Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Historical Thinking, Tier 1
As fifth grade teachers, I think covering Tier 1 is basically our goal. We have to provide a solid foundation for the students, because we are their first real stop when it comes to learning history. It is essential that we teach them that they cannot use the values of the present to understand the past. I think that doing a first person narrative as a person from the past can help them put themselves in their shoes somewhat. It will make them have to think about the issues from that historical time. Just visualizing what things looked like 500 years ago will be important. We really have to scaffold their learning if we want ten year olds to gain that perspective though. It is a very high level of thinking. I think using the SPECs can help here, because it makes them look at the different parts of the history through a different lens.
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I too feel like this is of main importance for 5th grade teachers. We do need to set that very important base knowledge for them to then extend in their other history classes through middle school, high school, and college. I agree that SPECs has been one of the best strategies that we have learned to scaffold our students in the higher level learning process. It can be very challenging at this age for them to analyze text from different viewpoints, but SPECs certainly gives them a great lens for reading.
ReplyDeleteI agree that SPECS is an excellent tool. Students are able to see the similarities and differences of different people, cultures, and events in a clear organized way.
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