A Representation of Artifacts: Thinking Skills and A Problem of PracticeTEAC 995, Section 701, Fall 2011: Elaine Chan

Submitted by Randy Ernst, 11-13-2011

The progression of events leading to my problem of practice can be tracked by harvesting emails, documents, articles and other artifacts created in the past years. The artifacts chosen for this assignment help me relate some of this story, are digital in nature and appear consecutively from one to ten. The embedded screenshots of the emails, newspaper articles, Google documents, etc. provide a foundation of understanding relative my to my problem of practice. Predictably, all require at least a modicum of explanation, including my discussion of Artifact #1 which seemingly no longer exists.

The first artifact, had it not burned in the fire that destroyed the Lincoln Public School’s assessment and evaluation center (and my office) would have been page two of the 8th grade LPS Social Studies Curriculum standards that were written and adopted in 2004. Part of my LPS job in 2003 was to coordinate the writing of social studies standards at grades 4, 8, and 11. For all of these sets of standards, a starting edict was that students would use multiple perspectives in order to understand local, state, and national history (we had no world history standards at the time). The standards were approved by our teachers, our administrators, submitted to the Nebraska Department of Education (also approved), and disseminated throughout our school district.

I felt good about the standards. That is, I felt good about them until I was asked to give a presentation to the LPS Community Council in November of 2008. This group wanted to know where and how multicultural education was being taught in social studies. Going into this meeting, I was confident that I would be able to point to page two of our standards as evidence that multicultural education was front-and-center in social studies education. Two of Lincoln’s civil rights icons, Leola Bullock and Lela Shanks, were members of this council. They looked at the standards and asked, “How do you teach multiple perspectives?” and “How do you know students are learning to use multiple perspectives?” I fumbled through an answer, realizing I did not have an adequate response to either question, and left the meeting with a sense of failure that troubled me. Surely the teachers in our district could set me straight on the issue of teaching and measuring the use of multiple perspectives?

At my next middle school liaison meeting, I asked the teacher/representatives the same questions about multiple perspectives, and not one had an answer. Their silence and blank looks lead me to believe they were having the same reaction I’d had a week earlier. Yes, we had been trumpeting the use of multiple perspectives for years, but in reality, none of the teachers I worked with were actually doing it. However, as is sometimes the case when confronted with a reality contradicting something held true, I was moved to do something about it. When asked, all 9 liaisons present agreed that they wanted to know how to teach students to use multiple perspectives. This started me on a journey that continues today, and will take me through my dissertation.

Artifact #2 comes from a colleague, Rob McEntarffer, who was present at the meeting with middle school liaisons where we announced our future endeavors to learn how to teach students to use multiple perspectives in their social studies classes. We spoke after the meeting about searching for ways that teachers taught multiple perspectives as a

means of infusing multicultural thinking into curriculum. Rob, a UNL doctoral student, went to a conference on campus and sent me an email on March 13, 2009.

Rob had sent me some links on historical thinking skills or “habits of mind” that proved to be very thought provoking. Following the links and reading the material they included lead me to the debate over teaching content vs. teaching skills in social studies. Reflecting, I realized that LPS standards were primarily content standards, and saw the value in combining content with historical thinking skills, which were actually some of the 21st Century Skills mentioned in the No Child Left Behind Act as desirable. These skills included sourcing, contextualizing, corroborating, and using multiple perspectives. And whereas students will forget most of the names, dates, and battlegrounds they learn in history classes in grades 4, 8, and 11, Artifact #3 explained that students were likely to retain the skills long after the content faded.

Needing to know more and historical thinking skill sent me searching for what became Artifact #3:

This book gave me a tremendous amount of information about the critical thinking skills or habits of mind that I kept seeing in so many articles.

Purchasing this book (Artifact #3) for the 8th grade teachers who were intent on retooling the standards lead to an enlightening account of what teachers wanted their students to know and be able to do. That discussion was captured in a Google doc, which is Artifact #4.

Their list was good, and most of the skills could be folded into the critical thinking or “habit of mind” skills explained Artifact #3. This group’s product is seen in Artifact #5A and #5B.

The standards in Artifacts 5A and 5B stand in stark contrast to the original standards (Artifact #1) created in 2003. To illustrate this contrast, I am hopeful of obtaining a copy of the old standards from a teacher who did not discard the old standards after the new ones came out.

While all of the standards work and learning about critical thinking skills was transpiring, NCLB’s chilling grip was having an impact on LPS instruction in elementary schools. LPS had been labeled a “failing district” for two years in a row, and needed to “climb out of this hole” using drastic measures. The district chose to use elementary math scores to overcome this label, and we were successful. That success came at a price, notably cutting science, health, character education, and social studies instruction. I asked elementary teacher to keep track of whether they were teaching social studies, which lead to Artifact #6. The data was incriminating, and helped me understand the frustration teachers were feeling as they were told to teach math, not social studies.

The numerators in the fractions from the PowerPoint slide above show how many schools (chosen randomly) taught social studies in grades 3, 4, and 5 in 2009-2010. As the LPS social studies curriculum specialist, this was upsetting. I knew our district did not want this information widely spread, but I did share it with elementary principals. The push back from this group was along the lines of “Why should we even teach social studies?” They meant, if there is no NESA social studies test, why worry about this curriculum? This sent me in the direction of explaining the relevancy of a curriculum that was charged with producing good citizens. After much discussion and reflection, it also occurred to me that if

I could show how social studies augmented the teaching of reading and writing, then perhaps social studies would once again be embraced.

It dawned on me that the skills I was reading about were being studies at the secondary level, but not at the elementary level. Could promoting the use of critical thinking skills help validate the need for social studies instruction? Further, can students learn how to source, contextualize, corroborate, and use multiple perspectives in the early elementary grades? If so, does learning these skills help students in their reading, writing? Further, does teaching these skills increases engagement with students, which has been seen as an indicator of students success?

Enter my acceptance into CPED cohort #2. The classes I took were empowering, and the information motivating. I decided to quite being silent about the unintended outcomes of NCLB. This decision wound up getting me significant airtime on channel 10/11 and quoted in the newspaper, which is artifact #7.

The July 31 article brought colleagues into my office applauding my courage, but also brought those accusing me of no longer being a team player. Upon reflection, the subtext to being a team player really meant being silent in the face of the unintended outcomes of taking relatively absurd steps (i.e., cutting science and social studies) to reach the impossible (100% proficiency in math and reading by 2014). It was time to speak up, and the classes I was taking as a CPED member gave me the information I needed to at least appear or sound cogent when taking on this issue.

The press I received brought some credit with teachers and principals. My attempts to promote the habits of mind as a K-12 curricular initiative became favorably received, and a compromise was reached with principals guaranteeing social studies would be

taught K-5. Further, because I believed our students would benefit from learning how to think critically about social studies, I started planning ways to provide professional development promoting habits of mind. This was about the time LPS reached out to one of the leaders in the field, Sam Wineburg. One result of this contact was a partnership with Stanford University to explore the assessment of students who use habits of mind in their social studies. Class. Dr. Wineburg came to LPS to give a talk, which is Artifact #8.

The press covered the event, which is Artifact #9. The full article relates the story relative to Artifact #1, which brings us full circle.

Reflecting on some reading from another class, I realized that I was asking teachers to do something I had never done in class, namely teach habits of minds. An attempted remedy is seen in Artifact #10. The syllabus is from a Nebraska Wesleyan University graduate class consisting primarily of LPS elementary teachers. Their graduate tuition is paid for by a federal grant a colleague and I received from the U.S Department of Education, and I asked the professor if I could have 15-20 minutes (sometimes longer) to teach the teachers how to use and teach these skills. He obliged, and I am a fixture in the Monday night classes this semester at NWU. After each class, I journal how the teaching went and record what did or did not seem to go well.

I want my problem of practice to revolve around the habits of mind mentioned earlier. There will be teachers who embrace the habits of mind, teachers who are skeptical, and teachers who more or less reject the call to modify their instruction. What leads to skepticism? What would it take to move a skeptic to the embracing category? How do those who embrace teaching the skills translate what they learn to their own classroom?

My hunch is students of all ages can learn these critical thinking skills at some level, and that applying them will make them better consumers of information.

The past is prologue. I look forward to refining my problem of practice and exploring how habits of mind relate to social studies instruction. Along the way, I plan to help develop the scaffolding language needed to help teachers use habits of mind in their social studies classroom instruction, beginning with kindergarten. We have a long way to go, but the trip is going to be exciting.