Mastering the Common Core A Social-Studies Centered Approach

Today’s Schedule Time Activity 8:30 – 9:30 Introduction to the Common Core 9:30 – 9:45 Break 9:45 – 10:45 The Common Core Learning Framework 10:45 – 11:00 11:00 – 12:00 Strategy #1 – Bulls Eye 12:00 – 12:45 Lunch 12:45 – 1:30 Strategy #2 - ARTIST 1:30 – 1:45 1:45 – 2:30 Strategy #3 – Dueling Documents

Our Goals For Today Examine the Common Core and where Social Studies fits into the grand scheme. Discuss the thinking and literacy skills necessary to address the Common Core. Analyze the Common Core Learning Framework © as a way to implement literacy and thinking skills Utilize three discreet teaching strategies for implementing Common Core compliant lessons in the classroom One is student-based One is teacher-based One is a collaborative effort

What is Common Core? An effort by 48 states to create the next-generation of K-12 standards in Literacy and Math. Designed to ensure that students are college and career-ready by the end of high school. The focus is on learning expectations. The standards are research-based and aligned with current and future college and work expectations.

What is Common Core? Designed to provide a consistent and clear understanding of what students are expected to learn and be able to do. Are rigorous and relevant to the real world in terms of content knowledge and skills. In essence students will be required to read, think, and express themselves in written form.

Where Social Studies Fits? Teachers use content expertise and skills to help students meet the challenges of reading, synthesizing and writing. Focus on reading comprehension and analysis of increasingly complex informational texts. Students must be able to: Read, comprehend, and analyze documents Compare and contrast documents Identify common thematic threads Synthesize information and express thought in writing

What We Can Do In setting up our courses: Use as many exemplar documents as is possible Consistently use primary and outside secondary sources Focus on developing historical skills In our lessons: Regularly require the analysis and interpretation of various types of sources Teach with conceptual understanding as a key outcome of instruction Systematically teach and embed analytical and interpretive skills in each lesson For information on Exemplar Texts and Documents for Social Studies, please see: http://www.corestandards.org/assets/Appendix_B.pdf

Reference Material Combines thinking like a historian, and reading like a historian to meet the Common Core State Standards. What I am going to do today is based on part of the information in the book.

Skills Two kinds that we need to be concerned with in the Social Studies classroom: Content Literacy Historical Thinking The Content Literacy skills and Historical Thinking skills synergistically help students learn, assimilate, and synthesize the information that they are taught

Content Literacy Skills Contextualization Establishing time, scope and Sequence Understanding the big picture Establishing the values and beliefs of the time Craft and Structure Identifying and defining key terms Determining the main idea Identifying the Author’s bias or point of view Key Ideas and Details Assessing the reliability of the information Evaluation of argument and reasoning Comparing ideas within and across texts Integration of Knowledge and Ideas Analysis of multiple sources and perspectives Understanding multiple perspectives Assessing different interpretations over time These skills coincide TREMENDOUSLY with thinking like a historian!

Historical Thinking The Common Core Standards require students to: Analyze documents Compare and Contrast multiple documents Interpret documents and readings Synthesize the information into a written product Thinking Like a Historian provides students with many of the discreet skills that are absolutely necessary to successfully navigate the requirements mandated by the Common Core Standards

Richard Hofstadter …what animates the most feverishly committed historians is that our continual rediscovery of the complexity of the social interests, the variety of roles and the motives of political leaders, the unintended consequences of political actions … may give us not only a keener sense of the structural complexity of our society in the past but also a sense of the moral complexity … Wood, Gordon (2008). The Purpose of the Past. New York, New York. Penguin Press.

Gordon S. Wood We Americans have such a thin and meager sense of history that we cannot get too much of it. What we need more than anything is a deeper and fuller sense of the historical process, a sense of where we have come from and how we became what we are. Wood, Gordon (2008). The Purpose of the Past. New York, New York. Penguin Press.

Building Step by Step The ten skills are divided into three major steps or tiers Each tier serves as a foundation for those that come afterward The tiers build from the broadest and more general to the more specific

A Scaffolded Approach Tier 3 Context and Interpretation of the Past Analyzing and Evaluating Historical Material Tier 1 Building a Foundation to Acquire Historical Knowledge A Scaffolded Approach

The History Jigsaw Where do the pieces fit?

Tier 1 Tier 1 Building a Foundation to Acquire Historical Knowledge

Seeing the BIG Picture of History Establishing time, scope, and sequence in which the events of an era take place Establishing the location at which events happened Associated events with contemporary actions throughout the world

Determining the Main Idea Eliminate details and information that is non-essential Establish the crucial elements of events, documents, or other material

Avoid Historical Presentism Establishing the values and beliefs of the time as a lens to analyze the past Using the values of the time to analyze historical meaning Compare and contrast the values of the past with those of the present

Bias and Reliability of Sources Determination of bias and unique point of view of historical sources Establishing and assess the degree of reliability of historical sources

Tier 2 Tier 2 Analyzing and Evaluating Historical Material Tier 1 Building a Foundation to Acquire Historical Knowledge

Establish a Personal Connection to the Past Seek and utilize personal or local connections to history whenever possible Seeing history as the story of people and their voice rather than dry and disconnected events

Analyzing Causation and Consequence Studying the differences between single-causation and multi-causation of the events of the past Assessing the degree of causation Impact of the consequences of events and decisions of the past, including those that were desired, and those that were unintended

Analyzing Change throughout the Past Determination of different types of change that took place in the past, including political, economic, and social Analysis of the impact of the different types of change at the time Examine the impact of change across periods of time

Tier 3 Tier 3 Context and Interpretation of the Past Tier 2 Analyzing and Evaluating Historical Material Tier 1 Building a Foundation to Acquire Historical Knowledge

Utilizing Historiographical Approaches Examining the differing interpretations of historical events that have been developed in the past Compare and contrast the differing interpretations of historical events Evaluating the accuracy of current and previous schools of historical interpretation to develop a personal philosophy of the past

Using Counterfactual Arguments Utilizing counterfactual arguments to deepen student understanding of specific episodes of history Developing carefully constructed series of “what if?” questions to guide students through alternate historical outcomes

Understanding History through common Themes and Ideas Establishment of the essential themes of history and determination of their presence Foundations of Freedom Creation of an American Culture Conflict and Compromise Political and Social Movements America on the World Stage Analysis of the essential themes in different periods of history and across history

Problems With Trying to Think Like a Historian Roadblocks to Building Student Understanding

Historical Thinking is Unnatural Goes against the grain of the way that we ordinarily think We are taught to see a harmony between past and present The next slides are an example of how we are taught to see the harmony between the past and the present. Yerxa, Donald (Ed.). (2008). Historical Thinking: Historians in Conversation. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press.

Thinking Historically is Foreign Too many students see the study of history as amassing information and not as a way of thinking or being. Many teachers continue to treat History as a compilation of facts, dates, events, and people Because that is the way they were trained Yerxa, Donald (Ed.). (2008). Historical Thinking: Historians in Conversation. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press.

Thinking Historically is Hard Historical reasoning should create a kind of caution where the mind does not automatically leap to conclusions or emotional reactions Have to get rid of the notion of a fundamental, timeless past Must focus on context, change, continuity, and meaning Yerxa, Donald (Ed.). (2008). Historical Thinking: Historians in Conversation. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press.

So What? The focus on thinking skills is a shift from the way that a lot of instruction is focused. Failing to focus on essential understandings usually results in focusing on fact-based outcomes. Lack of skills emphasis combined with fact-based instruction leads to an inability to address the requirements of the Common Core assessments. A skills-based, student-centered approach will result in higher level thinking and the ability to address the Common Core assessments. McCoy, J.D., & Ketterlin-Geller, L.R. (2004). Rethinking Instructional Delivery for Diverse Student Populations: Serving All Learners with Concept-Based Instruction. Intervention in School and Clinic, 40(2).