Teaching and Learning History in Classroom Contexts A Dissertation Presented to The Faculty of the Curry School of Education University of Virginia In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy Colleen Fitzpatrick, B., MAT May 2018 Abstract This dissertation consists of three independent manuscripts, each of which addresses an aspect of a larger study that explored teaching and learning history in classroom contexts. While situated in two very different contexts (a public high school and a classical Christian middle school), the three manuscripts are connected in that they explore how a teacher teaches and what their students learn in their respective classrooms. A qualitative case study design allowed an in- depth exploration of how a teacher enacted a unit, how the students described their learning, and how the context influenced both teaching and learning. Analysis indicated both teachers (public school and classical Christian school) were influenced by the larger context in which they worked and emphasized student learning of factual information as opposed to conceptual and procedural knowledge (VanSledright & Limón, 2006).
Students, in both contexts, learned some factual information from the unit, but walked away with misconceptions that were related to how their teacher’s enacted instruction. In the first manuscript, I examined how a teacher, Miss Gill, at a classical Christian school articulated her goals for a unit on World War II, how she enacted those goals in a unit on World War II, and what her students learned from the unit. The second manuscript also draws on data from the classical Christian school to investigate how the students described and related their learning to instructional strategies and resources used by Miss Gill during a unit on World War II. In the third manuscript, I explored how a teacher and students made sense of and experienced a district mandated performance assessment while still preparing for a state mandated high-stakes multiple-choice assessment.
Curriculum, Instruction, and Special Education Curry School of Education University of Virginia Charlottesville, Virginia APPROVAL OF THE DISSERTATION This dissertation, “Teaching and Learning History in Classroom Contexts,” has been approved by the Graduate Faculty of the Curry School of Education in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. ________________________________________ Stephanie van Hover, Advisor ________________________________________ Patrice Grimes ________________________________________ Tonya Moon ________________________________________ Peter Youngs March 22, 2018 Acknowledgements This dissertation would not be possible without the many people who supported me while pursuing my passion. I will be eternally grateful to the students and teachers at Mountain View High School and Cristus Academy for letting me into the classroom and so openly talking with me about themselves and their school. Spending time in the classrooms and working with the teachers and students gave me immeasurable joy and reminded me of why I began this degree in the first place.
I have been fortunate to have an incredible dissertation committee who guided me throughout this process and helped me understand how to situate my research. Moon, and Dr. Youngs, you have increased the rigor and quality of this work and encouraged me to explore different and new avenues of research. I am especially indebted to Dr.
van Hover, who from the first day at Curry, has not only supported me in my research agenda but also provided me with a vision of what a teacher educator should be. I have relied on Dr. van Hover’s guidance, perspective, and humor throughout this process and for that, I will be eternally grateful. I would also like to thank my friends and colleagues at Curry with whom I have created a small and loving, yet somewhat dysfunctional, support group.
Their ideas and insights have made me a better teacher and researcher and provided balance to my life. I must thank my parents for their continued support throughout 20+ years of education and for my brother, who ensured that I remained grounded throughout this process. Above all, I would like to thank my husband and son who have seen all sides of this project for two years. It will take a lifetime to repay the patience and kindness you have shown me throughout this process.
TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION AND DISSERTATION OVERVIEW: TEACHING AND LEARNING HISTORY IN CLASSROOM CONTEXTS 1 Introduction. 2 Overview of Manuscripts. 8 Researcher as Instrument. 16 “COURAGE, LOYALTY, AND CRUELTY”: TEACHING AND LEARNING ABOUT WORLD WAR II IN A CLASSICAL CHRISTIAN SCHOOL 25 Abstract.
26 Introduction and Literature Review. 31 Context and Participants. 32 Data Collection and Analysis. 42 Discussion and Conclusion.
59 BOOKS, AND SONGS, AND LECTURES, OH MY!: STUDENT MEMORIES AND USE OF CLASSROOM EXPERIENCES IN THEIR LEARNING 61 Abstract. 82 Student Performance on Assessments. 87 Memories of Classroom Experiences. 91 Discussion and Conclusion.
114 A DBQ IN A MULTIPLE-CHOICE WORLD: A TALE OF TWO ASSESSMENTS IN A UNIT ON BYZANTIUM 115 Abstract. 119 Research Methods and Data Sources. 130 The DBQ Days. 134 Student Performance on Assessments.
141 Discussion and Significance. 152 List of Tables and Figures Intro.1 Status of Manuscript .3 Codes Based on Miss Gill’s Pre-Unit Interview .4 Codes From Pre- and Post- Assessment .5 Miss Gill’s Themes for World War II.6 Summary of Miss Gill’s World War II Unit .1 Activity Theory Heuristic .2 Definitions of Codes .4 Content by Day and Instructional Approach .5 Miss Gill’s Themes for World War II.6 Summary of Miss Gill’s World War II Unit .8 Items by Learned Code .9 Student Memories from Immediate Interview/Post-Assessment .10 Student Memories from Long-Term Interview/Post-Assessment .11 Assessment Questions Related to the “History Song”.3 Test Questions by SOL .6 Domains of Historical Knowledge.7 Historical Sources from the DBQ. 135 1 INTRODUCTION AND DISSERTATION PROPOSAL OVERVIEW: TEACHING AND LEARNING HISTORY IN CLASSROOM CONTEXTS 2 “Everyone knows what history is until he begins to think about it. After that, nobody knows.” Alan Griffin Introduction The quotation above, Griffin’s (1962) entry for the definition of “history” in the World Book Encyclopedia, rings true today and reflects the ongoing (and very current) debate over what history is, how different groups interpret history, how it should be taught, and what student learning in history looks like (Cuban, 2016).
History is often viewed as a set of facts to be memorized and any number of contentious debates has taken place over which particular set of facts is ‘the history’ that should be taught (and remembered) in schools (Evans, 2004). In the field of history education, history is not viewed as a static list of facts but rather as a fluid, contested, and constructed narrative (National Council for the Social Studies, 2013). An extensive body of research calls for students to learn not “just the facts” (Vogler & Virtue, 2007), but rather how to think historically by engaging in historical inquiry and analyzing available evidence in order to explore meaningful questions from the past (see Davies, 2011; Fogo, 2014; Lee, 2011; Wineburg, 2001). While the field of history education is in broad agreement that learning both the content and skills of history is essential for all students, there is continued debate over the specific goals of history education: to teach citizenship skills (Barton & Levstik, 2004), to teach historical empathy (Brooks, 2009), to understand how the past influences the present (Lee, 2011), to teach disciplinary literacy (Monte-Sano, 2011), or to teach critical thinking (Ercikan & Seixas, 2015).
Confusion over the specific goals of history education leads to questions over how best to assess student learning (Smith, 2018). This makes any exploration of teaching and learning history situated in classroom contexts challenging at best, yet there is a recognition that the field will not 3 move forward without more research that examines teaching and learning history in classroom contexts (see Barton & Avery, 2016; Hicks, van Hover, Doolittle, & VanFossen, 2012; van Hover & Hicks, 2017). The manuscripts in this proposal focus on teaching and learning history in two distinct classroom contexts: (1) a classical Christian grammar school and (2) a public high school situated in a district and state with a shifting accountability context. In this connecting paper, I briefly outline the literature informing these studies and provide a brief overview of each manuscript.
Role of Context Previous research in history education has examined how contextual factors, specifically standards-based settings with associated high-stakes tests, influence teachers’ pedagogical decision making (see Grant, 2003; Grant & Salinas, 2008; van Hover, Hicks, & Sayeski, 2012). Au’s (2007) metasynthesis on this topic found that high-stakes tests control “the content, knowledge forms, and pedagogies at the classroom level” (p. A growing body of research indicates that in high-stakes testing contexts many teachers focus on specific test taking skills (Vogler & Virtue, 2007) and limit the amount of time they spend on higher order thinking in the classroom (Jennings & Bearak, 2014). Research has often shown that teachers will narrow the curriculum they cover in the classroom to what is included in the state standards (Vogler, 2006; Smith, 2018), despite many of the standards documents being “bloated” and including information not considered historically significant by professional historians (Wineburg, 2005, p.
And while Grant and Salinas (2008) argue that high-stakes tests are more likely to influence the content a teacher covers than their pedagogy, there is no doubt that high-stakes tests “complicate [teachers] efforts to help students ‘dig into’ historical questions, evidence, and arguments” (Meuwissen, 2017, p. 4 A fairly robust body of research in social studies explores teaching and learning in standards-based public school settings, but far less research has explored teaching and learning history in school contexts other than public schools. Exploring contexts beyond public schools is important as a growing proportion of students attend private schools, particularly private, religious schools (Council for American Private Education, 2013). Private religious schools in America do not have to follow state curricula and can provide teachers the freedom or flexibility to discuss and focus on religious issues based on their beliefs (Groome, 1998).
This has interesting—but unstudied—implications for history education. What (or whose) history are students in these schools learning? A small, but growing body of research examines teaching and learning history in fundamentalist Christian schools. While fundamentalist as a term is widely debated by religious scholars (Porterfield, 2012; Sutton, 2014; Wuthnow, 1988), the term is frequently used to describe Christian schools not associated with a particular denomination and who place significant emphasis on religious and theological certainty. This certainty has the potential to bound educators to teach in a specific way, potentially limiting the democratic discourse in the classroom (Hess & McAvoy, 2015).
Schweber (2004, 2006, 2008; Schweber & Irwin, 2003) has written extensively on teaching and learning about the Holocaust in a variety of school contexts, including fundamentalist Christian schools. Schweber and Irwin (2003) examined how one teacher taught about the Holocaust in a fundamentalist Christian school and how the students in the class made sense of the teacher’s enactment of the unit. The students viewed the Holocaust through their collective religious history—that is “their faith supplied background narratives” that provided the lens to understand events surrounding the Holocaust (p. Schweber and Irwin’s findings indicated that the teacher taught the Holocaust from a particular viewpoint that 5 emphasized the role of Christian “saviors” and led to an incomplete and limited historical account.
The shared religious beliefs between the students and the teacher clearly influenced what the students were expected to learn and how the students understood the Holocaust. Schweber and Irwin (2003) argue that more research needs “to investigate fully the ways that religious communities, fundamentalist and nonfundamentalist, teach and with what effects” (p. Within Schweber’s studies, she recognized the importance of both the context and the teacher in how students learned and what they learned about the Holocaust. Role of the Teacher Thornton (1991) argued that teachers act as curricular-instructional gatekeepers by deciding both what (the content) and how (the pedagogy) history curriculum is enacted in the classrooms.