
Digital literacy was emphasized as very important for today's world and especially for the future in this article. Classrooms will need to adapt to how the next generation of kids are learning. The first step is teaching students how to work with their technology because not all of them do already. Will Colglazier, a U.S. History high school teacher, explains that giving out digital work should mean less content. The content that is included must get the significant media skills and curriculum goals to fit into one so the students learn both with every assignment. Colglazier wanted his students to question claims in class and then support their own claims with evidence they can find on their own. The goes along with his open-ended type of assignments and challenging what their sources or textbooks are saying. With so much information online, students could be learning most of the class material out of class time whenever they wanted to.
Adopting Strategies into the Classroom
The pandemic obviously had a huge impact on how young people are learning. Students who were fortunate enough had access to Zoom or another form of schooling. These forms of learning changes what is the usual way of teaching for teachers who have been in school for some time. Luckily, I have experience in Zoom and with work on the computer which I can apply to my class. Students will need to know how to get a significant amount of work done without needing paper now. It will have to be trained into the minds of these young people even though they are around technology more than other generations. They must get used to being engaged online and not always seeing their work in class or in a textbook. I would include resources like videos, articles, or textbooks, online on the website used for the school system. During one of my practicum days, one class was taking a test with half of it being on paper and half on their laptops. Slowly shifting these young people over the technology by going half and half is an idea I could definitely see myself using.
By Katrina Schwartz
"Less is more and you have to cut content in order to make room to bring in the skills that you deem essential,"
-Will Colglazier
"PBL requires intensive planning, but it's worthwhile in my opinion because it fosters great student engagement and requires students to use crucial skills,"
-Taekya Azzano
Getting Started With PBL in Social Studies
Getting Started With PBL in Social Studies
Strategies of the Article
Problem-Based Learning (PBL), helps to connect the history classroom to modern day problems. The students get to pick these modern day issues that interest them and create solutions to them. This helps students become more engaged because they will be investigating something that matters to them instead of looking through a textbook. In the case of this article, high school teacher Taekya Azzano was able to bring Latin American revolutions of the past into the class by having students research connected topics going on currently. A teacher must pose a question about a topic like this to get the students researching not only for similar modern topics but also an answer to the question. In the end, students present their findings to the class so there could be feedback from everyone else.
Adopting Strategies to the Classroom
Document based questions seem like they are very common in schools today. The problem based questions would change this system by letting students pick their documents and research their own correlating topics. I would pose general questions about the class and make sure they can relate it to current issues. They can then learn to connect their lives and motivations to the parts of history that they are being taught. The presentation of these ideas would be the most important part because then other students can provide feedback or have a discussion about it. One goal of this, the students forget the fact the are learning about something that already happened and that they could probably look up answers to. Instead, they are able to create solutions and understand today's world while also learning history.
https://www.edutopia.org/article/getting-started-pbl-social-studies
By Takeya Azzano
Teaching Isn't About Managing Behavior
Teaching Isn't About Managing Behavior
Strategies of the Article
Reality pedagogy is all about getting people to be able to critique the teacher while also connecting as co-teachers. This will help students give out just as much feedback as the teacher gives. This strategy also stops teachers from managing their classrooms and gets students to think outside the class. Connecting class content to the current world events also becomes much easier with this approach. This will let students teach about their own lives and learn about other cultures and ways of living from their peers. Christopher Emdin, the former High School teacher that proposed this pedagogy, says this strategy will work around the curriculum when the school system says there is no time for it.
Adopting Strategies to the Classroom
The pedagogy explained here sounds ideal for any teacher to use but it is easier said than done. Creating openness will not be easy, especially since students have most likely grown up in a system that does not at all apply this technique. Over time, the class participation will grow as students realize how the class is run and they are comfortable sharing their ideas and perspectives. There is no other type of class I would ever want to run then ones like those described in this article. I think the reality pedagogy is the right way to run any class and is probably easiest to apply to a history curriculum. I would want students to give me there own topic interests so I can include as much as possible to the everyday class. This would be done with history material that we discuss and then compare to our issues. I believe this would raise effort, interest, and motivation for my classes and help students better enjoy any subject.
https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2020/07/reality-pedagogy-teaching-form-protest/614554/
By Christopher Emdin
"I've learned to see my classroom as a platform for empowering students and transforming society, and to use my pedagogy as a form of protest against norms that silence students."
-Christopher Emdin
"Culturally responsive teachers know more than just the multicultural background of various groups. They know how to respond to the social-emotional, cultural, and academic needs of the students."
-Larry Ferlazzo
Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy Honors the Humanity & Identity of Young People
Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy Honors the Humanity & Identity of Young People
Strategies of the Article
A school should be able to reflect their students' environments through everything they do and teach. Community is one of the more significant identifying qualities of a young persons development. What is going on around them is obviously key for what they grow up to be like. If a school just takes kids in and pushes them out four years later while giving them the same old curriculum, it will not be effective enough on everyone. Connecting the class to the many cultures of your students and the community they all live in can be very difficult. One strategy mentioned in the article is to get students to picture what their community looked like at the time of whatever historical event they are going over in class. Little activities of visualization like this could impact how much a class can connect their local history to the lessons.
Adopting Strategies to the Classroom
Making students search for examples of the class material that relate to their lives could be crucial. My class would ask students to think about and share cultural aspects of their own lives. Students should feel comfortable enough to share and know that their teacher can aid them in understanding current needs or issues of their environment. I would want my students to share, if they want to, and think about their culturally lives as much as they can in class. They would be able to talk to me individually or with group/class discussions that would shows students how they relate and connect to the people around them. This sense of community they feel with their classmates and with me is extremely important to what I would want to build. The last thing I want is a student feeling like they never made a link with any people, group, or cause.
By Larry Ferlazzo
Page updated
Report abuse