Introduction

A THEORY-BUILDING APPROACH TO THE STUDY OF MEDIEVAL HISTORY IN GRADE FOURMonica Resendes & Maria ChuyInstitute of Knowledge Innovation and Technology (IKIT)Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), University of Toronto2010 Knowledge Building Summer Institute, Toronto, Canada.

Introduction History is “what happened” in the past (a

series of unchanging facts telling a ‘true story’).

Questioning and theorizing are central to historical inquiry

“Explanatory coherence” (Thagard, 1989, 2006) is critical to historical inquiry and the process of building knowledge around ill-structured historical questions and problems.

To explore what aspects of historical reasoning help young students to develop coherent explanations and under what conditions these aspects can be developed.

Research objective

Theoretical FrameworkVan Drie and Van Boxtel (2008) outline 6 central aspects of historical reasoning:

Asking historical questions

Contextualizing

Using substantive

concepts

Using meta-concepts

Using historical sources

Argumentation

Historical Reasoning

Research Questions1) What aspects of historical reasoning are

evident in students’ knowledge-building dialogue?

2) Which critical aspects remain underdeveloped or absent, and thus require additional support?

3) Does sustained engagement in Knowledge Building help young students develop competencies in historical reasoning, as evidenced through sophisticated explanations of historical phenomena?

Participants included 21 Grade 4 students (9-10 years) attending the Institute of Child Study School in Toronto

Studied medieval history over a period of 3

months

3 “KB” sessions a week 45-60 minutes “KB” talks, active research, and 15 minutes to work

in the KF database

Participants

550 notes generated 13 views, separated into themes

such as Language, Weapons and Warfare, Women in Medieval Times, and Government.

Individual notes coded based on a schema adapted from Van Drie and Van Boxtel’s (2008) framework. A 7th category, theorizing, was added.

Dataset

Asking historical questions Explanatory: ask deeper “how” and “why”

questions and are particularly important to KB dialogue (Hakkarainen, 2003).

Factual: call for isolated pieces of information

Contextualization Social: socio-cultural, political, economic conditions Chronological: organization of historical time

(periodization), significant events Spatial: locations and scale, geographical concepts

(De Keyser & Vandepitte, 1998)

Plan of Analysis

Plan of Analysis Using substantive concepts

The use of relevant substantive concepts to build a historical context; use of multiple substantive concepts in a network; interrogate substantive concepts.

Using meta-concepts “Benchmarks of Historical Thinking” (Seixas,

2006) as a guideline: Change and Continuity Cause and Consequence Determining Historical

Significance Adopting Historical Perspectives Understanding the Moral

Dimension

Plan of Analysis Using historical sources

Describe or introduce facts; support or refute ideas; evaluate and use sources as evidence; question and compare multiple sources.

Argumentation Proposed a plausible claim with

evidence/references; weighed multiple arguments; proposed counter-arguments; accounted for counter-arguments.(Voss & Means, 1991).

Plan of Analysis

Theorizing Propose a theory; support or refute theories

with justifications; seek out alternative theories; improve theories.

Results

Discussion

- Problem: “what games did children play? I think they played marbles with little rocks.”

- “What did the pesents eat for morning, lunch and dinner? What do they eat? What did they eat? And what did the boys catch?”

- “Did the nobles children have to work? My theory: they could if they wanted to but if they didn’t they would stay home and get tutored. I think they would be a squire or aprentice. I don’t think the noble girls would work.”

- Problem: “What was the pentacost and how did it happen? My theory: I think the pentacost was either a war or a really bad time and I’d like to know”

Contextualization

- “I think that the demacratic system came late because the magna carta was not inveted.”

- “I think that the black smith was the most important merchant because if some uther empier declars war then you wood have to run to the black smith to get a wepin. So when there is a war then the blacksmith will be very happy and a little bit sad.”

- “Is warfare all that Medieval Times is about? My theory: I think that warfare isn’t all that Medieval Times is about because the woman didn’t fight.”

Theorizing

Discussion

- “How was the Elizabeth times difrent from Medieval Times?”- Problem: “Why is class distinction so important?”

- I need to understand: “why were the munks so religos?”

- “How did language change thourgh out the years….?”

- “Why did the demacratic system come so late?

- Problem: “Did they have school?”

Asking historical questions

Discussion

- New information: “In 1770 louis the 15 of France kept compeeting with England for sending troops into America and that’s probably why the french revolution started but it was mostly Marie Antoinette louis the 15 wife.”- I need to understand: “why you think that,

Max? How do you know that they threwdead pigs and stuff? Who did you ask or what did you read? I need to understand why you think that?”

- New information: “in the church the priest Would show pieces of art or literature to explain God’s ways.”

Using historical sources

Discussion

- “Because other teratory’s wanted more and more and more and more land but that is the same as today but they believed in religon more than us so they also had holy wars (crusades) so that is duble the amount of wars that we have today!”

- “When the Romene empire fell lot of nollig was lost. No new envinchons were made because no one could remimber the nollig that Romenes had [Romenes made lots of envinchons]. The fall of the Romene empire started the dark ages.”

Using meta-concepts

Discussion

-“Were there pirates in 1200 to 1600?”

-New information: “not everybody were afraid of pirates because some pirates worked for the government they were called privateers...”

- “I disagree with you because I read in a book that the medieval times lasted from 500 to 1500. I think that the 1600s were the Elizibethen times.”

-“I think there were ‘cause I read that everyone was afraid of them.”

Argumentation

Discussion

“Bad John!” – student explanations of

historical action VC: Why was King John so meen? why did he kill so many

people? Why didn't he want to sign the Magna Carta. My theory: he wanted his freedom so that he could do anything he wanted.

VC: My theory: he had so much power he thought he could do anything! And he didn't want to let his freedom go.

GP: I think that john was the bad son, he stole land and killed people!

MH: but then came the magna carta. NW: King Richard wasn't bad at being a king John was. VC: John sighed the Magna Carta because he wanted the

nobles off his back! DC: why was he so bad? GS: My theory: I think that he loved being powerful and when

the lords formed a council to prevent that from happening and he didn't want to stop just because the lords said so.

Conclusion Analysis suggests that 9-10 year old students using a

KB approach to history are capable of proposing and improving theories about historical phenomena.

Students are also able to build meaningful historical contexts using relevant substantive concepts around deep questions or problems of understanding.

Students require more specialized support for using historical sources, using meta-concepts and argumentation.

Aim to use results to inform designs for

improvements in KF software (for example, the production of scaffolds fine-tuned for historical inquiry) in order to raise the level of student dialogue and reasoning in the discipline and develop higher-level competencies in historical reasoning.

Future work