Full Description
For the last 2 decades, the field of social studies education has seen an increase in research on the use of discussions as an essential instructional technique. This book examines the importance of using quality dialogue as a tool to help students understand complex issues in social studies classrooms. The author provides a collection of well-known, evidence-based discussion techniques as well as classroom examples showing the methods in use. While the benefits of using discussion as an instructional method is widely considered a best practice of civic learning, actual high-quality discussions are rare and notoriously difficult to facilitate. Making Classroom Discussions Work is designed to guide teacher educators and classroom teachers in facilitating equitable and productive discussions that will boost learning and democratic engagement.Book Features:
Emphasizes the rationale for using discussion in social studies teaching.
Collects strategies that have been proposed in disparate journal articles and books in one convenient volume.
Presents research-based challenges and supports for conducting and assessing discussions in the social studies.
Includes methods and tips to help teachers make discussions more equitable in their classrooms.
Contents
Contents
Foreword Diana E. Hess vii
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction Jane C. Lo 1
Part I: Engaging in Classroom Discussions
1. Guiding Principles for Using Classroom Discussion 11
Bruce E. Larson
2. Preparing Teachers for Current and Controversial Issue Discussion 27
Kei Kawashima-Ginsberg, Mary Ellen Daneels, and Noorya Hayat
3. Supporting Civic Discussions With Younger Students 44
Terence A. Beck
Part II: Unpacking Well-Known Discussion Techniques in the Social Studies
4. Socratic Seminar: Learning With and From Each Other While Interpreting Complex Text 63
Jada Kohlmeier
5. Structured Academic Controversy: What It Can Be 73
Walter C. Parker
6. Structure Matters: Comparing Deliberation and Debate 90
Paula McAvoy and Arine Lowery
7. Document-Based Discussions in History: Orienting Students to the Discipline 106
Abby Reisman
8. Embedding Discussion Throughout Inquiry 124
María del Mar Estrada Rebull, Chauncey Monte-Sano, Amanda Jennings, and Jeff Kabat
Part III: Expanding Toward More Equitable Discussions
9. Talking Politics Online: Educating for Online Civic and Political Dialogue 143
Erica Hodgin
10. The Structures We Live In: Discussing Racialization of Neighborhoods to Transform the Null Curriculum 161
Jacob S. Bennett, H. Richard Milner IV, and Bryant O. Best
11. Get Out of Your Own Way: Sharing Power to Engage Students of Color in Authentic Conversations of Social Inequity 176
Dane Stickney, Elizabeth Milligan Cordova, and Carlos P. Hipolito-Delgado
12. Supporting Youth to Engage in Authentic Civic Dialogue in Our "Actually Existing" Democracy 192
Nicole Mirra and Antero Garcia
Concluding Thoughts 209
Jane C. Lo
Appendix A: Pledge of Allegiance Mini Unit 215
Appendix B: Ticket to Pledge Seminar 217
Appendix C: Pledge Discussion Guide 219
Appendix D: The Pledge of Allegiance Supreme Court Cases 223
Appendix E: You Be the Judge: Frazier v. Winn 225
About the Editor and Contributors 229
Index 235
