Lived Interdisciplinarity: The High School Experience

The editors of the blog The Sociological Imagination have put out a call for blog posts. You can find the full call here. They would like to receive posts that address the lived experience of interdisciplinarity within social research. Here are their suggested topics: 

• The role of 'boundary objects' in facilitating work across disciplinary boundaries. 
• How a lack of clarity about mutual definitions can both support and hinder interdisciplinary collaboration. 
• The importance of reclaiming 'the human' as a shared focus in interdisciplinary research. 
• Coping with the challenge of an imperialistic naturalism i.e. forceful assertions of the failure of the social sciences and the necessity of remaking them along the lines of the natural sciences. 
• The messy reality of working in interdisciplinary teams. 
• What does conceptual development mean in collaborative work across disciplinary boundaries? 
• The role of personal relationships in facilitating successful interdisciplinary work. 
• Failures and frustrations of interdisciplinarity. 
• Getting beyond the motif of the 'attic scholar' and socialising the research process. 
• The role of doctoral pedagogy in hindering successful interdisciplinary collaboration. 
• Organizational helps and hindrances to working across disciplinary boundaries.

Their focus is on social research at the graduate and post-graduate level, but I want to pursue their suggested topics from the perspective of a high school social studies teacher. My discipline is often reduced to "history." One can see this in many school districts' course offerings, curriculum documents, department philosophies, etc., and in students' understandings of "social studies" too. Now, I love history; I majored in it! But I am not a history teacher simpliciter. I am a social studies teacher, and interdisciplinarity is constitutive of social studies, or so I believe.

Thus, I intend to address a few of the above topics over the next few posts from my perspective as a high school social studies teacher. Should be fun! And I hope interesting to you too.

My Experience @EdCampNJ 2015

On Saturday, November 21, I spent the day at an EdCampNJ "un-conference." It was awesome!

What's an un-conference? Let me explain.

• The first thing that makes and un-conference an un-conference is that almost nothing is planned. Sounds strange for a conference, I know, even disorienting. But my experience was organic and dynamic, fluid and free (even the conference price was free!). During the first hour (or so), participants who wanted to share something with their peers added their names, topics, and twitter handles to a shared Google Sheet. Before I knew it, there were dozens of sessions that I could choose to attend. (This sheet was blank at the start of the conference; within the first hour, it was full.) Subjects ranged from incorporating technology in the classroom to formative assessment strategies, from new PD opportunities to helping students cope with stress. Conference attendees viewed this sheet and selected the session(s) that they want to attend, and then headed to their first session.

• The second thing that makes an un-conference an un-conference is a rule that governs the entire event: "the rule of two feet." At any moment, if you want to head to another session, you are free to leave your current session and enter one of your choosing. Attendees freely moved in and out of sessions, and because everyone was on the same page, including presenters, somehow, the process worked. Through this emergent process, a combination of small, individual, and freely made choices developed into an amazing conference that meet my needs and did not bore (cf. your usual conference experience).

Sessions I Attended

• Session I - Student Stress: My first session addressed the topic of student stress at the district level. My district superintendent, Dr. David Aderhold, led this session. This topic has been an important one in my district recently, but I was interested by the fact that so many teachers and administrators from other districts echoed similar concerns. It made me think about my own classroom (AP US History) and how to balance academic rigor and student stress. I do not have the answer, but this session confirmed for me the necessity and seriousness of this conversation.

• Session II - Standards-Based/Referenced Assessment & Grading: It appears that my district may be moving in the direction of Standards-Based/Referenced Grading. Tovi Spero, one of my co-workers led this session. He has been using this system for the past couple years, so shoot him a line (or tweet) if you are interested; the talk was really helpful.

• Lunch - Free pizza & I won a raffle - 1st time ever! I won access to a great strength assessment resource from Thrively.

• Session III - Digital Portfolio: This was My Biggest Takeaway; the conference was worth this one session. Sean Hackbarth of Westwood Regional Middle School led a session on the creation and uses of digital portfolios (see his website here). I learned that with Google tools, I can help my students to create portfolios of their best work. I hope to incorporate such portfolios into my courses next year, and will begin experimenting with them this year. If experimenting with portfolio creation in my own classes is successful, I can imagine moving toward the development of digital portfolios that travel with students across grade-levels. Not only would this help students and teachers to track progress across grades, but students could present such portfolios as part of their college applications, showcasing their best work across their academic careers.

• APP Smackdown: The un-conference closed with teachers and sponsors sharing their favorite apps and ed tech. My list of new resources to try is in the double digits.

Recommendation

• I highly recommend this un-conference. I left it feeling empowered, equipped, and eager to engage my students with the resources and techniques that I learned. I especially enjoyed the emergent structure, the freedom of choice, and the collaboration I experienced with my peers. The price tag was nice too ($0.00). I hope to see you at the next one!

Close Reading Example: Lincoln's "Proclamation on State Militia" (i.e. his Declaration of War)

APUSH Students,

This is not required reading, but I encourage you to read this document and to reference both the primary source and the secondary commentary in our upcoming Socratic Circle.

#APUSH - Here is an example of some excellent, if opinionated, close reading: Lincoln Declares War https://t.co/McgXmG52SO @nytopinionator

— Matthew Warren (@warrenpeacewwp) November 15, 2015

Why Grammar Matters in Social Studies

Whatever your politics, this demonstrates why grammar matters in social studies: How Texas Teaches History https://t.co/2sVXHsfIAz #sschat

— Matthew Warren (@warrenpeacewwp) October 27, 2015

Star Wars and Federalism

My American Studies I students are about to dive into the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution. I plan to have them read this article from The Atlantic, which provides an interesting political analysis of the Galactic Senate, claiming that one of its greatest weaknesses was a lack of federalism. Some separation of powers, and perhaps Palpatine would not have become emperor!

The case against the Galactic Senate http://t.co/9yu3EpWwF8 pic.twitter.com/UTdVJqzrLN

— The Atlantic (@TheAtlantic) October 8, 2015

Looking Ahead: What to Do After the AP Exam

The AP US History Exam is May 6th. After that, we'll have another 6 full weeks of school until the end of the school year. What should (could) we do with all that time?

Here are some thoughts:

1. We will have just finished a college-level course in US History. We could take that knowledge and the skills we develop, and focus them on a particular topic in US history to the end of producing publishable scholarly works. Here, the American Historical Association has a directory of history journals to which we could submit our research articles. Depending on student interest, we could go beyond history journals too, and aim for journals in economics, philosophy, culture and society, sociology, religious studies, etc. We could even make attempts at submitting articles and editorials to magazines like Time and newspapers like the NYTimes. What's the advantage to doing something like this? Being published as a junior, even if its only a book review, could go a long way in setting your resume apart from others when it comes to college applications next fall.
2. We will have just finished a college-level course and have taken an exam with the hopes of securing college credit in US history. Why not earn some college credit over the last 6 weeks of school? Students could select a MOOC (massive open online course) to pursue during this period, using class time to work on MOOC assignments with the aid of fellow classmates and the instructor. Coursera and EdX are great places to start looking. You could also view available MOOCs at specific institutions. For example:

• Harvard
• Yale
• UPenn

I have some other ideas in mind for productive use of our last 6 weeks. I wanted to get these ideas out now, however, because it might be useful to have these options in mind as we make our way through the course. You could begin culling research for this work from your studies even now!

Yale's Photogrammar: Depression & WWII Era Photographs

"From 1935-1944, the Farm Securities Administration -- Office of War Information undertook the largest photography project ever sponsored by the federal government."

The Library of Congress houses approximately 170,000 photographs from the Great Depression and the Second World War in this collection. Yale University's Photogrammar site geographically plots nearly 90,000 of those photographs in a map visualization available here. This link takes you to the version organized by county.

This is a great resource!