Alicia R. Crowe

Self-Study and Social Studies: Framing the Conversation

Over the past two decades, self-study has secured its place on the map of approaches to better understanding teacher education. Self-study has attracted interest from researchers and teacher educators representing diverse content areas. Curiously, however, social studies has remained largely on the sidelines as an under-represented participant in the growth of this new genre of educational research. Self-study can be a valuable way for social studies educators—both teachers and teacher educators—to learn about teaching, learn from their practice, and become better at what they do. Uniquely grounded in practice and its surrounding contexts, self-study represents a means of investigation that provides insights into some of the more elusive, and persistent questions in our field.

Self-study of Practice as a Framework to Promote Growth in the Student Teaching Experience

As teachers and teacher educators, we hope to model an inquiry stance. Our prior experiences suggested an educative value in collaborative self-study for graduate students who were also practicing teachers. To build on this, we invited social studies teacher candidates to learn about taking an inquiry stance through self-study. This collaborative self-study of teaching practice took place in varied school contexts and within a student teaching seminar course. Our goal was for the preservice teachers to engage in systematic inquiry into their practice. As teacher educators, we hoped to learn about our own practices and the ways we encourage an inquiry stance during student teaching. Learning outcomes for six of the preservice teachers and the three teacher educators are presented in this article.

I Love It When a Plan Comes Together: Collaborative Self-Study in Graduate School as a Space to Reframe Thinking About Social Studies Teaching and Teacher Education

This chapter explores the development of, and research findings generated from, a self-study collaborative consisting of four social studies education graduate students and two social studies education faculty members. Conceived as a way to explore graduate education as a space for thinking differently about social studies teaching and learning, each member chose to engage in her/his own self-study on specific connections between their work as graduate students and classroom teachers. The collective acted as a place to both support and push members in the planning and implementation of their studies from inception to public presentation of findings.

Making Their Own Path: Preservice Teachers’ Development of Purpose in Social Studies Teacher Education

Abstract Despite a solid body of research on rationale development in social studies teacher education, little research exists exploring how social studies preservice teachers’ purposes develop over time. This article presents four examples of social studies preservice teachers as they grappled with developing a purpose for teaching social studies. In-depth interviews and artifacts from across the program were analyzed to focus on the nuanced ways in which their purposes developed. Their stories provide concrete examples that illustrate rationale development in social studies teacher education. Each shows a different view on developing or not developing a unified purpose for their work as a social studies teacher. We found that explicit attention to purpose throughout coursework was an important aspect in their development. Without a deeper exploration and understanding of how individual purposes develop, we miss in social studies teacher education the opportunity to reimagine and reconsider how programs enable and constrain certain purposes. As a field we need to move beyond recognizing the value of rationales and deepen the research on what types of purposes certain teacher education programs make possible.

Visualizing Social Justice: Using Controversial Images in Social Studies Classrooms

ABSTRACT In this article, we promote the use of controversial images to enhance the discussion of social justice issues in schools. Controversial images provide rich opportunities for students to question what is occurring currently in society as well as what has occurred in the past. We provide an example set of activities to be used in teacher education that can help future teachers explore engaging methods for teaching with controversial images, discuss tensions involved with the use of controversial images, and to develop connections between using controversial images and teaching for social justice.