Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Expectations for the blog, Forward, Introduction and Chapter 1

Expectations for the blog:

I have set the font to NORMAL. Please do not change.  You may bold or highlight, use bullets, or underline as is standard for scholarly writing.  If you quote a source, please cite the source.  Concentrate on providing a good thesis statement, opening paragraph, using proper grammatical structure and have an effective conclusion.  The author, Mr. Bruce Lesh, will be participating in the blog and may respond to your post as well.  We welcome his participation.

In grading your post there will be two criteria.

  • Did you answer the questions that were asked, or address the situation, accurately and completely in your response?
  • Each chapter post must be 250 words (no more than 300), be correct grammatically, and submitted on time.
  • If you are assigned a Power Point presentation for one or more of the chapters, you must follow the strategy explained by Mr. Lesh and cover the topic.  All Power Point presentations will be posted on Education Designs Website for others to review and comment on after all are received. You must include notes in the notes section, as appropriate, for other teachers to replicate the historical material being covered. Power Point presentations must not exceed 10MB. (NO movies clips)-ppt or pptx versions will be acceptable.

Assignment and Due Date for posting is November 20, 2011 NLT midnight.

Please read the Forward, Introduction, and Chapter 1-Reinventing My Classroom:  Making Historical Thinking Reality.

In this first chapter, Mr. Lesh (Bruce) will set the framework for historical thinking.  Please read and comment on these statements from the book:

"Students can be taught to think historically. How to teach students to embrace this way of thinking lies at the intersection of questions, evidence, and interpretation."

17 comments:

  1. In his book, Why Won’t You Just Tell Us the Answer?, Lesh (2011) gives insight as to why so many Americans today have not embraced history and why so many students still are not. Multiple examples of “traditional” teaching are shared with readers to assist with understanding a need for change. Lesh asserts that, “Fact retention has been the goal of history education since its inception” (p. 9). Given that, he set out to transform the teaching of history in his classroom by teaching students to think historically. Just as students are taught to do math and “show their work”, students are also expected to engage in a variety of processes in Science; however, historically, the teaching of history has been plagued with memorization and regurgitation. The use of creativity and thinking through the processes has been virtually non-existent. Lectures and note-taking have been at the forefront of teaching in history; however, the process of thinking historically, allows students to engage in history and make their own interpretations. Through appropriate questioning about historical content and providing multiple sources for evidence, students are able to interpret history for themselves. Rather than just telling students what they needed to know, Lesh felt compelled to “design and implement a course that struck a balance between the historical content and the skills particular to the investigation of the past” (p. 13). By doing so, he knew that his students would be engaged in history and ultimately, that would transform into learning.

    Lesh, B. (2011). Why won’t you just tell us the answer? Portland, ME: Stenhouse Publishers.

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  2. Traci,
    You are exactly right! You see his take on the teaching of history. Nicely written.
    T

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  3. The first chapter of “Why Won’t You just Tell us the Answer?”, by B. Lesh (2011), challenges history teachers to cultivate historians for the future instead of adults who remember little about a class they probably didn’t like. He remembers that his favorite teachers were ones who were passionate about their subjects and made learning exciting for the students (p.2).
    Mr. Lesh compares presenting facts for history students to learn, to a math teacher giving students the answer to a math problem without the skills to solve it (p.10). History classes should involve teaching students a set of skills centered around questions (p.15). When students ask important questions about why an event happened , or how a result came to be, they are pushing themselves to think at a higher level. Students will also retain and feel ownership over the material they investigated.
    Appropriate questions should include important issues that are debatable. The question should represent content that will hold the attention of students, and it should be challenging (p. 18). Students should be encouraged to consider the context and subtext of a source (p. 19). Most high school students take all resources at face value and consider each equally. Good historical questioning will lead them to understand that there is always more than one answer, from more than one perspective (p.20). The “correct” answer may only apply to a small portion of society from a particular time period.
    Mr. Lesh also encourages his students to support answers with evidence (P. 21). This ability is not only useful in a history class, but will translate to other disciplines and life in general.

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  4. Hi Traci and Carlotta,
    Thanks so much for getting things started! Evidence is at the heart of the study of history and hopefully the remainder of the book can convince everyone that by teaching students to use evidence to assess deep historical questions we can engage our students in a more meaningful and impactful manner.

    Please do not hesitate to challenge the contentions I make in the book or ask critical questions: I am looking forward to a thoughtful discussion.

    Bruce

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  5. Chapter 1 addresses many issues that social studies teachers face. Social studies teachers, in particular, receive criticism from various groups of people, whether it’s from the student who says “Just tell me what I need to know for the test” (p. 9) or the adult who thinks that history is simply teaching trivia style questions. Lesh addresses how he wasn’t afraid of trial and error and the attempts he made at turning his classroom around.

    Realizing that history is more than facts and deals more with evidence and debate, Lesh took a different approach than most history teachers. He realized that in order to teach students about history, we had to teach to think historically (p.10). He realized the connection between this process and math. Math teachers do more than teach memorization. He realized the need to teach processes but also the need to balance those processes with content.

    Lesh also notes history has more than one right answer (p.20). As a high school social studies teacher, I feel that is one of the factors that makes teaching our content so difficult. Students are used to seeing everything in black and white. They want to know that 1+1=2. They struggle at the idea of multiple correct answers. They simply want THE answer. Lesh points out that we must do more than teach the memorization that I know my students push for. We must teach them to “provide evidence to make reasoned arguments about the past” (p. 21).

    I’m looking forward to reading the rest of the book. Lesh is right on track about using trial and error to better ourselves as teachers. I agree that the key to pushing our students is to strengthen our questioning, make students provide evidence and learn to interpret the sources they are given.

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  6. Bethany, you are right on target.
    Teresa

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  7. Books seems to be pretty good. I'm testing my blog

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  8. In Chapter 1, Lesh introduces us to the concept of historical thinking in the social studies classroom and discusses the past barriers to this thinking. Lesh states that “fact retention has been the goal of history education since its inception” (p. 9). Also, Lesh notes that students have a fixed notion of the study of history (p. 9-10). In an attempt to look for the best instructional methods, he noted what occurred in math, science, and English classrooms. What Lesh discovered was that “history and social studies are the only disciplines in which students are not explicitly taught the tools necessary to understand how knowledge is created” (p.11). And yet, somewhat paradoxically, historians need to know how to effectively ask questions that go beyond basic “trivia” (p. 15-18). Lesh notes that it is the questions, and not the answers that should be guiding our instruction (p.18), and states that “history, however, is never about one right answer” (p. 20). In my opinion, many history textbooks, however, take umbrage to this notion, and simply print factual dates, people, places, etc., with little to no consideration given to the interwoven connections between these same dates, people, and places. Lesh argues that textbooks should be “treated as just another piece of historical evidence” (p. 25), that students should use , or rather “interrogate” (p.22) multiple historical sources, in order to develop, defend, and revise (p. 21) their “historical interpretations” (p.21).
    If we allow our students the opportunity to develop historical thinking abilities in our classroom, we open up a world of history that moves beyond the passive student as sponge model.
    By allowing students not only to learn, but challenge history and ideas, we are developing student’s ability to do the same across all content areas.

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  9. Eugenia,
    Your examination of the chapter tracks with what Mr. Lesh is saying.
    Thanks,
    Teresa

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  10. In his book, Why Won’t You Just Tell Us the Answer?, Mr. Lesh is saying that history educators should be teaching students to think and interpret events in their own way, not just what books says. This is what I think make history unique. I have had this discussion with a math colleague; math is either right or wrong, while history is not. That is why I like it. There is not always a right or wrong answer. At this time, my class is discussing the Civil War. I posed the question “How was the Confederacy that much different than the 13 Colonies in the Revolutionary War, other than distance?” This provided for a pretty good debate. Things like this are what Mr. Lesh is trying to encourage in his book. History is alive, we need to engage students to think that way and examine the facts and interpret them for themselves. Exact dates are of little significance, a general time period is fine. In the book (pg. 21), he basically says that history is about hearing the content and interpreting how it happened. This is how students will get the most of history. Any kid with an I-phone can tell you the dates of the Revolutionary War, but we have to teach the students how to interpret the events and the reason behind why it happened. I don’t know if we should totally do away with textbooks, however, especially for the newer teachers. They are a great reference tool. I think they should be thinned down greatly, which would/should make the cost of them go down greatly. My department has a ton of them, they cost about $80 each, and they are falling apart after only a few years. Teachers don’t use them very much, maybe once a week. We should cut the books/cost of them in half. This would solve the textbook problem. We could use the method used (pg.24-25) that Mr. Lesh used his 1st year teaching of sending books home. I just don’t know if that would work with the kids I teach.

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  11. Bruce Lesh's argument is one that I've been thinking a lot about lately. With the new standards in US history and my own school's push for more project based learning his stance really resonates. Like him I have a BA in history as well as a MA and I've been trained as a historian. However, as I have entered my second year in the classroom I find it challenging to combine my training of how to do history and how to teach it. Everything he's outlined about how historians do their craft is something I'm very familiar with, but there seems to be, as he says and as I've discovered, a disconnect between the process of doing history and how that process is adapted in the high school and really even the college classroom.(16-21) I agree with his assertion of why this occurs. My own experiences in the history classroom and my training in college as a history teacher was pretty much what he describes. It mainly consisted of remembering facts usually in chronological order and some cause and effect type essays. This isn't to say everything always revolved around lecture. There were some activities scattered around,but they rarely involved a lot of higher level thinking skills. So as I've entered the classroom and am trying to move away from lecture based style learning and trying to get my students to engage in more analysis it has been a challenge because it's not the way I was taught history or the way I was taught to teach history.
    I can also relate to his discussion on the question between process and content.(12-13) In fact, this may be one of the most difficult ones for me and some of my colleagues. We have had several discussions concerning our worry that if we do this lesson a certain way our students will not acquire the content knowledge they need. Of course, we realize that just because you've lectured or you've given a worksheet or a knowledge based activity doesn't mean your students have retained any of the knowledge, but you know that you've at least introduced it to them. It's really difficult to give up that control and allow students to take more responsibility for their learning. I find this to be easier with AP students. In fact, my AP classes are based around interpreting evidence, document based questions, examining continuity and change, and evaluating historical arguments. However, I'm still finding it difficult to structure my general ed classes like this even in a modified way. So I'm really excited to read this book. I'm hoping it will give me more insight into how to get my students more engaged and develop historical thinking skills that will benefit them in whatever career path they take. Like Mr. Lesh I often tell my students that history is not set in stone, but much of it is up for interpretation based on the evidence we have from the past, and historians are like detectives trying to piece together the story. Instead of just telling my students that I am excited to learn new ways to help them actively engage in the process.

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  12. As I read Chapter 1, I tried to keep in mind "historical thinking" and "student engagement". Engaging students definitely does lie at the "intersection of questions, evidence, and interpretation". After reading Chapter 1, I find that the real challenge to get students to learn is to get them excited. Students have the ability to think critically; however, they have to be given the tools and the opportunity to do so. As the author points out, many historical questions have more than one answer. When students are able to understand that it gives them the freedom to dive into the content and interpret the question based on their research. This ownership of the "question" or task will help them to want to defend their answer/interpretation. How can student engagement get any better than that?

    Individual classrooms determine the depth of the content that can be taught. If we use Mr. Lesh's work as a guide, I think we can effectively teach the content. As a non-history teacher, I am very excited to dig deeper into the book.

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  13. I apologize, I hit submit too soon. I also wanted to touch a little more on the aspect of the "question". As we have read in Chapter 1, the question is of utmost importance and should be written or presented in a way to foster discussion. The nature of the question itself can generate excitement among students. That is when appropriate "evidence" can be presented to students to give them additional information that will help shape their interpretation. As a member of the TAH group, I have had an opportunity to see history lessons presented this way and I was amazed how each group had a different interpretation of the question. I began to question my own interpretation and got even more excited to continue my research outside of the TAH session. I can actually see that working with students and that is what teaching is all about, in my opinion.

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  14. While I am not a traditional history teacher, I am a teacher of history. Teaching literature and history seem to go hand in hand. One of the first sentences I underlined while reading was on page 8 and referred to Natalie’s new notion of “thinking historically.” I think it is key for any subject to inspire and encourage students to look for evidence, investigate and to then give their own interpretation. In the world of literature, this type of analysis takes place on a daily basis (ideally). While reading the introduction and the first chapter, I have reflected on my own journey as a teacher, and my desire to do something (anything) to take my teaching away from the traditional lecture and notes, into a classroom that involves students thinking, exploring and being involved in the learning process. In one sense, I have actually been able to get students to think “historically” because I challenge them to take our texts and make connections with history. History in the English classroom goes beyond notes and memorization, yet in saying that, I still have students enter my classroom with the attitude of “just give it to me.” I had never thought of it in the way that Mr. Lesh put it, but so many times students are conditioned to expect us to just tell them the “answer to a question” and they are actually more comfortable with us “asking them to simply memorize and recite it” rather than forming their own ideas (11). Questioning on their part, or stepping out on a limb to present their interpretation or analysis of evidence means that, one, they must actually do something (thinking) on their own, and two, that they are taking a risk of being wrong. Luckily, the texts themselves many times force the students to ask questions and in turn, they search for answers and ultimately form their own interpretation, but not without being reconditioned first.

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  15. As I teach 10th and 11th graders at my school, I have realized that thinking historically is a skill which must be taught. Mr. Lesh (2011) presents a variety of ways for students to think historically and teaching students that history is much more than just dates (p.14). Thinking historically is learning the process of cause and effect, multiple perspectives; change over time, and understanding how the past influences us today. By teaching students to dissect historical sources it helps them understand the context behind the source itself. Teaching students to interpret history for themselves is a skill which must be developed and modeled by us as teachers (p.19-20).
    As a history teacher, I want my students learn history through evidence and primary sources, not just memorize the facts. By having students investigate an event in history for themselves, it forces them to think “outside of the box”, ask questions, and seek out the answers. By having an investigative approach to history, students can learn to use a variety of tools, such as maps, political cartoons, and primary sources (p.23).
    Mr. Lesh also makes the point history can be taught without a textbook and I agree history needs to be taught with many more resources besides the textbook itself (p.24). In my opinion, textbooks can give background knowledge to students, as well as the overall facts. However, I have tried to teach my students that textbooks have biases and at some point they will have to explore beyond the textbook to fully understand history. By teaching our students this investigative approach to history, I believe those skills can help our students in all subjects areas of school!
    Lesh, B. (2011). Why won’t you just tell us the answer?”. Portland, ME: Steinhouse Publishers.

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  16. I am gratified to read that my approach has resonated with everyone!, as you continue to read the next few chapters I hope you can think of a lesson that you might be able to adapt into an historical investigation.

    Please do not hesitate to post questions.

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  17. As a teacher of both ends of the spectrum AP and the lower level social studies classes. I agree that we need to provide the students with the tools necessary to focus them on the future. I agrees that we need to teach with more than just the textbook. In many schools not with budget cuts all we may have is a classroom set of books. They have to use other matherials that just the text. For my classes it has became almost a supplement to the other material.

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