Yup. It’s both / and. Your kids need a balance of process and content

I had the chance this week to spend two days with 13 social studies teachers as we continued our work on revising the state social studies standards.

Way back in 2011, we started the same basic process. State regulations require a standards review every few years. Most times, the whole business is usually an empty exercise – fix a few typos, move some sections around, update the list of review committee members.

But eight years ago, with some excellent leadership from department of ed social studies consultant Don Gifford, we jerked the process off the rails and moved away from a content-based standards document to one focused on process and skills. At the time, it was a major philosophical shift.

We created five standards:

Art. So much more than something hanging on a wall.

Both my kids have always had a strong sense of art, of being able to create visually appealing pieces. (The Rowdie effort to the left by the oldest is not one of his best efforts, though it does accurately convey the family pet’s personality.) We constantly had crayons, painting supplies, easels, and all sorts of other artsy things in use around the house.

I wasn’t much help. My art skills have been described as “creative” and “abstract.”

Both kids continue to share their love for the medium and to help me think about art and artists. And today, a quick conversation with a high school US history teacher meandered down a path that focused on ways to integrate art into our instruction.

So it got me thinking a bit.

We often forget how powerful the arts can be in connecting our kids with social studies content and big ideas. Art, in all of its forms, is a great way to create emotion, generate connections, and build relationships. Whether viewing landscapes, portraits, or historical events through the eyes of contemporary artists, students can get a sense of time, of place, of interpretation that would be impossible using other forms of primary sources.

One of the quickest ways to incorporate the arts is to focus on the visual – paintings, drawings, and images. But I often notice it missing from the toolkits of many social studies teachers. And I’m not exactly sure why. Maybe we’re just not aware of the resources available or the kinds of questions to ask. If we’ve never thought too much about using artwork as an instructional tools, it can be hard finding a jumping off point.

So what can it look like when we intentionally integrate visual art into our classrooms? Try some of these ideas and resources:

History Nerdfest 2018: Using Structured Academic Controversy to teach 21st century skills

It ranks right up there with the Holiday season, KC Chiefs football, and the first weekend of the college basketball tournament. It’s National Council for the Social Studies conference week. I’m lucky enough to get front row seats and am trying to live blog my way through it.

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Like most of you, I first ran across the Structured Academic Controversy idea via Sam Wineburg and his Stanford History Education Group’s Reading Like a Historian curriculum. Specifically SHEG’s Was Lincoln a Racist lesson. But there’s always been that sense that Wineburg and his troop of SHEG geniuses adapted the strategy to fit their needs. And maybe I’ve been doing it wrong. So thanks Georgia Brown from Grayslake, Illinois who led a conversation this afternoon about what it can look like outside the SHEG universe.

So let’s start with the basics. What is a Structured Academic Controversy?

It’s a cooperative learning strategy developed brothers David and Roger Johnson to engage small groups of students in the discussion of controversial issues. Through a series of steps, add to their understanding of an issue or question. After students have fully explored and analyzed the pro and con arguments on an issue or question, they work as a group to reach a consensus on the issue.

So it’s not a debate. There are no winners and losers here. We’re just trying to find the best answer to the question. But looking at pros and cons gives kids the chance to look at multiple perspectives without the pressure of having to “win.”

Feel free to head over to the original Johnson brothers article and get their research and instructions. And you’re done. But we had a great conversation about what it can look like in the classroom so don’t be afraid to head back here for a few more tips and tricks.

Georgia started with the basic steps in the process she uses:

History Nerdfest 2018: Social Studies Inquiry Made Real. Teachers as Designers

It ranks right up there with the Holiday season, KC Chiefs football, and the first weekend of the college basketball tournament. It’s National Council for the Social Studies conference week. I’m lucky enough to get front row seats and am trying to live blog my way through it.

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It’s something we all struggle with.

What does instructional design look like when we combine content knowledge with historical thinking skill. The answer?

The Inquiry Design Model.

It’s a great way to integrate the NCSS Inquiry Arc into actual practice. And like the rest of you, those of us in Kansas have been wrestling with this question since 2013. We created new state standards that focus on finding a balance between content and process. It’s a great idea but what does it actually look like in practice? Teachers want and need specifics about creating learning activities that encourage historical thinking skills in their students.

Created by S.G. Grant, John Lee, and Kathy Swan, the IDM becomes part of the answer by providing a structure for integrating content and process together. Based on the Inquiry Arc of the National Council for the Social Studies C3 Framework, IDM helps build a connection between the head and the heart of our students while also training them to think historically.

The head has always been part of social studies but if we’re going to get under their skins, we have to connect with their hearts too. Most teachers know their content. But many struggle with helping kids care about the content

Think of a great inquiry activity created using the IDM method as “bigger than a lesson but smaller than a unit.”

What are the different parts of an IDM?

Tip of the Week: How not to teach the Holocaust & resources for doing it right

Let’s be clear from the get go.

It happened. We have hundreds of thousands, millions, of primary sources. We have photos. Government documents. Train timetables. Movies. We’ve got oral histories. Diaries. Letters. Court transcripts. There are prison confessions. Newspapers. Lists of stolen property. Sacks of hair. Piles of shoes. Boxes of wedding rings. And many of the actual camps, barbed wire, gas chambers, and crematoria still exist.

So let’s be clear.

The Holocaust happened. Over six million European Jews were murdered between 1933 and 1945. More than six million others deemed undesirable were also murdered by the government and party led by Adolf Hitler.

So, please, do not plan an historical thinking activity that asks your kids:

DB Quest: The latest super sweet tool from iCivics and Library of Congress

A few days ago, I bragged on one of the latest Library of Congress interactive tools titled CaseMaker. Part of the Teaching with Primary Sources project, CaseMaker joined the three earlier tools that rolled out last year.

But wait. There’s more. Called DBQuest and developed by the awesome people over at iCivics, this fifth tool helps you teach history and civics through the use of primary-based documents and evidence-based learning. The multi-platform app teaches students how to make sense of evidence, contextualize information, and make and support claims using evidence-based arguments.

In DBQuest, students are provided with