PT3 > Team 6



		TEAM 6 PT3 Social Studies Continuation Proposal Tim Little Significance of the problem: A design team must address a significant and authentic teacher education issue. "The promise of technology is not so much its cutting-edge advances as its innovative and imaginative applications... In meeting this moment we know that delivering the technology, the hardware and the software, to teachers is the easy part; it is getting them introduced, comfortable and proficient with it that requires time and effort." (Diem, 2000) The problems cited above are compounded by the intellectual chasm which currently exists between the content provided by traditional social studies textbooks and the intellectual demands placed upon students and teachers by the new national and state standards in our field. To be sure, a social studies knowledge base remains crucial for youngsters. However, that knowledge base has become necessary but not at all sufficient. To prepare teachers to singularly disseminate static textbook knowledge in a day when national and state tests call upon school students to reason and to demonstrate proficiency in higher order thinking skills, is to prepare teachers for social studies classrooms which are doomed to "failure", as defined by the larger culture. Nine years of collaborative work by the core of the educators/teachers applying for this grant , have convinced us that: 1. we have identified some concrete measures which, if taken, will hasten the implementation of technology-based instruction within both university and public school social studies classrooms. 2. instructional technology can provide us with the means to the end of producing social studies teachers who will be capable of preparing lessons which are at the same time subject matter substantive and reasoning skills-based. Team leadership: A design team must be led a by teacher education faculty member who will be involved the project and willing to learn to use technology. Tim Little will again serve as the Social Studies Project Director. The initial cadre of cooperating teachers has been formed around nine Holt High School social studies teachers who worked on the project during the first year of its operation and who plan to stay on with us. Among these nine we include the Social Studies Department Chairman, who has been teaching a section of the COE secondary social studies methods class, and a social studies teacher/media specialist who has taught the social studies lab section of 401 for us on campus. Ideally, a social studies graduate student with a technology background will be employed as the senior level TA for 2001-2002. A middle school teacher who worked with Little's project team in the Dean's 882 Seminar on Technology has also agreed to come aboard for the coming year. A year 2001 graduate from our program will be joining us as well. In addition, we have made contact with some 35+ teachers from around the state who have expressed interest in our work. Technology: A design team must use electronic information technology, broadly defined, to address the proposed issue. Impact: The product or design team should have the potential to lead to significant impact on the teacher education curriculum in terms of depth and breadth. We propose to work diligently during the next academic year to make certain that our secondary social studies teachers in training are indeed " introduced (to and ) comfortable and proficient with... technology". A second year of funding for our PT3 project will provide us with both " the time and effort" to move ahead with our long term plans to make teaching with technology an integral and normalized facet of social studies instruction. To accomplish the above we see it as vital that our teacher candidates: 1. regularly experience, analyze, and plan technology-based instruction as learners in our university pedagogy classes. 2. see social studies regularly taught with technology in their senior and intern placements. 3. subsequently utilize educational technology as a familiar tool in their own instructional strategy repertoires. Goal 1. Maximize the likelihood that teacher candidates will regularly experience, analyze, and plan technology-based instruction as learners in our university pedagogy classes. We plan to ensure that secondary social studies instructors in the COE are well versed in the use of computer instructional software and capable of both designing and presenting electronic social studies lessons which are based upon readily recognizable and transferable instructional models. Implementation Strategies - Goal 1 1a. Discrete meetings of the COE Secondary "Team Social Studies" faculty/TA group will be dedicated to the presentation of training in the specific use of technology in teaching social studies. A special session on assessing computer-generated student work will be developed. 1b. The training sessions cited above will be opened to members of the graduate social studies group (CLASS). 1c. The fully computerized section of TE 401-402 secondary will be opened up as a demonstration classroom for "anytime" visitation by COE social studies staff. A schedule of "which" technology-based instructional models will be presented "when" will be distributed to all PT3 social studies team members at the beginning of each semester. 1d. A faculty/TA seminar will be developed/held/dedicated to (1)encouraging graduate student research projects in the field of technology based social studies and (2) grant writing opportunities in the field of social studies/technology teacher preparation. Goal 2. Make a concerted effort to collaboratively develop, with selected cooperating teachers, social studies instructional materials which will be commonly used in COE social studies courses and in classrooms in which our students are placed as seniors and interns. Implementation Strategies- Goal 2 2a. Building upon the instructional prototypes developed during the 2000-2001 academic year, the PT3 social studies team will create a series of 9 new secondary social studies units collaboratively identified and which are technology-based. Each of these new demonstration units will meet the following specifications: be built around one of the social studies technology (SST) teaching models created during year 1 of the PT3 social studies project. (While each unit will target stipulated topical content, each instructional package will also include suggestions for other social studies topics which might be treated utilizing the core instructional model presented.) be keyed to one or more of the state of Michigan/NationalCouncil for the Social Studies content standards. ( The implementation of the MEAP test in social studies has proven to be a most powerful, if controversial, catalyst to change in the teaching of social studies in Michigan.) employ the capabilities of the Internet as a research tool. 2b. A generic introduction to the array of technology-based instructional models and their relative strengths/weaknesses will be created as a capstone tenth unit. 2c. Dissemination: Social Studies teachers from around the state with an interest in our efforts will be called together for a presentation/workshop in March, 2002 at the annual Michigan Council for the Social Studies Statewide Conference. ( A PT3 Social Studies CD ROM of our work is planned as well as a possible web-site for dissemination of the units.) Our group has also been selected to present at the Annual PT3 Grantees Conference in August, 2001. We have submitted a presentation proposal to the National Council for the Social Studies Annual Conference in Washington, D.C. to be held this coming November. Project leader Little will feature the social studies PT3 Initiative in his upcoming "Computers in the Social Studies Classroom" column of the MACUL Newsletter. Goal 3. Build into the overall social studies teacher education curriculum during the senior and intern years specific episodes of teaching which require that our students develop, present, and be evaluated upon their proficiency with electronic instruction. Implementation Strategies - Goal 3 3a. Each student enrolled in secondary social studies will be asked to employ one of the social studies technology (SST) teaching models to design, write, teach, and evaluate a mini-unit in their : senior 401 placement. Lessons will be videotaped and analyzed during the social studies teaching laboratory sessions. senior 402 placement. internship placement. In Conclusion We believe that the teacher preparation problems we have cited above are indeed "significant and authentic". Thus far, we have worked together as a team for one academic year under the aegis of a PT3 Grant defining these problems and acting to solve them. At the onset of World War II, English Prime Minister Winston Churchill urged America to "give us the tools and we will finish the job" . We now ask the same of the College. Citation Diem, R.A. (2000) Can It Make a Difference? Technology and the Social Studies. Theory & Research in Social Education, 28, 493-501.