In part II of this series I want to explore how different elements can be developed into a research project. Collaborative partnership represents a different way of teaching that offers a way to develop the skills pre-service teachers will need to be more effective in the classroom.
What are the elements that need to be considered when constructing this research proposal?
Historical thinking is a methodology that enhances student engagement and encourages the development of a skill set that engenders a deeper understanding of the nature of historical inquiry.
Historical thinking is a discipline specific interpretation of higher order thinking skills. Each subject has its own version of higher order thinking. Shulman (1986, 1987) argues that each discipline has its own set of pedagogical practices that is separate from the particular content knowledge. While pre-service teachers come to their professional program with content knowledge developed over the span of their academic careers, this does not translate into an expertise on how to teach in their subject areas.
Teach-HTR (Gestsdóttir, S. M., 2018, 2019, 2021) – In order to teach historical thinking, or any other discipline-specific set of higher order thinking skills, teachers need assistance to develop their pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) . An observation instrument can be of assistance in this respect giving the pre-service teacher a set of observable skills that can be observed during their teaching practice. The Teach-HTR tool may be well situated to act as a tool to generate discussion amongst pre-service teachers, their in-school associate teachers and their faculty advisors – essentially the cognitive apprenticeship team.
You can see the complete Teach-HTR tool below.
(Gestsdóttir, S. M. (2021). Observing history teaching: Historical thinking and reasoning in the upper secondary classroom. [Thesis, externally prepared, Universiteit van Amsterdam].
The PCK element regarding student understanding is particularly challenging for less experienced teachers; Waldis, Nitsche and Wyss (2019) discovered a lack of PCK for more than 200 preservice history teachers who ‘commented largely on generic teaching strategies while hardly noticing student learning.’ (p. 112). While noting that little evidence exists on the use of historical inquiry in the Canadian classroom, Gibson and Peck, (2020) reason that this should not be unexpected as few practising teachers have witnessed historical thinking in action. VanSledright and Reddy (2014) illustrate that most history teacher candidates spend close to 95% of their education career observing the teaching practice of others and a mere 5% of their time in a teacher education program that might emphasize historical thinking concepts (p. 175). Sears (2014) and Gibson and Peck (2020) support this assertion. Sears (2014) observes that history preservice teachers remain “relatively passive observers of any attempts at historical thinking” (p.12).
Cognitive apprenticeship The core of this research will be the development of a practical coaching model focusing on training the pre-service teacher in discipline-specific higher order thinking skills. As noted earlier, it is difficult to apply historical thinking beyond a superficial level and harder still to teach people how to use these skills in a classroom setting. While there is some research focusing on how teacher candidates are taught to incorporate a historical thinking approach into their teaching (Gibson & Peck, 2020; McDiarmid & Vinten-Johansen, 2000; Monte-Sano & Cochran, 2009; Sandwell, 2003; 2011; Seixas, 1998), what is needed is a method to aid the pre-service teacher in the construction of knowledge on how to apply higher-order thinking to students. Clark (2012) proposes the development of a cognitive apprenticeship model where the pre-service teacher is gradually introduced to the specific teaching tools of a discipline. Clark frames the essential elements of historical thinking to include the development of historical reasoning; asking questions, the use of multiple sources and contextualization, historical thinking; historical significance, continuity and change, progress and decline, evidence, historical empathy, and Wineburg’s trio of sourcing, corroboration and contextualization (p. 10).
Using Wikipedia One possible practical teaching tool sinvolves the use of Wikipedia as an instructive tool (Breakstone et al., 2018; Konieczny, 2012). Wikipedia is already being used in academic settings as a tool for students to create well researched new content (Mareca & Bordel, 2019). The principles upon which Wikipedia is based – neutrality, accessibility, the use of valid sources, respect, and community consensus – closely resemble the elements of higher-order thinking. Each Wikipedia article comes with a ‘Talk’ Page where students can actually read through the process of producing credible information (Mcgrew et al., 2017). A Wikipedia writing project may act as a mechanism for developing a great appreciation of how to teach higher-order thinking in the classroom. Combined with Teach-HTR, the apprenticeship group can rely on a combination of tolls to explore in depth the elements of a history pedagogy.
Out of these elements I can develop a literature review to test out some of the ideas I have presented here. The next part of the plan, what should be included in a literature review?
Whole-Hearted 