ABSTRACT
Context: TE Elementary, TE Secondary, 7-12 NCSS Standards: II (Time, Continuity, and Change) INTASC Standards: 1 (Subject Matter), 2 (Student Learning), 4 (Instructional Strategies) Topics: history, historical thinking, government, power/authority, multiple perspectives, critical
thinking, role-play/simulation, American Revolution, photographs/pictures
In what follows, I provide a glimpse into my elementary social studies methods course and look more deeply at a simulation I use in an attempt to get my preservice teachers to understand how views of historical content knowledge, views of learners, and views of teaching infl uence classroom discourse. In other words, I try to provide a model of best practice for the teaching of history. Th is simulation provides one of the few models of powerful social studies teaching my preservice teachers experience during their time in teacher education. For a more in-depth coverage of my social studies methods teaching see Slekar (2005). I expose preservice teachers to “model” teachers who teach history according to three classifi cations: the storyteller, the scientifi c historian, and the reformer (Brophy & VanSledright, 1997). Th e goal is to provide preservice teachers with new models of teaching and learning.
