How Students Learn History, Mathematics, and Science in the Classroom (2005) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
3 Putting Principles into Practice: Teaching and Planning
3 Putting Principles into Practice: Teaching and Planning
Pages 79-178
The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.
From page 79... ...
To the extent that we are able to identify the preconceptions held by students, we may preempt misunderstandings 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 importance of providing students with conceptual structures and tools with which to organize and manipulate factual knowledge.
|
From page 80... ...
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.
|
From page 81... ...
Many seventh graders will happily 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.
|
From page 82... ...
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.
|
From page 83... ...
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.
|
From page 84... ...
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
|
From page 85... ...
The extracts have also been edited to limit the difficulty 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.
|
From page 86... ...
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.
|
From page 87... ...
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, checking understanding, and reinforcing them as necessary. Source 1: An extract taken from William Bradford's personal journal, finished in 1650.
|
From page 88... ...
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.
|
From page 89... ...
Later people called them the Pilgrims, and sometimes the Pilgrim Fathers. Shallop: A small boat.
|
From page 90... ...
Painted in Salem, Massachusetts, between 1803 and 1806. Source 5: Written by John Pory, an official from the settle ment at Jamestown, farther south in Virginia, after he had visited Plymouth in 1622.
|
From page 91... ...
There is plenty both of fish and fowl every day in the year and I know no place in the world that can match it. The briefing sheet is designed to encourage students to record their own questions during their initial examination of the sources.
|
From page 92... ...
The question also probes whether students understand the ways in which the painter might have knowledge of the Mayflower, and whether they see the painting as providing direct information about the arrival of the Mayflower or as evidence of its significance to later generations. What is this question trying to encourage students to reflect on as a means of developing their understanding?
|
From page 93... ...
He claimed that "the person who drew the picture knew what the boat looked like because he might have seen it in the port before she set sail for America." Jennifer, recognizing a time difference, believed there would still be something left of the Mayflower, and was convinced that "the person painting the picture in Source 2 was able to work out what the Mayflower looked like by visiting the remains." Some 12-year-olds saw that the painter could not have been an eyewitness, but argued that it was therefore not possible to know what the ship looked like. As Adam explained, "The person painting Source 2 wouldn't have known what the Mayflower had looked like as he wasn't even there." If you weren't there to see for yourself, then you need access to someone who was.
|
From page 94... ...
The awareness of a broader range of records available to the historian can help students recognize that we are not left totally helpless without eyewitnesses (or indeed, as some believe, without the recovery of the May flower itself)
|
From page 95... ...
In Source 3, William Bradford is talking about the first people who went ashore. He tells us that it wasn't until they had "marched about a mile by the seaside" that "they spotted five or six persons with a dog coming towards them." He tells us they "fled and ran away into the woods, and the English fol lowed them." But Source 4 shows the Native Americans wait ing on the shore to meet them.
|
From page 96... ...
George, for example, wrote, "William Bradford was there and the painter wasn't." Given the claim being made, this is a perfectly justifiable answer. Jack also made the point about Bradford being in a position to know, and explained the conflicting information in the painting by pointing out that stories change over time: I think that Source 3 was right, as he was one of the leaders of the Pilgrims.
|
From page 97... ...
" About John Pory's testimony (Source 5) , he raised the question, "Why didn't the native Indians attack them?
|
From page 98... ...
And that kind of means that the painting might really be trying to say these people are really important because they established, it was the beginning, they are the "Fathers" who made this part of America what it was at the time the painting was done. So what might the artist want to portray about these people -- the Pilgrim Fathers?
|
From page 99... ...
The materials to be used in future lessons with these particular students will need to explore the different relationships among groups of people at the time and the complexities of the Mayflower legacy. Teacher Question 3.
|
From page 100... ...
Wineburg concludes that these able seniors "failed to see the text as a social instrument skillfully crafted to achieve a social end."7 It is necessary to account for the disparity in ideas and assumptions between the "college-bound" seniors and the more sophisticated sixth graders who en gaged with the Pilgrim Fathers materials and tasks. Three factors are significant in this connection.
|
From page 101... ...
The questions encourage students to: (a) Recognize that different kinds of information may be given in people's testimony.
|
From page 102... ...
Generalizing. Some students will suggest William Bradford's journal as the basis for John Pory's knowledge of Plymouth and pay little attention to the informa tion attached to Source 5 about the visit to Plymouth in 1622, or decide that this information is not relevant to the question.
|
From page 103... ...
Although there may have been signs of a settlement, it is more plausible that the abandoned town would have been an important topic of the conversations that took place between Pory and the settlers, particularly given the comparative advantage an "abandoned town" had for the Pilgrims in their relationship with the native population. If we return to one of the groups of students reflecting on these questions with their teacher and look at a substantial portion of their discussion, the importance of understanding exactly what students mean becomes very clear.
|
From page 104... ...
104 HOW STUDENTS LEARN: HISTORY IN THECLASSROOM Peter Well maybe for the second one it could have been that the leader, William Bradford, maybe it was in his journal, and maybe also that he's been to see that place and he has found signs of markings, like Indian words and statues of their gods. Matthew Yeah because it says here "Written by John Pory an official from the settlement at Jamestown, further south in Virginia, after he has visited Plymouth in 1622," so he had actually visited, so that explains the geographi cal point, and then it could have been from word of mouth from the people who were actually on the Mayflower so they are talking to each other.
|
From page 105... ...
. The teacher explored how far the students could think more precisely about intentions, because the second of John Pory's claims is not of the sort likely to have come about through a deliberate attempt to twist the truth.
|
From page 106... ...
All Yeah. Teacher But just let me get clear what you are saying that you have got in this source written by John Pory.
|
From page 107... ...
An attempt was made to encourage the students to consider why the advantages at Plymouth had a particular resonance with John Pory. Teacher Why is Pory concerned with these things anyway, this kind of information?
|
From page 108... ...
The following exchange indicates why. Teacher Perhaps we could come back to the things in William Bradford's diary because several people in the class asked how Bradford knew the Native Americans -- Bradford calls them barbarians -- were ready to fill them full of arrows.
|
From page 109... ...
The teacher explored the students' ideas to provide herself with an informed starting point for the next exercise. Teacher What about us thinking about the way diaries get written, we need to think about the circum stances in which diaries get written.
|
From page 110... ...
Adam And how great they were. Teacher So in the extract you were looking at, by William Bradford, Source 1, what does it say at the top?
|
From page 111... ...
In particular, the students would need to understand the responsibility that William Bradford, as governor of a settlement of this nature, would have had for keeping particular kinds of records. Within this context, they would need to be able to differentiate, even within the same document, among different kinds of information and whether the document is being used as a record or relic source.
|
From page 112... ...
The first is a simple question asking stu dents to use Sources 1 and 5 to identify who the Pilgrims believed was helping them when they arrived at Cape Cod. Teacher Question 5.
|
From page 113... ...
(b) Think about the distinction between the way in which the Pilgrim Fathers would have explained what was happening and the way in which we might explain it.
|
From page 114... ...
Adam I think he means, like, they got better land than him because they got an abandoned town, so John Pory's group in South Virginia didn't have that, so God had provided them better. Peter And in those times most things were based round religion, religion was very important in those days.
|
From page 115... ...
What is this question trying to encourage students to reflect on as a means of developing their understanding? The question is designed to: (a)
|
From page 116... ...
Adam They believe they had the right like Peter said, because they needed to get away and after some errors and accidents like they stumbled across a harbor, whether it was because of the wind or the backwardness of their ship's captain they did not arrive where they had planned, so they therefore believed that God did not want them to live where they had planned, so whether it was the ship's captain or the wind, God changed it around, so that instead they reached the harbor of Cape Cod, so therefore they believed that God wanted them to live there. Peter took this argument further, suggesting they would need to justify the action in terms of the Native Americans' religious "failings," and Matthew was concerned that their religious beliefs should not go unrecognized.
|
From page 117... ...
As one group of eighth graders said, "If this is as unfair as we seem to make out it is, no one's going to steal anything," because they will be "scared they'll get caught." Students thinking like this cease to think of the ordeal as part of a trial, and reduce it to a form of deterrent. Some students slip into calling the ordeal a "punishment." Another move made by students is to recognize that the Anglo-Saxons held different religious beliefs from ours, but then to treat this as part of the problem: the ordeal is the sort of absurd thing you would expect from their religion.
|
From page 118... ...
Teacher Do you think when Bradford talks of the group of native people as "running away" that the native people would have described it as "running away"? Adam I wouldn't think so.
|
From page 119... ...
WORKING WITH EVIDENCE: THE ST. BRENDAN'S VOYAGE TASK The Pilgrim Fathers' case study exemplifies how several important things can be happening at once in the classroom.
|
From page 120... ...
" This is a question of the kind many students enjoy, and the different layers of evidence available make it highly suitable for addressing the problems of making valid statements about the past. As historical "content," its importance lies in helping students see that- even if it were true that Brendan reached America -- "firsts" of this kind often lead nowhere.
|
From page 121... ...
The purpose of the St. Brendan task is to develop students' ideas of historical evidence, not to give them large quantities of information.
|
From page 122... ...
VanSledright set out as researcher and teacher to teach fifth graders Ameri can history, while at the same time developing their understanding of historical enquiry.11 He presented the students with Hakim's conjecture that local Powhatan Indians withheld food and supplies from Jamestown, perhaps laying siege to the stockade for much of the winter of 16091610. He provided the students with primary source materials and a framework for questioning those materials.
|
From page 123... ...
Older students -- and some fourth graders -- may men tion exaggeration and bias as additional problems. Even among those stu dents who have some idea about links with the past, many will think the only way to check the truth of reports properly would be to go back into the past to witness what happened; thus in the end, these students, too, are likely to come back to the position that we cannot really know about the past because we were not there.
|
From page 124... ...
By the end of the Brendan task, fourth graders who started with little experience of working with historical evidence should understand (at least in this context) that the past is not given information, fixed by books or authorities; that we have no direct access to the past; and that we do not rely on someone from the time telling us truthfully what happened.
|
From page 125... ...
Is it as reliable for providing evidence of a student's school behavior as for providing evidence of the teacher's attitude toward the student? Many fourth graders are well able to appreciate the importance of the question we ask if we begin with everyday examples: Teacher If I say "Here's your teacher's report, on you, what are the things I can learn about you, and what sort of things can't I find about you from this report?
|
From page 126... ...
If the Brendan task were used with students in the seventh grade and beyond, we would be thinking in terms of more sophisticated understand ing (even fourth or third graders who started with more powerful ideas than those we assumed in the previous section would be capable of making real gains here)
|
From page 127... ...
We must not confuse our goals by attempting too much at once, and in any case, there are other specific ideas that students need to learn in connection with empathy. It is enough in the Brendan task to help students see that they need to ask what kind of story they are dealing with before they can safely use it as evidence.
|
From page 128... ...
Working Through the Task The Question We begin with the question: Did an Irish monk land in America about 1,000 years before Columbus? As teachers we need to be very clear in our own minds about the ques tion right from the start, even if it is not necessarily sensible to pursue this with the students as an abstract issue at the outset.
|
From page 129... ...
Time Line 500 600 700 800 900 1000 __________________________________________________________ St. Brendan alive Brendan Story Brendan Story probably might have been first written down written down around this time as early as this
|
From page 130... ...
1.An Irish boat, copied from a carving done on a stone pillar some time between 700 and 800. Brendan set out with 17 other monks and sailed west.
|
From page 131... ...
PUTTING PRINCIPLESINTOPRACTICE: TEACHINGANDPLANNING 131 2.The monks land on Jasconius.A picture painted between 600 and 700 years after Brendan's time. After this the monks sailed to an island called The Paradise of Birds.They hauled their boat almost a mile up a narrow stream, and found a huge tree covered in white birds.
|
From page 132... ...
As the monks came near the is land, an islander came out and threw molten metal and hot stones at them.A lump flew 200 yards over their heads and fell into the sea.The sea round it boiled, and smoke rose up. Then more island ers rushed down to the shore and threw hot stones at the monks.
|
From page 133... ...
Tanned leather This was specially toughened leather. It was soaked in juice from the bark of oak trees to make it stronger.
|
From page 134... ...
We can try to make students BOX 3-6 Going Beyond Face Value When they start using historical evidence, students seldom pay much attention to the provenance of the sources, especially when they are looking at pictures. But faced with a paradox and a little encouragement to look more closely, they can often take major steps beyond treating sources as information.
|
From page 135... ...
This exchange among third graders is the start of a process, not a secure achieve ment at this point. aware of the kinds of criteria they are already using that are not dependent on authority (given information)
|
From page 136... ...
Many students, like these third graders, distinguish between "true stories" and "fake" or "made-up stories." Charlene If they wrote it like 300 years after he'd done something, it couldn't, it might not be true 'cos they don't actually know. Joe How would they know this would've happened all those years after?
|
From page 137... ...
Lenny You know that fish, it could be a whale-shark. The idea that Brendan may possibly have reached America or that his doing so may be more or less likely tends to be expressed in terms of Brendan going part of the way.
|
From page 138... ...
" Most students at this stage talk in terms of "everyday" plausibility -- what would be plausible if the story were written today. Ideas that appeal to what was likely then do not usually emerge until later, when we turn to the kind of story the Brendan voyage is.
|
From page 139... ...
Brendan might not have met such gales and rough seas as Tim Severin did on his voyage. What do we know about the sort of boat St.
|
From page 140... ...
Map 1. The North Atlantic Ocean, where St.
|
From page 141... ...
· We know many Irish monks made voyages in the seas near Ire land at this time. Map 1 is especially useful at this juncture since we want to add material to allow students to think about the story in the context of more particular historical knowledge.
|
From page 142... ...
This is a difficult idea, but it is accessible to many fourth graders, particularly if something like Cartoon 1 (provided by Phil Suggitt) is used to reinforce the point.
|
From page 143... ...
Charlene That Tim Severin got there, but Brendan might've not. The teacher then asks what questions their exercise books will and will not answer.
|
From page 144... ...
Two sets of questions start things off: Make a list of the three things in the story that would best back up the claim that Brendan reached America. How do they back up the claim?
|
From page 145... ...
The only way to see the evidence inside the story as supporting the claim that Brendan reached America is (1) to interpret key events in the story naturalistically, and then (2)
|
From page 146... ...
Some students will already have seen that the column may have been an iceberg, although many fourth graders do not think of this interpretation at first. If we ask, "Can you think of two different ways this part of the story could be interpreted?
|
From page 147... ...
Bill A fairy tale, 'cos people throwing molten hot rocks, wouldn't they actually burn their hands? Steve But it could've been real people, and it could've been a volcano, and the crystal could've been an iceberg, and the fish could've been a whale, and the talking birds [long pause]
|
From page 148... ...
Brendan both help to emphasize that the story is connected with religious beliefs and is not just a "factual report" of what happened. We can ask, "Has this changed the way you think we should interpret the crystal column, or not?
|
From page 149... ...
· There is very often fog in the area near Newfoundland. Some fourth graders will initially deny that that there could be volcanoes in Iceland because volcanoes are hot and Iceland is cold, so it is important not to allow this misconception to make nonsense of the kind of progress we are trying to make.
|
From page 150... ...
What this means is that we need to help students consider what kind of story they are dealing with. Doing so raises matters that not all fourth graders can grasp, but it is worth introducing them here even though we will need to return to them in other lessons on other topics.
|
From page 151... ...
PUTTING PRINCIPLES INTOPRACTICE: TEACHINGANDPLANNING 151 BOX 3-8 We Can Believe Historical Films When People in Them Behave As We Would The tendency to assume that people in the past shared our ways of thinking and acting has been found among students in Canada as well as in the United States and the United Kingdom. Peter Seixas asked Canadian tenth graders to watch selected scenes from two popular films dealing with the relations between Native Americans and whites in the 1860s -- The Searchers and Dances with Wolves.15 The 10 students were asked to explain the differences between the films and to say which gave a more accurate picture of life for Native Americans and for the whites in the west in the 1860s.
|
From page 152... ...
. What about it saying the iceberg reached the sky, the crystal column reached the sky?
|
From page 153... ...
does not necessarily stop third graders from beginning to understand that the Brendan story may be rather different from a modern travel account. Teacher What sort of story was he trying to write?
|
From page 154... ...
Teacher Could we learn anything from the Brendan story that it's not trying to tell us? Carly They weren't very clever.
|
From page 155... ...
PUTTING PRINCIPLESINTOPRACTICE: TEACHINGAND PLANNING 155 Teacher So do you think that if I had Brendan here, it'd take more than 5 minutes to teach him how to make it work? Carly No, he'd probably get it straight away, but he couldn't [pauses]
|
From page 156... ...
Trudi I think the person who wrote this down believed in God quite strongly, because all the time he's referring things back to God, and that may be from mistakes, or what he'd heard, or been told, but I think if they didn't believe it then they wouldn't have written it down quite so much; it seems very likely they were very strong believers in God. Haley I think he probably wanted them to think, "Wasn't God great," probably, or something like that, or saying like, "God's really good, look what he's done, they've reached America," and stuff like that.
|
From page 157... ...
Some fourth graders choose (a) because the sentence gives details of what is in the story, even when they are thinking something more like (c)
|
From page 158... ...
Possible clues as to whether Brendan reachedAmerica -- what's been found in Greenland. Historians know that: · When theVikings first reached Greenland in about 982, they found the remains of a skin-covered boat and some stone huts.
|
From page 159... ...
Timeline Key Things about Brendanwords underneath line Things that were also happeningwords above line Vikings first settle Vikings settle in Iceland around in Greenland this time 500 600 700 800 900 1000 __________________________________________________________ _ _ _ St. Brendan alive Brendan story might Brendan story probably during this time have been written down first written down as early as this sometime around this time Having made some progress in deciding what kind of story St.
|
From page 160... ...
Some cases are very clear. "I didn't know there were people a thousand years before Columbus," said one eighth grader, "I thought there were just dinosaurs." Some are more subtle: Anna Seeing this other evidence I think that they did get to America, because the Vikings found Irish monks in Iceland, and they might have stayed on the way to America, they might have stopped and some people stayed there .
|
From page 161... ...
her eighth grade students thought in a similar way with a diametrically opposite conclusion. They "wondered how Irish monks could be at an island 300 years later.
|
From page 162... ...
(c) We either have to believe the Brendan story or we have to trash it." For fourth graders, we are likely to be quite satisfied if we get responses suggesting that we have had some impact on their everyday ideas.
|
From page 163... ...
Teacher So if we can't say, "It's impossible that Brendan reached America," what can we safely say? Jeff Inconclusive.
|
From page 164... ...
We offer an example across 4 years for illustrative pur poses: Grade 4: The First Americans: Origins and Achievements Worlds Apart: Europe, Africa, and Asia before the Voyages of Exploration Grade 5: The Great Civilizations of Pre-Columbian America The Voyages of Exploration: First Contacts among Native Americans, Europeans, and Africans Grade 6: Spanish and Portuguese Conquests Early English Colonization: The Pilgrim Fathers Grade 7: Government and Liberty in the Early American Colonies The American Revolution
|
From page 165... ...
Planning for progression in second-order concepts is different. It is informed not by our selection of particular passages of the past for study, but by models of progression based on systematic research and on classroom experience of the kind illustrated in the discussion of the Pilgrim Fathers and St.
|
From page 166... ...
above. On the whole, the sixth-grade students operate at a higher concep tual level than those in the fourth grade, but the conceptual understanding of some fourth-grade students is more advanced (relative to the model of progression in Box 3A-1)
|
From page 167... ...
Making this determination involves the suspension of certain lines of questioning and a provisional accep tance of much historical work as established fact (a known context)
|
From page 168... ...
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.
|
From page 169... ...
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.
|
From page 170... ...
Brendan tasks illustrates the nature of this impact. It is not practical to address all second-order concepts within a single unit of work.
|
From page 171... ...
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.
|
From page 172... ...
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.
|
From page 173... ...
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.
|
From page 174... ...
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?
|
From page 175... ...
· 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?
|
From page 176... ...
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.
|
From page 177... ...
13. The teaching material was inspired by and is indebted to Tim Severin's book describing his "Brendan Voyage." 14.
|
From page 178... ...
. The Brendan voyage.
|
Key Terms
This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More
information on Chapter Skim is available.