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ERIC Number: EJ825224
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2008
Pages: 39
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0093-3104
EISSN: N/A
Facilitating Historical Discussions Using Asynchronous Communication: The Role of the Teacher
Journell, Wayne
Theory and Research in Social Education, v36 n4 p317-355 Fall 2008
This study examines the effectiveness of asynchronous communication in facilitating historical discussions among adolescents, with a specific focus on the ways in which teachers can affect this process. Threaded discussion board posts and teacher-student email correspondence from a five-week American history summer course are analyzed and triangulated with interview and observational data as part of a single case study. Using a social constructivist framework, the results suggest that the students in this particular course did not critically engage in discussions of a historical nature and often relied on unsubstantiated opinions that rarely challenged preexisting or canonical notions of history. The results also suggest that the teacher's actions or lack thereof may have contributed to the perfunctory social experience that students received. Although this study only serves as one example of K-12 e-learning, the findings offer implications for teaching and learning social studies within online environments. (Contains 5 tables and 6 notes.)
College and University Faculty Assembly of NCSS. 8555 Sixteenth Street Suite 500, Silver Spring, MD 20910. Tel: 800-683-0812; Tel: 301-588-1800; Fax: 301-588-2049; Web site: http://www.socialstudies.org/cufa/trse/
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: Elementary Secondary Education
Audience: Teachers
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A