What Pedagogical Content Knowledge Looks Like in History Classrooms

In this article in The Journal of the Learning Sciences, Chauncey Monte-Sano (University of Michigan) and Christopher Budano (University of Maryland) quote an 1861 petition to the California Superintendent of Public Instruction: “A very learned man may profoundly understand a subject himself, and yet fail egregiously in elucidating it to others.” The missing ingredient, in modern lingo, was pedagogical content knowledge – knowing how to represent and convey subject matter in ways that make it comprehensible to students. Part of that is understanding what makes the content easy or difficult. “Such knowledge enables teachers to work in the spaces in which teaching, content, and students interact,” say Monte-Sano and Budano. 

The authors studied two novice high-school history teachers, Talia and Gabrielle, as they developed as instructors during university training and their first two years in the classroom. Here is how Monte-Sano and Budano broke down pedagogical content knowledge in history:

• Representing history – The ways in which teachers communicate what history involves: the nature of historical knowledge, the structure of history as a discipline, historical 

ways of thinking, and the work of historians. In the classroom:

• Using an activity or task structure that allows for inquiry or interpretive thinking;
• Selecting documents that are generative and suited to the goals and topic of the lesson;
• Crafting inquiry questions to guide historical analysis of documents;
• Identifying multiple documents that work together and support inquiry;
• Asking questions that call for analysis and historical thinking.

For example, Talia showed students an image of Marie Antoinette’s and Louis XVI’s severed heads and asked, “Why would people want to cut off their heads?” Students then studied a set of documents on the causes of the French Revolution.

• Transforming history – How teachers transform historical content into lessons and materials that develop students’ historical understanding and thinking and give students appropriate opportunities to learn the content. In the classroom:

• Modeling the analysis of documents to make expert thinking visible;
• Guiding students’ analysis using questions, graphic organizers, feedback, etc.;
• Modeling and guiding the overall process of writing as well as particular skills associated with writing history;
• Using organizational structures that give students opportunities to rely on one another for support as they investigate;
• Shortening and editing documents so they are manageable for students.

For example, Talia had students analyze a political cartoon in which an old person representing the Third Estate was carrying the other estates on his back. Students then looked at other documents on the causes of the French Revolution.

• Attending to students’ ideas about history – How teachers focus on and respond to students’ thinking about history and build on their incoming ideas and experiences, address misconceptions, further develop their understanding, and promote historical ways of thinking. In the classroom:

• Noticing students’ disciplinary thinking;
• Identifying and building on students’ prior experiences to facilitate new learning; 
• Recognizing strengths and weaknesses in students’ thinking, particularly what is easy and what is difficult for them in learning a topic or skill;
• Revising or redirecting teaching to support students’ learning of concepts and ways of thinking.

This proved the most challenging aspect of pedagogical content knowledge for the two teachers. For example, Talia noticed that her students struggled with analyzing documents, especially recognizing authorship. Students also tended to assume all documents were factual.

• Framing history – How teachers select and arrange topics into a coherent story that conveys cause-and-effect relationships between and among events as well as the historical significance of events and people. In the classroom:

• Selecting historically significant and thematically related topics to include in lessons. 
• Selecting topics for instruction and making cause-and-effect relationships apparent;
• Linking lessons so that each builds toward an overarching conceptual understanding;
• Linking lessons to unit goals and assessments;
• Making choices about how to organize, present, and modify the curriculum.

For example, Gabrielle worked to focus her unit on revolutions on understanding the influence of Enlightenment thought so each lesson contributed to that overarching concept.

“Developing and Enacting Pedagogical Content Knowledge for Teaching History: An Exploration of Two Novice Teachers’ Growth Over Three Years” by Chauncey Monte-Sano and Christopher Budano in The Journal of the Learning Sciences, April-June 2013 (Vol. 22, #2, p. 171-211), http://bit.ly/15qFs99; Monte-Sano can be reached at cmontesa@umich.edu. 

From the Marshall Memo #484