1,720,959 research outputs found
What Every Social Studies Teacher Should Know about Simulations
Get PDFSimulations are of growing interest within the social studies in terms of research and practice. Although the findings of early research were unfavorable to simulations in terms of student learning, recent research has revealed new and interesting findings related to different domains of student learning that earlier research did not. In light of these conceptual and practical findings, it is important that teachers be granted access to the growth of knowledge in this burgeoning area of inquiry. To date, few scholars have disseminated to teachers the findings of existing research about simulations as it pertains to student learning, and to practitioners\u27 planning and practice. In this article, I provide an account of research on simulation that will be helpful to teachers. The paper includes five critical areas that seek to help teachers better understand what simulations are, their affordances and challenges, as well as suggestions relating to the implications for teachers\u27 curricular planning and implementation of simulations in their classrooms
“It’s a Process”: An Initial Grounded Theory Framework for Success with Social Studies Simulations
No full textThis research examined beliefs of two veteran middle school teachers about simulations in the social studies classroom. Using a grounded theory analysis, a framework emerged which details the ways these teachers went above and beyond standard practice with simulations in an effort to maximize their impact on students. The proposed framework aims to highlight the features of their practice, as revealed by the participants, which may help to improve teachers’ use of simulations. The analysis of this pilot study is intended as the first stage of an emergent theory on how to use simulations effectively in the social studies classroom
In Defense of Simulating Complex and Tragic Historical Episodes: A Measured Response to the Outcry Over a New England Slavery Simulation
Get PDFA slavery simulation that took place as part of a field trip for students of a Hartford junior high academy led a father to file a human rights suit against the school district, and for one official to comment that simulations of complex and tragic human phenomena have "no place in an educational system." In light of these conclusions, this paper explores this case in the context of other similar simulations in order to offer a more measured response to using them in classrooms, one that balances the value of such simulations with the hazards they present for teachers and students
Visions of Powerful Teaching: The Promise and Challenge of Teaching with Simulations in the Social Studies
No full textIn this qualitative, comparative instrumental case study of two powerful high school social studies teachers, I explore the perspectives of Rosalie Green and Josh Pollan around the use of simulations in their classrooms as well as their instantiated practices with simulations. I incorporated practice theory and goal oriented decision making theory as the theoretical basis for this study. Over the course of eight months, I collected data in order to capture my participants’ lived experiences and enacted practices in order to better understand why teachers choose to use simulations, and to conceptualize the challenges they face in doing so as they try to teach in powerful ways. To do so, I employed multiple methods of data collection including individual phenomenological interviews, observations, collection of contextual documents, a written vision of practice, and a peer-led group interview.
The findings from this dissertation include: 1) Participants held coherent orientational frameworks consistent with their visions of ideal practice that helped to guide and shape their enacted practice with simulations. 2) Participants faced a number of challenges which centered around facets of control. Specifically, it was difficult to avoid engaging in ‘hard control’—overt efforts to exert overt control over student dynamics—that diminished dynamism and increased negative student behaviors, in favor of ‘soft control’—subtle efforts to influence the dynamics—that instead increased the fidelity and dynamism of simulations. 3) Each participant approached their successful practice with simulations in different ways, emphasizing either advanced preparation or concurrent support and guidance. Implications include suggestions for supporting preservice to establish coherent orientational frameworks and visions of practice; affording preservice and novice teachers with increased opportunities to engage in practice with simulations and other formidable pedagogies and increased mentoring support; more explicit opportunities for preservice teachers to learn how to utilize classroom control constructively; and possible alternatives to current models of teacher preparation that may hold more promise for providing teachers with the skills and knowledge they need to engage more effectively in powerful teaching practices
American Partition: A Timely Thought Experiment
No full textThe current assessment of the state of political division in the United States is foreboding. Americans are more divided than any time since the Civil War, leaving some to opine that these differences may be irreconcilable. This speculative analysis takes seriously as its point of departure the position of a growing number of American commentators and policy experts who argue that the United States exhibits many of the risk factors that could lead down the path toward another civil war. Some of these commentators have advocated breaking up the union to pre-empt this outcome. The critical analysis within this article draws upon historical analogues from states partitioned during the 20th century such as such as the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Palestine, and India. These comparisons are used to evaluate proposals for a geographical sundering of the United States into Red and Blue Americas. My analysis highlights the ways in which any kind of national dissolution, though appealing to some at first glance, would be more politically complex, demographically fraught, and possibly no-less violent than the alternative of civil conflict. The most promising alternative appears to be that of learning to live and work together through difference
Simulating with Care: Some Thoughts on Mitigating the Potential for Harm in Social Studies Simulations
Get PDFThis editorial commentary and introduction addresses the ethical concerns with simulations for social studies education. While simulations can be a powerful pedagogy for engaging students in perspective taking and decision-making, the harmful and inappropriate use of simulations is well documented. Simulations have the potential to harm students by enacting curricular violence, stereotyping, appropriation, and the reproduction and normalization of oppressive systems. However, with careful pedagogical mediation, these potential harms can be mitigated. This article discusses how simulations may harm students and provides guidance for navigating ethical concerns when using simulations for social studies education
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
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