Online course models for history-social science: An exceptional tool for teachers in today's educational world

An extraordinary new aid for history-social science teachers is now becoming available to help them succeed in the modern educational environment of high stakes accountability, an aid that blends the best of teacher-oriented work of the recent past with the assets of presentday technology. The Online Course Models for History-- Social Science, sponsored by the California Department of Education, offer teachers specific pathways and collaborative opportunities in order to achieve success in the implementation of the state standards and assessment program. Online Course Models are an innovation that utilizes up-to-date technology to serve teacher needs of the present and the future, while maintaining a strong connection to the best of past practice.

Late in the 1980s the California State Board of Education adopted a landmark History-Social Science Framework for California Public Schools that laid out a sequential grade-level curricular approach to the teaching of history and social science. That document provided the foundation for the eventual development of the present state standards for history-social science. Today, in a newly revised, standards-aligned edition that incorporates the specific state standards, the Framework continues to serve as a widely accepted instructional guidepost for the history-social science community in California. Yet the framework, by design, was and remains a general work that brings forth concepts and emphases. Additional tools have always been needed to assist teachers to turn the outline contained in the framework, now with the standards, into effective classroom practice.

At approximately the same time that the framework was first published, the History-Social Science Project was providing professional development for the state's history and social science teachers. Many of the participants were asked to create lessons that could be shared to show other teachers how to take the guidelines expressed in the Framework and turn those into practical application with students. Classroom tested, a number of these lessons were collected, refined and distributed for grades 5, 6, 7 10 and 12 in a series of loose leaf California Department of Education publications called Course Models for the History-Social Science Framework. Each unit in the models provided a detailed approach to the classroom implementation of one or more of the important concepts found in the original framework.

However, there was not sufficient funding to complete the course models for every grade until the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Educational Research and Improvement, through its National Institute on Student Achievement, Curriculum and Assessment, offered grant money in 1994 to develop state standards and to align the existing course models and newly developed ones with those standards. State Superintendent of Public Instruction Delaine Eastin had entered office in 1995 and initiated her "Challenge Program" to improve student achievement. The grant-developed history-social science standards and course models were linked with that initiative. Thus, "Challenge" standards based on the framework were developed and course model units written or refined to meet those standards. The intent was to complete the series of course models publications by 1996-97.

Another dramatic curve the road for the development of course models appeared when the official State Academic Standards Commission launched the history-- social science component of its legislatively mandated activities. Appointed by Governor Pete Wilson, the Commission's charge was to recommend a new set of academically rigorous state standards for the four core disciplines, including history-social science. Those standards would then become the backbone of the new statewide testing and accountability program. In fact, once the State Board of Education formally adopted the Commission's recommended standards in late 1998, all state curriculum and assessment programs had to be aligned with those standards, immediately superseding the Challenge standards. This turn of events left the printed course models in awkward, orphaned circumstances, suddenly obsolete.

Although many of the new academically rigorous state standards remained faithful to the spirit and content of the Framework, the format and sequencing of the new standards was such that the course model units that had been so carefully connected to the Framework, no longer lined up precisely with what were now the official state standards. Absent that close interface, it would be difficult for teachers, especially those early in their careers, to use the course models to implement the standards. It was obvious that significant further work was going to be needed to reconfigure the course models so they were aligned with the new standards.

Fortunately, technology had emerged since the course models were initially conceived that opened up exciting new opportunities for the final development and widespread use of the models. By the late 1990s the Internet had become an important alternate communications tool. Web sites and email applications were surging into use around the country. The vast majority of inquiries about the state standards and tests that were directed to the State Department of Education began to come through email rather than by phone or letter. It seemed that electronic placement and distribution of the course models might provide a more cost-effective and dynamic way to put the course models in the hands of the teachers. And with a burgeoning student population, class size reduction, and increasing accountability, an ever-larger number of teachers needed them.

Through authorization by the U.S. Department of Education to redirect the remaining grant money, the course models project emphasis shifted from hardcopy publication to standards-based, electronically disseminated units. All existing lessons, whether previously published or only in draft form, were reformatted and aligned with the new state standards and new units were also created to support standards in areas where conspicuous gaps existed. Contracts for this alignment and development brought highly experienced talent to bear on the work, with Gary Nash and David Vigilante at UCLA and Priscilla Porter at CSU, Dominguez Hills spearheading the effort, and with Bob Benoit and his staff at the Butte County Office of Education's Instructional Resources Center handling the technology applications.

The result is the inauguration of a tremendously powerful and accessible tool to aid teachers in implementing the state standards and assessment program in their classrooms. Directly accessible 24 hours a day, seven days a week on the web, the Online History-Social Science Course Models site (www.history.ctaponline.org) has begun to attract thousands of users a month. In July 2001, in the middle of summer vacation, over 2,000 visitors came to the site, looking at over 15,000 pages and downloading almost 3,000 teaching units, even though only grades 1-5 were then available. As of September, 2001, the entire elementary sequence, grades K-6 are on the site, with grades 7 and 8 to follow later in 2001 and with the high school grades slated to appear by Summer, 2002.

What are the features of these models that make them so efficient and attractive, and how can teachers use them? Accessing the above-named site places the teacher at the course models main page. An introduction explains the overall purpose of the models, and acknowledgements credit the wide range of teachers and other contributors who helped shape the models over a period of many years (CCSS members will readily recognize the many colleagues that appear on the list). All units in the models are forged in the crucible of actual classroom use, so that teachers can approach the units with confidence that they have been proven to work in real-life situations.

Each grade level model contains several units, sometimes called lessons that address the implementation of one or more of the state standards for that grade level. The sample topic in each unit is directly connected to the standards, and a time frame is suggested so that teachers know how much time to devote to each. The format for the balance of the unit is organized around a common instructional template, though any given unit may also include features necessarily specific to that unit's subject matter. Background discussion of the subject matter is often prepared for teachers so that some fundamental factual elements about the topic are clear.

A section entitled "Beginning the Topic," including important focus questions, introduces the foundational concepts in the standards under consideration and define what students should know and be able to do at various points. The questions help to generate student interest in the topic and prepare them to develop it. The following section, "Developing the Topic," assists teachers to lead students to a more sophisticated level of interaction. Additional focus questions guide students to identify relational patterns and sets of interrelated skills, as well as personal connections to the topic, moving students from the level of abstraction to a more concrete grasp of the topic. Certain units also provide a mechanism for adapting the unit to the needs of the locality, as in grade 3 where the study of local history is required by the standards.

"Culminating the Topic" and "Assessment" comprise the next sections. Activities encourage students to further develop their personal connections, using the foundational knowledge gained in the preceding activities and applying a deeper understanding of the material. A range of portfolio-like assessment activities concludes the unit. These involve some aspect of student performance that requires students to integrate what they learned in the lesson, addressing all or most of the focus questions that were derived from the standards. In that way students demonstrate that they have achieved competence in what the standards require, a facility that should help them to succeed in state-level and other assessments. Where illustrative, student work examples are also included.

Extended and Correlated Activities" are also provided in most of the units. These activities are designed to enrich comprehension of the standards through literature, videos, art, field trips and so forth that apply the topic in different learning environments and/or in conjunction with related state standards, especially those in language arts. Every effort is made to help teachers, especially those at the elementary level, to connect activities across standards and disciplines and give teachers concrete suggestions on how to join language arts with history-social science in order to improve students' reading, writing and speaking skills.

A final, significant section in each of the units is devoted to "Resources." A wide array of references is provided to books, articles, web sites, literature, audio-video programs, historic sites and anything else that might help a teacher further develop his or her understanding of the subject matter and effectively bring that knowledge to bear in the classroom. In fact, teachers who wish to view only the resources on any given topic can access such information off the course models main page without going through the balance of the unit. The resources can also be used to help teachers develop additional lessons and adaptations to existing ones, as the course model units serve as both a particular classroom presentation on one or more standards, and an example that gives teachers the skills to create other units. Additional units can be used only locally, or they can be submitted for consideration to incorporate into the course models site.

The course models contain several other exciting elements to promote educator collaboration, with free registration to access them. One is a "Forum" that encourages teachers to explore innovative ways to use the models and that facilitates communication among teachers about the material in the models and about issues in history-social science education. Especially important is the opportunity for new teachers to connect with those who are more experienced. Document sharing is another cooperative possibility, along with connections to resources in other subject areas, an especially useful feature for the multiple-subject teacher. A searchable version of the standards allows teachers to acquire easy and timely access to the standards, as they need them. Teachers can also create their own unique "Webliography" of electronic resources, either keeping the entries confined for their own use or deciding to share them with others.

One more salient aspect of the online course models merits recognition. Because they are online, they are inherently dynamic. As new resources appear, as new units are developed, as changes take place in the state standards, assessment and accountability programs, the models can be easily altered and expanded upon. In that fashion they assist the state to bring directly to teachers the most currently available information that can enable them to continually extend their inventory of standards-aligned instructional techniques, and thereby to promote maximum growth in student achievement.

The Online Course Models may be accessed through the California Department of Education's web site: www.cde.ca.gov/statetests/history , which has other useful information about history-social science, or by going directly to the course models site:

www.history.ctaponline.org. Comments or questions may be directed to John Bums at: jbums@cde.ca.gov or by calling 916-654-6299.

John F. Burns is History-Social Science Consultant for the Standards and Assessment Division in the California Department of Education and Director of the History-Social Science Course Models/Standards Project. Previously he served as California's Chief Archivist, developing the new State Archives building and Golden State Museum in downtown Sacramento. He is the CDE representative to professional groups including CCSS, editing the "Standards" issue and writing for the "Sesquicentennial" issue of the Social Studies Review He has written or edited several other publications, including Sacramento: Gold Rush Legacy, Metropolitan Destiny, 1999, and the forthcoming Taming the Elephant: Politics, Government and Law in Pioneer California.

Copyright California Council for the Social Studies Fall 2001
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