Supporting Ongoing, Collective Learning about Teaching Social Studies Inquiry and Argumentation
New Learning
Each LLSS PD day begins by centering one area for new learning and offering teachers resources for engaging in that learning. Then, throughout the day, teachers develop their understanding through shared experiences with each other and students. An inquiry question guides teachers’ attention to the area for new learning across the PD day and can be developed in collaboration with teachers.
Below, we suggest some areas for new learning with sample teacher inquiry questions that have been useful in our experience. Another approach is to identify shared dilemmas that emerge in discussion-based and student-centered inquiry teaching and learning and learn more about them together. Examples of inquiry questions that can guide new learning about shared dilemmas include: Who is actively participating in the investigation and who is not? Why? Whose ideas are getting taken up and whose are not? Why? How might we support more equitable participation?
Areas for New Learning
Examples of Inquiry Questions to Guide Teacher Learning
- What dominant narratives and counternarratives have shaped how this topic has been represented over time and how I’ve learned about it? What new ideas or perspectives does this investigation help us understand?
- What different claims or responses to the central question do the investigation sources support ?
- Which sources are more/less useful in developing claims? Why?
- What is involved in a social studies argument?
Examples of Inquiry Questions to Guide Teacher Learning
- What experiences and knowledge do students bring that are resources to draw on? [look at orient to content posters]
- How are students making sense of and thinking analytically about the sources, the topic, and the CQ? [look at students’ annotations]
- What claims are students developing in response to the CQ? How are they supporting their claims with evidence and reasoning?
- Which student resources could we draw on to support and extend their inquiry?
- How can we use the RIW Orient to Content tool to learn more about what students bring to an investigation and the possible connections they make to their lives/today?
Examples of Inquiry Questions to Guide Teacher Learning
- How can we elicit and take up students’ thinking?
- How can honor different perspectives and invite students’ participation in discussions?
- How can I as a teacher facilitate, manage, develop the conversation in the classroom in ways that support students to share what they know?
- How do we make sense of and respond to unexpected or seemingly “off-topic” ideas that students offer?
- How can I support students’ talk and thinking even as they work on writing?
Examples of Inquiry Questions to Guide Teacher Learning
- How are students making sense of and thinking analytically about the sources?
- How can we use the RIW Bookmark tool to support students’ understanding of sources and historical thinking?
- How can we use the RIW Weigh the Evidence tool to support students in deliberating about and developing plausible arguments that are grounded in the available evidence?
- How can we use the RIW Mentor Text, Planning Graphic Organizer, Useful Language, and/or Reflection tools to support students’ evidence-based argument writing?
Examples of Inquiry Questions to Guide Teacher Learning
- What language and other resources are students using in their small group talk?
- How can we incorporate opportunities for students to draw on their home languages and experiences?
- How can we support the participation of students who are learning English?
