Meeting the demands of the C3 framework in elementary social studies methods

Abstract

Purpose In both elementary schools and elementary teacher education programs, social studies is marginalized while standards require increasingly more ambitious reasoning, reading, and writing in social studies than has historically been documented in American elementary schools. The purpose of this paper is to explain the challenges that elementary social studies teacher educators face in preparing elementary school teachers to facilitate the kind of ambitious social studies envisioned in the NCSS’s C3 Framework and advocate an approach to successfully address these challenges. Design/methodology/approach This paper articulates a targeted and ambitious approach to elementary social studies teacher education. The authors describe five recommendations from the teacher education literature for supporting preservice teachers in learning disciplinary-oriented social studies teaching, recommendations that guided the redesign of the social studies methods course. The authors then highlight key aspects of the redesigned methods course and demonstrate how the authors engaged the challenges inherent in the work of elementary social studies teacher education. Findings Although this paper is not arranged in such a way as to substantiate empirical findings, the purpose of the paper is to demonstrate an approach to elementary social studies education aligned with extant literature on preparing teachers to engage in reform teaching practices, specifically those disciplinary oriented practices suggested in NCSS’s C3 Framework. As such, the paper should be read as a perspective on practice. Research limitations/implications The type of disciplinary-oriented approach described here is increasingly under investigation in secondary teacher education research and similar approaches are under investigation in elementary math and science education research. To the authors’ knowledge, the approach is novel in elementary social studies education. Furthermore, the authors believe it offers a direction for researchers interested in gaps in the literature related to practice based teacher education and disciplinary-oriented social studies teacher education. Practical implications The approach described here offers specific guidance and resources for teacher educators who are struggling with the challenges of the contemporary social studies education landscape and/or who wish to focus methods courses in disciplinary ways. Social implications Research in social studied education has demonstrated that when students are exposed to disciplinary practices in social studies, their literacy skills improve and they learn analytical skills that support their development as citizens (consumption of media, participation in public discourse, ability to discern arguments). Originality/value As noted above, the approach described here is novel in elementary social studies education. Combining a disciplinary approach with a practice-based frame in elementary social studies represents an opportunity for empirical research and offers new approaches to the practice of teacher education and early career professional development.

Stuck in a box: Elementary teacher education students’ perspectives of the impact of edTPA on social studies instruction

“…Such courses should not only connect to language demands, functions, and supports for ELA and math as outlined by edTPA, but also the inquiry frameworks that are provided by NCSS, particularly the C3 Framework. For instance, the majority of research on the C3 Framework focuses on middle and secondary grades (Neel & Palmeri, 2017). As a result, further studies are needed in order to evaluate how adaption of social studies curricular frameworks such as the C3 Framework in elementary social studies methods courses can support the preparation of pre-K-5th grade teachers.…”

Informing, transforming, inquiring: Approaches to elementary social studies in methods course syllabi

“…Although the focus on justice is decidedly more apparent in elementary social studies teacher education scholarship, other teacher educators have focused on practice-based approaches to elementary social studies, including developing pedagogical content knowledge (Silva & Mason, 2003), ways to navigate the College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework with elementary PSTs (Neel & Palmeri, 2017), teaching PSTs to teach with “big ideas” (Brooks & Jares, 2016), and moving beyond “cute” or “fun” social studies (DiCamillo, 2010) towards more meaningful (Bauml, 2016) and powerful social studies (Ritter, 2012). Others have written in response to teacher education reforms, including a survey of how Georgia social studies methods instructions responded to the implementation of edTPA (An, 2017a), the opportunities for literacy integration as a result of the Common Core State Standards (Gleeson & D'Souza, 2016), and the push towards online teacher education (Tschida & Sevier, 2013).…”