Below are the first 10 and last 10 pages of uncorrected machine-read text (when available) of this chapter, followed by the top 30 algorithmically extracted key phrases from the chapter as a whole.
Intended to provide our own search engines and external engines with highly rich, chapter-representative searchable text on the opening pages of each chapter.
Because it is UNCORRECTED material, please consider the following text as a useful but insufficient proxy for the authoritative book pages.
Do not use for reproduction, copying, pasting, or reading; exclusively for search engines.
OCR for page 79
PUTTING PRINCIPLESINTOPRACTICE: TEACHINGANDPLANNING 79
3
Putting Principles into Practice:
Teaching and Planning
Rosalyn Ashby, Peter J. Lee, and Denis Shemilt
It has been argued thus far that the learning of history can be acceler-
ated and deepened through consistent application of the key findings from
How People Learn, and that these findings should be applied in ways that
acknowledge what is distinctive about the historical enterprise and the par-
ticular challenges it poses to students (see Chapter 2).
The first key finding of How People Learn emphasizes the importance of
students' preconceptions. Teachers must take account not only of what stu-
dents manifestly do not know, but also of what they think they know. This
finding is confirmed in the study of history by both research and experi-
ence.1 Much of the gap between what we teach and what students learn is
attributable to the fact that students link new knowledge about the past to
preexisting but inappropriate knowledge derived from everyday life. Thus,
for example, an account of the growth of medieval towns may be linked to
existing knowledge about the growth of trees; that is, students assume me-
dieval buildings got bigger, and so the towns grew. More significant still,
students have critical misconceptions--about how we know about the past,
about the relationship between historical accounts and the past they repre-
sent, about what counts as an answer to a "why" or a "how" question, and so
on--that are more difficult to access but that impact profoundly the ways in
which students construe what they are taught. To the extent that we are able
to identify the preconceptions held by students, we may preempt misunder-
standings about the substantive past and, more important, seek to modify
and develop the conceptual tools students need to make sense of history.
The second key finding of How People Learn emphasizes the impor-
tance of providing students with conceptual structures and tools with which
to organize and manipulate factual knowledge. Students must have a deep
OCR for page 80
80 HOW STUDENTS LEARN: HISTORYIN THECLASSROOM
foundation of factual knowledge, but this is not tantamount to saying that
they must learn all there is to know about any topic or set of topics. Because
history is an information-rich subject, it is easy for students to flounder in a
sea of facts that cannot be contained or controlled. And because history is
about people and events that are halfway recognizable, it can sometimes be
viewed as a series of weird soap operas. Thus, the foundations of factual
knowledge must be deep in the sense that its layers of historicity are under-
stood; in other words, the rules by which communities work and people
interact are likely to shift according to time and place. In addition, as is
argued in Chapter 2, the substantive facts and ideas of history must be un-
derstood in the context of a conceptual framework that includes second-
order concepts such as those associated with time, change, empathy, and
cause, as well as evidence and accounts. Indeed, it has been argued that the
systematic development of such concepts is essential for students to be able
to organize knowledge in ways that facilitate retrieval and application.
The third key finding of How People Learn emphasizes the importance
of metacognitive approaches that enable students to reflect on and control
their own learning. This finding relates to the development of second-order
concepts noted above. Students can acquire and refine the conceptual tools
necessary to organize and manipulate information only to a limited extent
until they are explicitly aware of what they are doing. In order, for example,
to determine that a given source is reliable for some purposes but not for
others, or to decide that a source can yield evidence of things that it purports
to neither say nor show, students must be able not merely to draw infer-
ences, but also to know that they are doing so and to make those inferences
objects of consciousness that are evaluated against rules. This level of
metacognitive awareness is unlikely to be achieved in the lower grades, but
its achievement may be accelerated if teachers of third and fourth graders
focus their attention on such questions as "How do we know?" "Is this pos-
sible?" and "If this could have happened, can we say that it did happen?"
This chapter examines what these three key findings entail for the ways
in which we work with students in the classroom and for the strategies used
to plan history teaching. The first section sets the stage for what follows by
addressing the issue of the extent to which these findings can realistically
be applied in the classroom. The next two sections demonstrate the appli-
cability of the findings by presenting two detailed example classroom case
studies.
THE REALITY TEST
The three key findings of How People Learn and the arguments ad-
vanced in the preceding chapter may be thought to reflect too favorable a
view of the realities of teaching in some classrooms. Indeed, we may not
OCR for page 81
PUTTING PRINCIPLESINTOPRACTICE: TEACHINGANDPLANNING 81
always have carte blanche in what is taught, but feel obliged to work within
the narrow space between national standards on the one hand and locally
adopted textbooks on the other. In consequence, the second key finding
may appear to presume that we have more freedom in what we teach than
is always allowed us. Worse still, the emphasis placed in the previous chap-
ter and in the first key finding on the identification and systematic develop-
ment of preconceptions and second-order concepts assumes that we have
more in-depth knowledge of how and what students think than may be the
case. At the start of the school year, we may know names and test scores but
little else. Students must still be taught even if we lack in-depth analysis of
their existing knowledge of pre-Columbian civilization or their ability to
empathize with predecessors. Last but not least, the exhortation to take "a
metacognitive approach to instruction" may appear overly optimistic for some
students, who by the end of the year still have not acquired any kind of
coherent story. What chance do they have of becoming metacognitively
aware?
These are fair points, and can serve as acid tests of the value of what is
presented below. At the same time, the reader must keep in mind that a
chapter such as this cannot provide a simple recipe for instant success, as
any experienced history teacher will know only too well. A lesson plan for
unknown children in unknown classrooms invites disaster. This is not just
because all students are different personalities; both research and experi-
ence tell us there are more specific reasons. Individual students have differ-
ent prior conceptions of history, the past, and how things happen in the
world. In addition, students at any given age are likely to be working with a
wide range of ideas (see Box 3-1). We can make some informed predictions
about what ideas are likely to be prevalent among students in a particular
grade, but research makes it clear that in any given class, some students are
likely to be thinking in much more sophisticated ways, perhaps even using
the sorts of ideas more common among students many years older. Like-
wise, some will be operating with much simpler ideas.
Moreover, if we talk here about "fourth graders" and "youngsters" or
"seventh graders" and "older students," we are not implying that changes in
ideas are an automatic consequence of age. Many seventh graders will hap-
pily go on thinking in much the same ways as fourth graders if they are not
made aware of the problems their everyday ideas create. Teachers are not
the only impetus for changing students' ideas, but it is part of our job as
teachers to act as if we were. Because we cannot predict the starting points
of any particular class of students, the discussion of example lesson tasks in
the following case studies must be qualified by "ifs," alternatives, and condi-
tional moves. At the same time, however, practical moves with real teaching
materials used by the authors and by serving teachers in both the United
Kingdom and the United States are suggested.2 They nevertheless remain
OCR for page 82
82 HOW STUDENTS LEARN: HISTORY IN THECLASSROOM
BOX 3-1 The 7-Year Gap
The CHATA research discussed in Chapter 2 reveals the conceptual understand-
ings of some 8-year-old students to be more advanced than those of many 14-year-
olds. For example, when asked to explain why one account of the Roman invasion
of Britain conflicts with another, some 7- and 8-year-olds suggest that the authors
may have chosen to record "different facts" because they were asking different
questions about the invasion, while many 14-year-olds claim that one or other au-
thor "made mistakes" in their account. It follows that when working with typical
mixed-ability classes, teachers must accommodate a "7-year gap" between the
ideas of the lowest- and highest-attaining students.
Two other CHATA findings are significant in this connection. First, ideas about
different second-order concepts do not develop in lockstep. A student's understand-
ing of evidence and accounts may be the most advanced in the class, but her grasp
of causal and empathetic explanation may not be as good, and her understanding of
time and change may even be below the class average. Second, students' ideas
about history do not develop as a necessary consequence of maturation. Many
seventh and eighth graders are happy with their mental furniture and see no need
to rearrange or replace it. To some extent, this is because they lack metacognitive
awareness and conclude that they "are no good at history." It is one of the more
difficult jobs of teachers to show such students how they can "get good" at the
subject, albeit at the cost and effort of ongoing mental makeover.3
examples only, and do not offer "the best way" to teach these or any other
topics.
Two case studies are presented in this chapter. Each involves a specific
task--comprising teaching materials and questions--in the context of how
the task might be used in developing students' ideas about historical evi-
dence. The focus of the first case study is a familiar topic, "The Pilgrim
Fathers and Native Americans"; the second deals with a more unusual topic,
"St. Brendan's Voyage." It might appear illogical to start with the Pilgrim
Fathers, since the topic chronologically precedes the Brendan voyage. The
fact that the task in the Brendan case study is written for fourth graders,
while that in the Pilgrims case study is for sixth graders, may make the order
appear even more wayward.
Given appropriate teaching, we would expect sixth graders on the whole
to outperform fourth graders in their understanding of historical evidence. If
their teaching has been designed to develop their understanding of evi-
dence, older students will, on the whole, apply more powerful ideas than
younger ones. However, we have already seen that the "7-year gap" means
OCR for page 83
PUTTING PRINCIPLESINTOPRACTICE: TEACHINGANDPLANNING 83
there is considerable variation in students' ideas, and in any case, students'
ideas will depend in part on what they have already learned. Moreover,
historical questions can be answered at very different levels of sophistica-
tion, so that students from a range of different grades can profitably tackle
the same materials and questions. Students need not wait until they reach a
certain grade to benefit from trying to weigh the evidence for the claim that
St. Brendan reached America a thousand years before Columbus, but more
conceptually sophisticated students will give different answers than less so-
phisticated ones.
Of course, the language we use in designing our questions and materi-
als is likely to set limits on the range of students who will be able to work
with them, and we cannot expect young students to have the same under-
standing of the adult world--even in the present--as older students. Thus, it
still makes sense to talk of designing tasks for a particular grade, at least as
far as setting limits below which use of the task would be unwise. But if we
encounter students from sixth or seventh grade who have not developed
ideas about evidence that we would normally begin to teach in fourth grade,
we might profitably use the "fourth-grade" task with them.
We therefore begin with the Pilgrim Fathers and Native Americans case
study, on the grounds that it will be a much more familiar topic for most
teachers than the Brendan voyage. The discussion of evidence work in this
first case study assumes that reference is made to a standard textbook and
that we have no privileged knowledge about student preconceptions and
misconceptions. The case study aims to illustrate, first, how it is possible to
identify and work with student preconceptions during the process of teach-
ing; second, how student ideas about a second-order concept, that of evi-
dence, can be developed in ways that support, not supplant, the teaching of
substantive history; and third, how it is possible to promote metacognitive
awareness among students who have no special ideas and abilities.
While the materials and questions in the Pilgrim Fathers and Native
Americans case study are designed for students who already have some
acquaintance with ideas about evidence, the aim of the second case study--
on St. Brendan's Voyage--is to introduce less sophisticated students to some
key ideas about evidence in the context of an adventure without losing them
in masses of content. There is also a difference in focus between the two
case studies. Discussion of the first emphasizes the identification and refine-
ment of previously acquired ideas about evidence, whereas the second case
study concentrates on the teaching of students who have yet to reach first
base and, in particular, who cannot yet make clear and stable distinctions
between well-founded and speculative accounts of the past.
Although the tasks in the two case studies were designed with students
in grade 4 (St. Brendan) and grade 6 (Pilgrim Fathers) in mind, materials and
questions from both can be and have been used from grades 4 through 8
OCR for page 84
84 HOW STUDENTS LEARN: HISTORY IN THECLASSROOM
and beyond. This notwithstanding, decisions about how--and even whether--
materials and questions are used with given classes must be informed by the
ideas the students are already working with and the kind of responses we
expect. In any case, nothing in what follows is about learning that can be
accomplished in a single or even several short sessions. Even when students
appear to have understood what has been taught in one context, we will
need to return to it in other topics. Changes in students' ideas take time,
patience, and planning.
WORKING WITH EVIDENCE: PILGRIM FATHERS
AND NATIVE AMERICANS
Exploring the Basis for Textbook Claims and the
Nature of Sources
The choice of the arrival of the Pilgrims as a topic for discussion here
implies no claims about what should or should not be taught. However, it is
clearly a popular topic in textbooks, and one with which readers are likely
to be familiar. It is also relevant to the broader topics, such as "Exploration
and Encounter" and "The Settlement of New England" that are regularly
taught. Moreover, it is a topic that offers opportunities to explore the Pil-
grims' significance for later generations in America, and supports an exami-
nation of the complex relationships between the newcomers and the native
inhabitants that can help break down stereotyping. There is also a very rich
record available from the testimony of the Pilgrims that can provide worth-
while and exciting learning opportunities, particularly in connection with
understanding the nature of historical evidence.
The questions in the Pilgrims' task work at two levels. First, they can
expose the assumptions students appear to be working with, and second, as
a consequence, they provide the teacher with a basis for a learning dialogue
with the students.4 As will be seen, such a dialogue can challenge the mis-
conceptions that become apparent and encourage the development of more
powerful ideas, while at the same time providing the teacher with informa-
tion about future learning needs. Testimony of the kind provided in the
materials associated with this task needs to be understood evidentially, and
part of the teacher's task is to encourage students to think in more complex
ways about the experiences, ideas, and beliefs of these "eyewitnesses."
The source materials can interact with the textbook so as to transport
students from the security of a few historical particulars and descriptions of
the arrival of the Mayflower in Cape Cod Bay in 1620 to the more precarious
circumstances of William Bradford and John Pory and the early seventeenth-
century world they inhabited. The time and place can be richly explored
OCR for page 85
PUTTING PRINCIPLESINTOPRACTICE: TEACHINGANDPLANNING 85
through the materials left behind, and the legacy of the events considered
through their impact on later societies. The search for access to this world
through these materials is likely to be halting and problematic for young
students; good storytellers may well be tempted to believe they can open it
up to their students without involving the testimony of those involved more
directly. Working with students, who are happy to grapple with the difficul-
ties inherent in materials of this kind, provides us with a different perspec-
tive. Learning experiences of any kind, however, need structures, with clear
objectives.
An approach of this kind can be used for a wide range of age and
ability groups. The format can remain the same but the task made to differ
in its language level; the nature, length, and quantity of the sources used;
and the extent of visual material needed to support ideas. The task was
initially designed for sixth graders but was taught to U.K. sixth and eighth
graders as a whole-class lesson. The examples quoted are of two kinds:
written answers to the teachers' whole-class questions, and excerpts from a
recorded follow-up discussion with a small group of three sixth graders.
(The small-group recording offers a more detailed picture than written an-
swers can provide of how students responded to the questions.) U.K. stu-
dents' perspective on the Pilgrims is likely to differ from that of equivalent
students in the United States, but the focus here is on students' evidential
understanding.
Five sources have been chosen. The extracts taken from William
Bradford's journal have been set out separately in Sources 1 and 3, separat-
ing the arrival of the Mayflower from the expedition ashore, so as to allow
students easier access. The extracts have also been edited to limit the diffi-
culty for these 12- and 15-year-olds.
The three written sources provide testimony from William Bradford about
the arrival and settlement of the Pilgrims at Plymouth in 1620 and testimony
from John Pory, a visitor to the settlement in 1622. Through these sources,
the teacher is able to explore students' existing understandings of "eyewit-
ness" accounts, and to encourage students to look behind this testimony to
consider the circumstances, ideas, and beliefs of the people directly involved.
The two paintings depicting the arrival of the Pilgrims allow the teacher
to explore and challenge students' misconceptions about these sources as a
record of the actual events of the time. They also give the teacher an oppor-
tunity to encourage students to recognize that while the paintings may not
provide evidence of the events of 1620, they do provide evidence of the
significance attached to the arrival of the Pilgrims in 1620 by later genera-
tions.
The Pilgrims' task begins by presenting students with extracts from their
textbooks and a map showing them the location where the action takes
place. The second textbook extract provides an opportunity to introduce the
OCR for page 86
86 HOW STUDENTS LEARN: HISTORY IN THECLASSROOM
testimony of William Bradford and the evidence it may not have been in-
tended to provide.
How do we know about the arrival of the Pilgrims in America?
The Mayflower finds land, and the Pilgrims look for a place to
settle.
One textbook tells us:
On November 11, 1620, after 10 weeks at sea, a small, storm-battered En-
glish vessel rounded the tip of Cape Cod and dropped its anchor in the
quiet harbor of what is now Provincetown, Massachusetts. The people in
the ship were too tired and sick to travel farther. While the Mayflower
swung at anchor in Provincetown harbor, a landing party looked for a place
to settle. These men explored a small bay on the western edge of Cape
Cod. They found a swift-running stream with clear, fresh drinking water.
The area seemed ideal for a settlement. In December, the Pilgrims an-
chored the Mayflower in the bay and began building Plymouth Plantation.5
Another textbook tells us:
They found a spot on the inner shore of Cape Cod Bay and promptly
named it for the town from which they had sailed--Plymouth. At Plymouth
the Pilgrims found abandoned cornfields. Their leader, William Bradford,
sadly described their situation. "What could they see," he wrote, "but a
hideous and desolate wilderness...what could now sustain them but the
spirit of God and his grace?"6
Here is a map to help you locate the places the textbook is
talking about.
OCR for page 87
PUTTING PRINCIPLES INTOPRACTICE: TEACHINGAND PLANNING 87
Once the students are familiar with this basic material from the text-
books, the teacher can give them a briefing sheet. This briefing sheet has
three main purposes: to introduce the students to their inquiry, to encourage
an enthusiasm for the work, and to provide them with an ultimate goal--the
production of their own substantiated account of the arrival of the May-
flower and the decision to settle in Plymouth. The briefing sheet enables the
students to focus on the instructions, to which they can return if necessary;
the teacher works through the instructions with the class, clarifying, check-
ing understanding, and reinforcing them as necessary.
Source 1: An extract taken from William Bradford's personal
journal, finished in 1650. Bradford was one of the leaders of
the English Separatists whom we now call the Pilgrims.
Having arrived in a good harbor, and brought safe to land,
they fell upon their knees and blessed God who had deliv-
ered them. They had no friends to welcome them and no
inns to refresh their weather beaten bodies; no houses to go
to for food. When St. Paul (in the bible) was shipwrecked the
barbarians were kind to him and his friends but the barbar-
ians here when they met with the Separatists and their
friends were readier to fill their sides full of arrows. And it
was winter, and they knew the winters here to be subject to
fierce storms, and dangerous to travel to known places,
much more to search an unknown coast. They could only
see a desolate wilderness, full of wild beasts and wild
men--and what multitudes there might be of them they
knew not. What could now sustain them but the Spirit of
God and his Grace?
Source 2: "The Mayflower on Her Arrival in Plymouth Har-
bor" by William Formsby Halsall. Painted in Massachusetts in
1882.
OCR for page 88
88 HOW STUDENTS LEARN: HISTORY IN THECLASSROOM
Briefing Sheet
Things for you to think about and things for you to do
How do the people who wrote the textbooks know about these events
when they happened nearly 400 years ago?
The second of these textbook writers gives us a clue about how they
found out.
Can you spot it?
The first textbook tells us more than the second textbook, but the second
textbook helps us understand how the writer knew about the Pilgrims'
arrival.
You are going to carry out your own inquiry about "The Arrival of the
Pilgrims" so that you can write your own version in a way that shows
how you know these things.
Your inquiry will involve looking carefully at some sources and doing some
hard thinking.
Source 3: Another extract taken from William Bradford's per-
sonal journal, finished in 1650.
Arrived at Cape Cod on the 11th of November and a few
people volunteered to look for a place to live. It was thought
there might be some danger but sixteen people were given
permission to explore. They were well armed and led by
Captain Standish. They set off on the 15th of November; and
when they had marched about a mile by the seaside, they
spotted five or six persons with a dog coming towards
them, who were savages; but they fled from them and ran
up into the woods, and the English followed them, partly to
OCR for page 89
PUTTING PRINCIPLESINTOPRACTICE: TEACHINGANDPLANNING 89
Source: A source is something that has survived from the past that we
can use to find out about the past. Sources help us work things out that
we wouldn't otherwise know.
Read the sources carefully, and as you do this, write down questions
that come to your mind.
(These questions will be useful to your teacher because they will help her
understand how you are thinking.)
Then answer the questions your teacher thought about, set out on a
separate sheet.
(While you are answering your teacher's questions, she will collect your
questions and think about how to find answers to them.)
Words you might need to know about:
Pilgrims: These people were looking for a place to live so that they could
worship God in their own way without interference. They were called
Separatists at the time because they separated themselves from the offi-
cial ideas the priests in England taught about God. Later people called
them the Pilgrims, and sometimes the Pilgrim Fathers.
Shallop: A small boat. This was used to get close to land because the
Mayflower could not safely go into shallow water.
see if they could speak with them, and partly to discover if
there might be more of them lying in ambush. But the
Indians left the woods and ran away on the sands as hard as
they could so they followed them by the track of their feet
for several miles. When it was night they set up a guard and
rested in quiet that night; and the next morning followed
their track till they had headed a great creek and so left the
sands and turned another way into the woods. They fol-
lowed them by guess, hoping to find their dwellings; but
they soon lost both them and themselves. At length they
found water and refreshed themselves, being the first New
England water they had drunk.
OCR for page 168
168 HOW STUDENTS LEARN: HISTORYIN THECLASSROOM
metacognitively aware) that they are expected to walk across the mountains
rather than play in the foothills and watch the clouds drift by. After all, this
is what paths are for--for walking from here to there. If we plan to achieve
progress in students' ideas about evidence, change, and so on, students may
become aware that their understandings must develop irrespective of changes
in the factual scenery as one topic succeeds another. Third, if we plan to
achieve progress in students' conceptual understanding in particular ways, it
is easier to anticipate the preconceptions and misconceptions that students
may bring to any topic. Doing so makes it easier for us to identify, to exploit,
and to remediate the ideas students use to make sense of the work at hand.
To return to the previous analogy, if we notice that we have lost a few
students, that they are no longer with us, it is easier to check back on or near
the trail along which we planned to take them than to scour the entire
mountain.
If these arguments are accepted, it remains to illustrate what planning in
conformity with the second key finding of How People Learn might look
like. Although planning should address the totality of history education from
fourth to twelfth grade and all relevant second-order concepts, a more mod-
est illustration may suffice.
As already indicated, history teaching at the fourth-grade level may cover
such topics as The First Americans: Origins and Achievements and Worlds
Apart: The Americas, Africa, Asia, and Europe before the Voyages of Explo-
ration. These topics are likely to be broken down into a number of units of
work intended to occupy 4-8 hours of teaching. The Worlds Apart topic, for
instance, might include the following units:
Unit 1: Filling the World with People
Unit 2: People Go Their Separate Ways
Unit 3: First Contacts: Did St. Brendan Sail from Ireland to America?
Unit 4: First Contacts: Why Didn't the Norse Stay in America?
The topic aims to develop students' understanding of a particular period
in history, that of the Voyages of Discovery. Students may be relied upon to
forget much of what they are taught; thus it is necessary to identify the
dates--usually for the key generalizations and understandings, rather than
for the details--that we wish them to retain. Teaching tasks and assessments
can then be focused on the transmission and development of these key
generalizations and understandings. What these are or should be is nego-
tiable. The Worlds Apart topic may focus narrowly, for example, on the
independent evolution of new and old world civilizations to provide the
students with descriptions and explanations of cultural misunderstandings
and clashes in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. An alternative ap-
OCR for page 169
PUTTING PRINCIPLESINTOPRACTICE: TEACHINGANDPLANNING 169
proach would aim to give students an understanding of the "one world"
revolution that began with the exploration, colonization, and commercial
exploration of the Americas and elsewhere, which may be seen as the start
of the process we now call "globalization."
What may be less familiar is a stage of planning that goes beyond the
identification of key generalizations and, in accordance with the second
principle of How People Learn, also identifies key ideas about the second-
order concepts associated with evidence and accounts, change and develop-
ment, and empathetic and causal explanation that students use to make
sense of the those generalizations. For the units of work listed under the
Worlds Apart topic, teaching what we want students to learn with respect to
generalizations about the past may be combined with developing their un-
derstanding of second-order concepts along the following lines.
Unit 1: Filling the World with People
Target Generalizations Target Ideas
About the Past About Change
Long ago there were only a Things were not always as they
few people in the whole are now--they were different in
world. They all lived in a small the past.
part of East Africa. The rest of All bits of the past were not the
the world was empty--no same. Some bits of the past were
people. more different from each other
Very slowly these East Africans than from the present.
increased their numbers and Not all differences matter, and
spread all over the world--to some are far more important than
the rest of Africa, Asia, others.
Australia, Europe, and the When there are significant
Americas. differences between two bits of the
We may look different and past, we say that things have
speak different languages, but changed.
we are all descended from the When things are different in ways
same small groups of East that don't matter much, we say that
Africans. there is continuity with the past.
Some Native Americans are
descended from the first
groups of people to reach
North and then South America.
OCR for page 170
170 HOW STUDENTS LEARN: HISTORYIN THE CLASSROOM
It should be noted, first, that attempts to refine students' understanding
of change, as of any other second-order concept, should not displace teach-
ing about the past, but will certainly affect the ways in which such teaching
takes place. The discussion of the Pilgrim Fathers' and Voyage of St. Brendan
tasks illustrates the nature of this impact. It is not practical to address all
second-order concepts within a single unit of work. For this reason, the
conceptual focus of a set of units is likely to vary, as indicated below.
Unit 2: People Go Their Separate Ways
Target Generalizations Target Ideas About
About the Past Empathetic Explanation
People forgot where their People in the past saw things
ancestors had come from and differently from the way we see
knew only about other groups them today. (For example, their
of people who lived nearby. maps of the world do not look like
People who lived in Africa, ours.)
Asia, and Europe knew People in the past had to be very
nothing about the first clever to achieve what they did. (For
Americans. People who lived in example, we would find it very
America knew nothing about difficult to make such good maps
those living in Africa, Asia, and charts using the same tools
and Europe. They also knew as our predecessors.)
nothing about most other People in the past thought and
groups of Americans. behaved differently from us because
Most groups of people had they had to solve different problems.
little contact with each other, (For example, a Portolan chart was
so languages and ways of life of more use to a medieval sailor in
became more and more the Mediterranean than a modern
different. atlas would have been.)
Over long periods of time,
great but very different
civilizations developed in
Africa, Asia, the Americas,
and Europe.
OCR for page 171
PUTTING PRINCIPLESINTOPRACTICE: TEACHINGANDPLANNING 171
Unit 3: First Contacts:
Did St. Brendan Sail from Ireland to America?
Target Generalizations About Target Ideas About
the Past Evidence and Accounts
In the past, many stories were We can work out what happened
told about people sailing to in the past from what is left.
what could have been America. Some things left from the past
One of these stories is about an weren't meant to tell us anything,
Irish monk, St. Brendan. but we can still use them to find
We cannot be sure whether things out.
St. Brendan really did sail to The weight we can put on the
America. evidence depends on the questions
We do know that even if St. we ask.
Brendan did sail to America, no Often we can't be certain about the
one followed him or knew how past, but we can produce stronger
to repeat his voyage. or weaker arguments about what
it makes most sense to say.
The target ideas in these units are informed by the model of progression
for evidence outlined earlier and, as previously argued, cover the range of
learning outcomes accessible to the majority of fourth-grade students. Some
students will still struggle to master these ideas in seventh and eighth grades,
whereas the understanding of others will have moved far beyond even the
most difficult of these ideas.
A final set of examples deals with the concept of causal explanation--
provided in Unit 4 on page 172.
In the examples given for the Worlds Apart topic, each second-order
concept is addressed once and once only. If two topics are taught at each
grade, it follows that each second-order concept will be revisited at least
once each year and that planning for systematic progression across grades is
possible.
The examples provided here are, of course, only an illustration of the
start of the planning process. Detailed planning with reference to content,
materials, and activities must flesh out the key generalizations and ideas
exemplified above. At the same time, our planning should also take account
of the other key findings of How People Learn. The planning grid presented
in Box 3A-2 shows how all three key findings might figure in planning to
develop students' understanding of the concept of evidence, using the St.
Brendan and Pilgrims' tasks as examples.
OCR for page 172
172 HOW STUDENTS LEARN: HISTORYIN THECLASSROOM
Unit 4: First Contacts: Why Didn't the Norse Colonists Stay in America?
Target Generalizations About Target Ideas About
the Past Causal Explanation
The first definite contacts Some things happen because
between Native Americans and people want and have the power
non-American peoples occurred to make them happen (e.g., the
when Norse sailors and colonists colonization of Iceland and
landed and attempted to settle Greenland).
in North America. Other things happen that people
The Norse were trying to do don't want and try to prevent (e.g.,
what they had done before--to the Norse eviction from North
find and to settle in empty land. America and the later destruction
But America was not empty. It of the Greenland colonies).
was already full of people Explanations of why people do
about whom the Norse knew things are not always the same as
nothing. The Native Americans explanations of why things
fought the Norse and threw happen.
them out of the country. To explain why things happen, we
sometimes refer to causes that
people can't or don't know how to
control (e.g., climate changes,
differences in population size and
density).
The first column in the planning grid shows the content to be covered
and the key questions that organize that content. The key questions are
designed to allow us to bring together the content and the relevant second-
order understandings. Although there are two different topics--St. Brendan
and the Pilgrims--the questions for both the fourth- and sixth-grade work
are concerned with the same key question: "How do we know?" Teaching
will therefore need to focus on the concept of historical evidence. But deci-
sions will need to be made to ensure that the teaching is appropriate for the
age and ability of the students.
Before more precise teaching goals can be written into plans of this
kind, some consideration must be given to the first key finding of How
People Learn--that "students come to the classroom with preconceptions."
In accordance with this finding, the planning examples for fourth and sixth
grades include in the second column of the grid likely preconceptions to be
checked out. These are planning reminders of the preconceptions about
evidence that research suggests students are likely to hold. At the same time,
OCR for page 173
PUTTING PRINCIPLESINTOPRACTICE: TEACHINGANDPLANNING 173
we must keep in mind the range of ideas we are likely to encounter at any
age. The point is not that all students will think the same things, but that we
might expect to find ideas such as these among most fourth- or sixth-grade
students, depending on what has been taught before. So if our sixth graders
have already done the St. Brendan task, as well as similar work designed to
develop their understanding of evidence in the context of other topics, we
would expect that many of them already understand the preconceptions
listed as needing to be considered in the Pilgrim Fathers' task. If the students
have done no such work, we would be safer to anticipate their still holding
some of the preconceptions listed under the Brendan task when the time
comes to tackle the Pilgrims' task.
The preconceptions listed in Box 3A-2 for both grade 4 (ideas about
sources as information or as testimony) and grade 6 (ideas about sources as
evidence in isolation) relate to the progression model for evidence (Box 3A-
1). That model also provides a framework for thinking about teaching tar-
gets; in Box 3A-2, the third column for both grades 4 and 6 sets forth the key
conceptual understandings to be taught, in line with the second finding of
How People Learn. These understandings build the preconceptions listed in
the previous column, and are intended to ensure that our teaching enables
students to consolidate or extend their previous learning. Thus, whereas the
St. Brendan task targets some rather broad principles about the use of evi-
dence that make history possible, the Pilgrims' task concentrates on impor-
tant ideas about how inferences can be drawn from testimony, ideas that
allow students to consolidate their understanding of evidence. The Pilgrims'
task also sets a planning target for extending students' understanding by
introducing ideas about situating evidence in the broader context of the
society from which it comes.
If the St. Brendan grid and the Pilgrims' grid are examined together, the
relationship between the preconceptions to be checked out and the key
conceptual understandings to be taught becomes evident. It is this relation-
ship that is crucial for ensuring that progression in students' understanding
takes place. The evidence progression model (Box 3A-1) provides an aid to
planning here. For example, it is important for a sixth-grade teacher to know
not just what content has been taught to students in previous grades, but
also what conceptual understandings have been gained. If colleagues are
guided by common planning, such knowledge of students' understanding is
likely to be a more realistic goal.
The key point here is that when students move from one topic to an-
other, they should also be given the opportunity to move forward conceptu-
ally. It is important for teachers to have a sense of the possible progression
for students. In addition to supporting the kind of planning that ensures
students are given work appropriate to their abilities, this kind of knowledge
can help in dealing with the range of abilities that are likely to exist within
OCR for page 174
174 HOW STUDENTS LEARN: HISTORYIN THECLASSROOM
BOX 3A-2 Planning for Progression in Ideas About Evidence
Key Key Key
Finding #1 Finding #2 Finding #3
Preconceptions Key conceptual
Key questions to be checked understandings Metacognitive
and content out to be taught questions
Grade 4 (St. Brendan task)
How do we know? Sources as Sources as
information evidence in
isolation
St. Brendan: The past is We can work Am I clear
Did an Irish monk given. out what what question
reach America We can't know happened in I'm asking?
1000 years before about the past the past from Do I know
Columbus? because we what is left. what kind of
weren't there. Some things thing this is?
Substantive left from the Do I know
content Sources as past weren't what the writer
testimony meant to tell is trying to do?
Irish voyages We can find us anything, Does my
out something but we can argument work
Viking voyages about the past still use them for the hard bits
from reports to find things as well as the
that have out. easy bits?
survived. The weight
If no one told we can put
the truth on the
about what evidence
happened, depends on
we can't find the questions
anything out. we ask.
Often we
can't be
certain about
the past, but
we can
produce
stronger or
weaker arguments
as to what it
makes most
sense to say.
OCR for page 175
PUTTING PRINCIPLESINTO PRACTICE: TEACHINGAND PLANNING 175
Grade 6 (Pilgrim Fathers' task)
How do we know? Sources as Sources as Are my questions
evidence in evidence in the same as other
How do we know isolation isolation people's?
about the arrival of We can work To use How do the
the Pilgrims in out what testimony differences in our
America? happened in the as evidence, questions affect
past from what we need to take the way the
is left. into account the sources can be
Substantive Some things circumstances used?
content left from the in which it was Can the sources
Separatism past weren't produced. answer my
Early English meant to tell us Testimony can questions? What
colonization anything, but unintentionally other kinds of
The Pilgrim we can still reflect the ideas sources will I
Fathers use them to and beliefs of need?
The Plymouth find things out. those who Do I know the
Settlement The weight produced it and circumstances in
The Wampanoags we can put on still be valuable which this source
the evidence as evidence for was produced?
depends on the historians. Do I understand
questions People can what beliefs or
we ask. produce values might
Often we can't representations make the writer
be certain about of past events see things in the
the past, but we that are not way he or she
can produce necessarily does?
stronger or intended as How do those
weaker reconstructions. beliefs and values
arguments as affect the way I
to what it Sources as can use this as
makes most evidence evidence?
sense to say. in context
Inferences from
sources must
take account of
their cultural
assumptions.
OCR for page 176
176 HOW STUDENTS LEARN: HISTORYIN THECLASSROOM
any one class. If the fourth-grade teacher understands the learning plans of
the sixth-grade teacher, it becomes possible to introduce some ideas earlier
for students who may benefit. It may also be important for the sixth-grade
teacher to be able to reinforce understandings that have been taught earlier
but are shaky for some students.
The third key finding of How People Learn--that "a metacognitive ap-
proach to instruction can help students learn to take control of their own
learning by defining learning goals and monitoring their progress in achiev-
ing them"--is also an important aspect of the planning process. The last
column on the planning grids in Box 3A-2 lists the metacognitive questions
adopted for these units of work. It is clear that these questions are closely
related to the kinds of understandings we are trying to develop in students
and can help raise their consciousness of what is at issue when using evi-
dence. Questions of this kind increase students' awareness of the knowl-
edge and understanding they have, and enable them to see that some an-
swers to questions actually solve problems while other answers do not. This
kind of awareness helps students recognize that answers provided by other
students are relevant to the problems they themselves faced in their attempts
at answers. Planning of the kind exemplified here that links questions to key
second-order concepts can help teachers develop these questions into full-
fledged metacognitive strategies. Moreover, metacognitive questions have
additional advantages. Students' use of such questions allows their teachers
to gain insight into their understanding and their misconceptions and thereby
take advantage of learning opportunities that arise in the classroom, and to
think about the kinds of adjustments that will be necessary in day-to-day
planning to support individual learning needs, as well as longer-term goals.
The planning principles discussed here for fourth and sixth grades with
respect to evidence would, of course, need to be extended to other second-
order concepts and to other grades to enable the formulation of a long-term
plan for a school history curriculum. These principles provide a structure for
systematically revisiting ideas that inform all the history we want our stu-
dents to learn, regardless of the topic. Such ideas are at the heart of history.
They introduce students to the possibility of treating accounts of particular
passages of the past as better or worse, more or less valid, in a rational way.
History such as this does not succumb to vicious relativism on the one hand
or to fundamentalism on the other. Rather, it exemplifies the central values
of an open society.
OCR for page 177
PUTTING PRINCIPLES INTOPRACTICE: TEACHINGAND PLANNING 177
NOTES
1. Examples of research in history education confirming this principle include
Shemilt (1980) and Lee and Ashby (2000, 2001). Experience with a series of
curriculum changes (the Schools History Project, the Cambridge History Project,
and, more recently, the National Curriculum for History) and public assess-
ment of students' work in the United Kingdom have provided additional con-
firmatory evidence.
2. We would like to thank the students and teachers in schools in Essex and Kent
in England, and in Oakland (California) in the United States who took part in
trials of the two tasks presented in this chapter. All names in the text are
pseudonyms, and U.K. "year groups" have been converted into U.S. "grade"
equivalents; for example, U.K. year 7 pupils are given as grade 6. While this is
only an approximate equivalence, research (e.g. Barton, 1996; VanSledright,
2002, pp. 59-66) offers examples of ideas very similar to those found in the
United Kingdom, and responses to the second task in the two countries sug-
gest that differences between education systems do not invalidate the approxi-
mation.
3. Lee and Ashby, 2000.
4. For research on student ideas about evidence, see Shemilt (1980, 1987) and
Lee et al. (1996).
5. Todd and Curtis, 1982.
6. Jordan et al., 1985.
7. Wineburg, 2001.
8. Dickinson and Lee, 1984; Ashby and Lee, 1987.
9. Shemilt, 1978.
10. Shemilt, 1980, 1987; Lee et al., 1996.
11. VanSledright, 2002.
12. Leinhardt, 1994.
13. The teaching material was inspired by and is indebted to Tim Severin's book
describing his "Brendan Voyage."
14. Leinhardt, 1994.
15. Seixas, 1993, 1994.
16. Barton, 1996.
17. Shemilt, 1980.
REFERENCES
Ashby, R, and Lee, P.J. (1987). Children's concepts of empathy and understanding in
history. In C. Portal (Ed.), The history curriculum for teachers (pp. 62-88). Lon-
don, England: Falmer Press.
Barton, K.C. (1996). Narrative simplifications in elementary students' historical think-
ing. In J. Brophy (Ed.), Advances in research on teaching vol. 6: Teaching and
learning history (p. 67). Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.
Dickinson, A.K., and Lee, P.J. (1984). Making sense of history. In A.K. Dickinson, P.J.
Lee, and P.J. Rogers (Eds.), Learning history (pp. 117-153). London, England:
Heinemann.
OCR for page 178
178 HOW STUDENTS LEARN: HISTORY IN THE CLASSROOM
Jordan, W.D., Greenblatt, M., and Bowes, J.S. (1985). The Americans: The history of a
people and a nation. Evanston, IL: McDougal, Littell.
Lee, P.J., and Ashby, R. (2000). Progression in historical understanding among stu-
dents ages 7 to 14. In P. Seixas, P. Stearns, and S. Wineburg (Eds.), Knowing,
teaching and learning history: National and international perspectives (pp. 192-
222). New York: University Press.
Lee, P.J., and Ashby, R. (2001). Empathy, perspective taking and rational understand-
ing. In O.L. Davis Jr., S. Foster, and E. Yaeger (Eds.), Historical empathy and
perspective taking in the social studies. Boulder, CO: Rowman and Littlefield.
Lee, P.J., Ashby, R., and Dickinson, A.R. (1996). Progression in children's ideas about
history. In M. Hughes (Ed.), Progression in learning. Bristol, PA: Multilingual
Matters.
Leinhardt, G. (1994). History: A time to be mindful. In G. Leinhardt, I.L. Beck, and C.
Stainton (Eds.), Teaching and learning in history. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum
Associates.
Seixas, P. (1993). Popular film and young people's understanding of the history of
native-white relations. The History Teacher, 26, 3.
Seixas, P. (1994). Confronting the moral frames of popular film: Young people re-
spond to historical revisionism. American Journal of Education, 102.
Severin, T. (1996). The Brendan voyage. London, England: Abacus.
Shemilt, D. (1978). History 13-16 evaluation study. Unpublished evaluation report
submitted to the Schools Council, London, England.
Shemilt, D. (1980). History 13-16 evaluation study. Edinburgh, Scotland: Holmes
McDougall.
Shemilt, D. (1987). Adolescent ideas about evidence and methodology in history. In
C. Portal (Ed.), The history curriculum for teachers. London, England: Falmer
Press.
Todd, L.P., and Curtis, M.(1982). The rise of the American nation. Orlando FL: Harcourt
Brace Jovanovitch.
VanSledright, B. (2002). In search of America's past (pp. 59-66). New York: Teachers
College Press.
Wineburg, S. (2001). Historical thinking and other unnatural acts. Philadelphia, PA:
Temple University Press.
Representative terms from entire chapter:
historyin theclassroom
