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High School Social Studies and the Common Core: An Action Research Project

Abstract

This qualitative action research project involved a group of 17 social studies teachers in four course subjects: world history, U.S. history, government, and economics, developing a set of literacy-enhancing lessons to better understand how the Common Core will impact their instruction from now on. This social studies department, like many others in the state, has not had any formal training in how the Common Core’s emphasis on literacy skills will work in their classes. Due to this lack of training, in-house action research was selected as the best approach to their professional development. Building off the collective knowledge of each other, the teachers went through a cycle of inquiry designed to identify a problem, model possible solutions or lessons, intervene in their classrooms with Common Core-aligned lessons, and evaluate how it all worked out. Data were collected via survey, documentation, observation, and interview. Evidence was triangulated between collection methods to identify how well the teachers understood the role of the Common Core in their own lessons, what factors were promoting that understanding, and what factors were hindering that understanding. In this study, it was found that the teachers still do not fully understand how to create lessons well aligned to the expectations of the Common Core. Their strong collaborative culture, accountability to each other, and motivation to change are helping them, however. The teachers still need to be able to overcome a lack of knowledge about the Common Core, a lack of resources to build that knowledge, and a lack of time to do this work. This action research project did, though, get them set on a path towards successful adoption of Common Core-aligned pedagogy.

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