Integrating History and Literacy Instruction through Technology

Integrating History and Literacy Instruction through

TechnologyCindy Okolo ([email protected])

Carol Sue EnglertJanet AllemanMaryl Randel

Michigan State UniversityEast Lansing MI USA

Literacy Is a Critical Educational Goal

• Learning to read versus reading to learn• Plateau in literacy achievement in the middle grades• Literacy demands become more complex

• Content demands become more sophisticatedConceptsVocabularyDifferent representations of information

• Disciplinary literacy plays an increasingly important role• Nature and purpose of knowledge• Type of knowledge that is valuable• How that knowledge is created and supported

Role of History Instruction in the Curriculum

• History in United States taught as set of facts, “already known”

• History instruction/education largely ignored in US educational reform• Not tested• Not funded

• History critical domain in its own right• History instruction laboratory for other critical

instructional skills and behaviors• Ill-structured problems• Acquisition and application of literacy

Intersection of History and Literacy Instruction

• “Reading” primary and secondary sources• Adapted to source and context• Interpretation• Synthesis

• Critical reading• Understanding evidence and bias

• Coordination of multiple sources and perspectives• Different authors/periods of time/opinions

• Supporting and communicating findings • Using appropriate evidence and standards• Writing, reporting, representing

History, Literacy and Students with Disabilities

• Our work focuses on students with learning disabilities• Discrepancy between aptitude and achievement• Students who do not benefit from effective instructional

practices in the general education classroom• Students who learn history in the general education

classroom

• Focus for these students is on literacy• Perform extremely poorly on test of historical

information• Limited knowledge and understanding• But, also limited instructional opportunities

Virtual History Museum• Ongoing program of research and development• Designed to help all students learn and enjoy history• Takes advantage of digital history• Wealth of resources on the web• Organized into collections (personal) and searchable

databases (researcher-created)

• Provides tools for supporting students with disabilities• Text to speech• Supported activities

Features of the VHM• Exhibits

• Artifacts• Activities: writing, representing (maps, charts)• Historian’s notebook

• Authoring tools• Easy to use interface for teachers• Supports all media types• Templates for creating activities

• Instructional organization tools• Assignment• Evaluation• Gradebook

Features of the VHM

• Sharing• Global• Limited• Private

• Differentiation• Non-supported activities• Supported activities

• Searchable databases of exhibits and activities

Research with VHM• Three years of studies with middle school students• Urban, suburban, and rural schools• Progressed from pilot study in three classrooms to samples of

over 300 students• All in classrooms that include students with LD; including LD

and non-LD comparisons

• Used with a variety of teacher-selected topics (but mostly US history)• Teachers choose, based on mandatory curriculum

requirements

• VHM used as a supplement to the curriculum• In addition to traditional history instruction

Key Findings• VHM improves students’ content knowledge• Compared to traditional instruction, students who use the

VHM know• Students with LD learn as much as those without LD • Sometimes students with LD learn at a higher rate than

those without LD• But VHM still doesn’t “close the gap” in content

knowledge between students with and without LD

• Students and teacher have highly positive attitudes toward VHM

• Students with LD more engaged while using VHM

Key Findings• Historical understanding improves moderately• As measured by written responses and interviews• Findings stronger for students without disabilities

• Application of historical knowledge not evident in writing about history• Narrative writing is preferred genre among student

historians• Fanciful elaborations and inaccuracies• Writing as a list of facts

• Knowledge moderately correlated with historical reasoning demonstrated in students’ writing

Key Findings• Students do not know how to interpret images• Superficial analysis• Often on irrelevant dimensions• Foreground, not background• Ignored multiple actors/conflicting evidence• Little sense of perspective

• Social studies/history teachers are not comfortable teaching historical thinking or writing strategies

• Students with disabilities who use VHM only a few times perform worse in the VHM conditions than in traditional instruction

VHM II• Current research and development project• Focus on better integration of historical thinking strategies and

content• Historical thinking strategies link to disciplinary literacy strategies• Continued support for students with LD• Vocabulary• Background knowledge• Scaffolded activities

• Design team of MSU researchers and eight middle school teachers• Technology-based environment

• All features of VHM plus lessons and tools (e.g., notetaking, concept mapping, reference)

VHM II• Three strands of Historical Thinking Strategies• Frameworks for Understanding History• Working with Evidence• Communicating History

• Interactive lesson plans for each strategy• Vides of students using each strategy• Each strategy learned in the context of topic of

immigration• Teachers develop VHM exhibits that are content-specific

to apply each strategy

Strand One: Frameworks for Understanding History

• What does a historian do?• Understanding history through cultural universals• Understanding history through problem-solution-

effect analysis• Understanding history through chronology• Understanding history through compare-contrast

analysis• Understanding history through personal narrative

Working with Evidence

• Sourcing• Interpreting visual evidence• Multiple perspectives on history• Detecting bias• Corroboration• Hypothesizing

Communicating History

• Persuasion• Argumentation• Narrative• Research report• Debate

Thanks!• Current site of the VHM:

• Vhm.msu.edu

• Project staff:• Andrew Alexander• Emily Bouck• Sarah Cormac• JJ Chandler

Carrie Anna CourtadAnne HeutscheMena KanthakumarDonna KregelkaBen PinedaKumar PongaliurNate Stevenson

This work has been supported by grants from the Office of Special Education Programs, United States Department of Education, Steppingstones

of Technology Innovations. Project officers: Dave Malouf, Terry Jackson. However, those

contents do not necessarily represent the policy of the US Department of Education, and you

should not assume endorsement by the federal government