Designing an Issue Centered History Unit by David D Gaitley A Master s Project for ED 7999 Submitted to the Office for Graduate Studies Graduate Division of Wayne State University Detroit Michigan in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Teaching February 2007 Major Social Studies Education Major Business Education Approved by Bob Pettapiece Date Designing an Issue Centered History Unit Chapter 1 Introduction to the Project 3 Chapter 2 Review of Related Literature 8 Chapter 3 Designing an Issue Centered History Unit 22 Chapter 4 Issue Centered Unit Plan on Immigration Policy 38 References 83 Chapter One 2 Introduction to the Project Introduction Designing an effective 20th century history program requires that two competing philosophies be reconciled First students do not learn along discipline lines nor do they learn chronologically they learn best when reflecting on their experiences Saxe 1996 When provided with a problem to solve students ignore the discipline regardless of what it may be and continue to finish the task without regard to that particular discipline Massialas and Zevin 1967 To compound the problem in today s history and social studies courses there is a lack of reflection Shaver and Davis 1999 Goodland 1984 Second there are questions as to whether the history curriculum should be driven by our cultural diversity or common heritage taught as an activity or cultural heritage concerned with social history or the policymakers should stress facts chronology and narratives or concepts case studies and thematic history Bradley Commission 1988 The Commission believed that the most effective teaching uses a variety of modes and methods For that reason and because many theorists doubt that students learn along discipline lines the issue centered approach with central questions and controversial issues should be part of the history instruction The Situation For the past century the standard curriculum for studying history has not changed except for a couple of minor exceptions The standard high school curriculum in the 1900 s included Ancient History European History English History and American History History was mostly learning about famous people places and events and was accomplished primarily through rote memorization and a chronological approach Over time historians such as Charles Beard came 3 to believe that History should be viewed from economic social religious and political perspectives Saxe 1996 A slightly new discipline called social studies was introduced in 1913 by Thomas Jesse Jones Social studies an academic subject devoted to the study of society and primarily concerned with societal issues viewed history principally from the vantage point of the down trodden Yet while current history instruction has been modified and refined to the times is still considered monotonous fragmented and ineffective as it confronts the questions of how to best present the past Caron 2005 The Need Today we need to look at introducing an issue centered approach into the social studies in the United States Yet a stumbling block is that the content has remained textbook focused and the text is written with patriotic overtones pedagogy has remained teacher centered and lecturedriven as opposed to an increased introduction of group work simulations and debate and the social studies classroom is still considered boring Lowen 1995 Granted some teachers are better in this discipline than others and lectures are more interesting or there may be group work on a continual basis for the most part the social studies curriculum today in the classroom is not that different than 100 years ago Evans and Bodkey 1984 Cuban 1984 Goodlad 1984 Shaver Davis and Helburn 1979 Research has shown that with the introduction of controversial issues content was learned as well in an issue centered class as in a standard history class Plus students had higher posttest mean scores in critical thinking Curtis 1978 Curtis Shaver 1980 Students also often score better in discussion ability analytic ability and societal interests when controversial issues are introduced into the classroom Oliver and Shaver 1974 4 A secondary effect exhibits that educational programs conducted with an air of inquiry do the most to promote classroom democratic attitudes And those who discussed controversial issues scored high on the political efficacy scale and had a high positive political attitude and participation Harwood and Hahn 1990 Patrick 1967 Students who discussed controversial topics in their social studies classroom also had a more positive outlook on social studies in general Remy 1972 Finally research has also shown that when the social studies teacher deals with controversial or social issues and the students perceive the teacher to be neutral when they express their opinion their students are more likely to be civically and politically engaged A number of other studies have found positive correlations between an open classroom climate and political efficacy Baughman 1975 Blankenship 1990 Ehman 1980 Hahn 1991 Students in issuecentered social studies classes as compared to students without that experience appear to have an air of openness and support of various views which are associated with positive civic effects Hahn 1996 Purpose of the Study The purpose of this study is not to advance any particular social agenda or even that way of thinking as has been done in the past but to provide a course that will communicate a thoughtful study of individuals and circumstances related to seminal events motivate teachers by providing them with tools which will allow them to exceed benchmark standards enable students to critically analyze relevant issues excite students to become civically engaged and politically active in our representative democracy and challenge the educational system to continually improve 5 Joseph Onosko 1996 identifies issues from a range of sources that we encounter in developing a more issue centered approach A curriculum that is focused on superficial and fragmented content coverage as opposed to in depth content coverage An instructional tradition that emphasizes lecture recitation as opposed to the student s construction of knowledge Teacher s having a lack of exposure to issue or inquiry based courses Uninteresting fact oriented textbooks Significance of the Study Through the development of this issues centered approach to history others will have the
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