The goal of this project was to determine whether using a web-based project incorporating John M. Keller's ARCS model would motivate students to want to learn and explore new ways of learning. California history was taught to fourth grade students, including English as a second language students and Title 1 students, through a website. Lessons incorporated online quizzes, web designing, PowerPoint, Excel and other computer programs.

Within social studies and heritage education, the affective turn has led to an increased interest in sites of difficult history. Although there is a plethora of cross-disciplinary theoretical research that suggests affect plays a significant role in meaning-making in these spaces, there are few empirical studies that examine this assumption. Moreover, the empirical studies that do exist tend to focus on student experiences in these spaces, seemingly excluding the important consideration of how teachers construct meaning through affective engagement and practices. As many teachers seek out heritage sites to better their pedagogical preparation to teach difficult histories, it is necessary to further understand their experiences in these spaces, as this can provide insight into how historical narratives and heritage are constructed and passed on. Utilizing semi-structure interviews, photo-elicitation, and sensory ethnographic place-making methodologies, this dissertation conceptualizes the affective meaning-making processes that three teachers engaged in during their encounters with the National September 11th Memorial Museum (NS11MM). Categorized as emotions, memory, historical proximity, and authenticity, these affective meaning-making processes deeply impacted what three high school social studies teachers took away from their visits to the National September 11th Memorial Museum (NS11MM), resulting in a decentered, patriotic perspective grounded in American exceptionalism, innocence, and unity. Understanding the affective entanglements of the three teachers in their encounters with the NS11MM provides insight into how meaning, understood as historical understanding and significance, is constructed at sites of difficult history.

Current research in English/language arts advocates the incorporation of writing in content areas across the curriculum as a means of learning content as well as a means of evaluating content mastery. Focusing on the content area of social studies and acknowledging the importance of the text as a teaching tool, this study examined to what degree and in what manner selected social studies textbooks incorporated writing. Texts selected for the study were nationally published history textbooks which had been adopted for use in the state of Virginia at grades seven and eleven, where the teaching of United States history is mandated in Virginia. Accompanying the basal textbook as a primary tool of instruction is the complementary teacher manual or guide. Using Britton’s categories for functions of writing (i.e., Expressive, Transactional and Poetic) and Donlan’s four categories of writing particular to the social studies (i.e., Reporting, Exposition, Narration and Argumentation), an analysis was made of writing assignments offered via selected social studies textbooks and their accompanying teacher manuals. Text packages selected for the study reflected those U.S. history texts adopted for use in Virginia at grades seven and eleven. The treatment of writing in the selected textbook packages was examined to determine the reflection of current research and theory in the area of composition. Findings paralleled the national Applebee study of 1981 finding that most writing required in secondary schools was of a Transactional nature, most often requiring students to report or explain information, seldom requiring creative writing as with Narration. Moreover, examination of state and national social studies professional journals revealed relatively little support in instructing social studies educators on how to include writing in this content area. / Ed. D.

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The problem reported in this thesis was one whose purpose was to determine, if possible, the relative value of gains in civic knowledge, skills, and attitudes growing out of a course in eighth-grade community civics as compared with those derived from a course in traditional eighth-grade history. An interesting phase of the study was the tabulation of losses in civic knowledge, skills, and attitudes and an attempt on the part of the writer to account for them. Chiefly, however, the study concerns itself with progress in social and civic thinking on the part of eighth-grade pupils.

This study was prompted by the researcher’s concern that the gender equity imperative within the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, Act 108 of 1996, and within national curriculum policy in South Africa is being sidelined in school History teaching for various reasons, the most significant of which is argued to be lack of awareness of the constitutive nature of discourse within language. The main aim of the study is to investigate whether a feminist post-structuralist approach to History teaching, which focuses on multiple perspectives and open interpretation, within the framework of six key aspects of critical media education, can open up space for female voices of the past and present in order to reconstruct realist historical narratives. The literature review reflects research relating to theories which have been seminal in the development of feminist post-structuralism. The qualitative research design entails a data collection instrument which focuses on denotative and connotative analysis of textual samples selected from Grade 10 schools History textbooks used for this investigation. Data collection relates to content analysis, narrative theory, textually-oriented discourse analysis, and gender-biased language with regard to images and print. To establish the category into which each textual sample falls, individual data counts have been undertaken. A detailed analysis process reveals that all nine of the textual samples are of the conforming type which do not question patriarchal gender construction.The study offers suggestions regarding the implementation of feminist post-structuralist strategies within the context of Grade 10 outcomes-based History teaching, which is compliant with South Africa’s national curriculum policy. Notwithstanding the gaze upon the problematising of discursive gender representation in Grade 10 History teaching resources used in South African public schools, this study argues that the results have wide application across grades, levels, learning areas and subjects which are part of South Africa’s national curriculum. The researcher therefore suggests that this study offers a positive contribution to equitable gender relations in the History classroom, in education generally, and in South Africa as a whole. / Didactics / D. Ed.

published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

This research study examined the perceptions of school administrators and of historic site directors toward the function of the sites in the public school curriculum. In-depth, personal interviews were conducted, tape-recorded, and transcribed at six selected sites, representing the various ethnic historic settlements of Texas, a variety of population densities, each of the major physical geographic regions, and different economic levels in the state. Data analysis involved careful study of the taped interviews, comparisons of responses given by people of similar roles, and comparisons of responses regarding the same site. Documentation of elements of the historic sites, of programs offered, of participation of the local school district in programs, and of written school policies were examined. The perceptions of the interviewees along with recommendations for changes were noted. Responses varied from expressed impression of students who are steeped in local history and are bored with their heritage, to enthusiastic positive opinions that the prosperity of the community is directly related to the strong identification of the citizens with its local history. The role of local history and of specific sites in the curriculum of the public schools is not consistent in Texas. This research study suggests that positive gains are possible if communication between local historic site/park/museum personnel and professional educators who are responsible for planning and implementation of school curriculum can be improved. Professional educators tend either to value local history and historic sites as part of the curriculum, or to avoid the question of meeting state mandates for classtime through the use of off-campus visits to historic sites by interpreting recent reforms to prohibit them. Professional personnel who oversee the historic sites tend to offer programs to the public schools that will meet the mandated curriculum, while adhering to the scheduling constraints of school reform legislation.

The problem of this study was to determine the value of Scholastic Aptitude Test scores and high school percentile rank for predicting a student's achievement in American history at North Texas State University. The study also sought to determine what, if any, difference existed between male and female students, students of different ethnic backgrounds, and students of different semester classification with respect to learning achievement in American history.

"This study undertakes to determine the relation existing between a group of factors and the status of the history major bachelor graduates of the North Texas State Teachers College from 1919 through 1936"--1.