Title
3F: Using Historical Thinking Strategies for Improving Elementary Students’ Content Knowledge
Faculty Mentor(s)
Dr. Joshua Cuevas
Campus
Cumming
Proposal Type
Oral Presentation
Subject Area
Education
Location
Panel 3: F (Register Here)
Start Date
26-3-2021 10:00 AM
End Date
26-3-2021 10:50 AM
Description/Abstract
Instructional time spent on elementary social studies is often marginalized due to the emphasis placed on other content areas. Teachers often cover standards using methods that teach for rote memorization, resulting in students who do not value social studies learning. Therefore, social studies teachers must employ meaningful instructional strategies that will engage students while promoting content acquisition. This quasi-experimental study responds to this challenge by guiding fifth grade students to use the historical thinking skills of sourcing, contextualizing, and corroborating that encourages engagement with a variety of primary sources through the lens of Jerome Bruner’s learning theories. The control group used traditional instructional methods including close-note taking, vocabulary review, and independent reading from social studies texts. Both the control and treatment groups were assessed prior to and after the study on content knowledge, attitude toward social studies, and critical thinking skills using the Cornell Critical Thinking Test.
Keywords: elementary social studies, historical thinking, primary sources, critical thinking, content acquisition, student attitudes
Media Format
flash_audio
3F: Using Historical Thinking Strategies for Improving Elementary Students’ Content Knowledge
Panel 3: F (Register Here)
Instructional time spent on elementary social studies is often marginalized due to the emphasis placed on other content areas. Teachers often cover standards using methods that teach for rote memorization, resulting in students who do not value social studies learning. Therefore, social studies teachers must employ meaningful instructional strategies that will engage students while promoting content acquisition. This quasi-experimental study responds to this challenge by guiding fifth grade students to use the historical thinking skills of sourcing, contextualizing, and corroborating that encourages engagement with a variety of primary sources through the lens of Jerome Bruner’s learning theories. The control group used traditional instructional methods including close-note taking, vocabulary review, and independent reading from social studies texts. Both the control and treatment groups were assessed prior to and after the study on content knowledge, attitude toward social studies, and critical thinking skills using the Cornell Critical Thinking Test.
Keywords: elementary social studies, historical thinking, primary sources, critical thinking, content acquisition, student attitudes