518 Whitehead Hall

Thursday 3:40-7:00 p.m.

SOCIAL STUDIES

METHODS SEMINAR

(Spring 2000)

2306 James, 951-5950

jprogler@brooklyn.cuny.edu

In addition to the school-based daily student teaching field experience, all students participate in a weekly Methods Seminar. The Methods Seminar consists of two parts: a weekly course meeting and a weekly group workshop. In the course meeting, which meets for two hours each week, students will collectively explore issues, themes, and methods related to teaching and learning Secondary Social Studies, as outlined in the weekly calendar. This part is arranged as a series of questions about which we will think, read, and write in preparation for each meeting. Students arrive between 3:40 and 3:55 p.m., debrief the day's doings, and will be ready to work by 4 p.m., sharp. In most cases, and unless advised otherwise, the Seminar meets from 4-6 p.m. each week, and it will be formal in style and general scope. Attendance is mandatory for all students in Seminar meetings. The workshops, meeting from 6-7 p.m. and beginning in Week Three, will be informal and specific, with each student required to sign up for and attend at least five workshop sessions. Workshop topics will be decided as needed, on a case specific basis.

Course Requirements

Specific instructions for all written work will be provided in class in advance of the due date for each assignment. In general, there will be 4 response papers, 1 book review, and 1 Regents review paper, amounting to 12-15 pages of formal writing by the end of the semester. In addition, a semester portfolio, the contents of which will be discussed later, will be due in the last meeting. By Week Ten, students will have read The Social Studies Curriculum by E. Wayne Ross, which is available in the campus bookstore. Additional reading, which will be announced at a later date, will either be provided in class, or will be made available in a copy packet at Far Better Printing. Although we will not limit our discussions to its contents, a general methods book is available, Social Studies for the Twenty-First Century by Jack Zevin. We will refer to it as a group from time to time, and students will use it according to their individual needs. An email account is required. Students are required to send at least one email message to the instructor each week, in which they will describe some experience, event, problem, or other aspect of their teaching that week, as a sort of weekly log. This message should be at least a paragraph, and the instructor will reply in kind. Students will also be asked to use the Internet from time to time (You should already be surfing the websites noted on the “yellow sheet”). This means that students may need to use their email accounts and computer access at Brooklyn College, which is provided “free” for all enrolled students. (It's not really “free,” of course, since the cost is built into your tuition, so take advantage of what you are already paying for.) At the end of the term, final work for the portfolio will have to be submitted in paper form and electronically, so now is the time to learn how to use a word processor, and to utilize the “free” computer labs on campus.

Grading

It is expected that all reading and assignments will be completed as requested, and that all written work will be neatly typed and turned in on time. Attendance is required at all weekly course meetings, and in at least five of the group workshops, with sign-up required for the workshops. Unexcused absences will lower the semester grade significantly, as will late attendance. Make the necessary arrangements at the field site to assure timely arrival for each Seminar. Chronic lateness or more than two unexcused absences will be grounds for failing the Seminar. Students are responsible for making up any missed work, and ought to exchange phone numbers and email addresses for that purpose. The Seminar grade, which will be based on work turned in and examined in the seminar, is broken down as follows: 40% for the Response Papers (4 x 10 pts. each), 30% for the Semester Portfolio (contents to be discussed in class), 20% for Daily Participation (includes attendance in all seminars and 5 workshops), and 10% for the book review. Students should backup their files and keep copies of all work. The grade for the seminar will be averaged in with the grade from the field experience, the latter being determined in consultation between the instructor and the cooperating teacher at the end of the term. Criteria for grading the fieldwork may vary from case to case, but generally depends upon factors such as overall performance and improvement in teaching, professionalism and integrity in collegial relations, and completion of all projects, tasks, and assignments related to the fieldwork.

Bibliography

American Social History Project, Who Built America? Working People & the Nation's Economy, Politics & Society (Pantheon, 1992).

Deborah Britzman, Practice Makes Practice: A Critical Study of Learning to Teach (SUNY Press, 1991).

Candice Goucher, et al, In the Balance: Themes in Global History (McGraw Hill, 1998).

Joe L. Kincheloe & Shirley R. Steinberg (Eds.), Unauthorized Methods: Strategies for Critical Teaching (Routledge, 1998).

David Kobrin, Beyond the Textbook: Teaching History Using Documents & Primary Sources (Heinemann, 1996).

James L. Loewen, Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong (Touchstone, 1995).

Gary Nash, et al, History on Trial: Culture Wars & the Teaching of the Past (Alfred A. Knopf, 1997).

Eugene F. Provenzo, et al, Computers, Curriculum, and Cultural Change: An Introduction for Teachers (Lawrence Erlbaum, 1999).

Alan J. Singer, Social Studies for Secondary Schools: Teaching to Learn, Learning to Teach (Lawrence Erlbaum, 1997).

Shirley R. Steinberg & Joe L. Kincheloe, Students As Researchers: Creating Classrooms that Matter (Falmer Press, 1998).

Howard Zinn, A People's History of the United States, 1492-Present (Harper Perennial, 1995).