High Quality Instructional Materials (HQIM) are educational resources designed to effectively support student learning. They may include textbooks, lesson plans, digital resources, and other carefully crafted materials to meet the needs of diverse students and facilitate meaningful learning experiences. By using HQIM, educators can improve the quality of instruction, support differentiated learning and improve overall learning outcomes.
While the concept of HQIM has been established and adopted in other core academic disciplines, applying this concept to social studies has been more complex. Unlike content standards for math or science, where there is more uniformity across states, Social studies standards can vary significantly from state to state.. This variation reflects the varying historical and cultural priorities of different states. Additionally, social studies encompasses a wide range of disciplines, including history, geography, civics, and economics, each with its own set of disciplinary practices. This variety makes it difficult to create materials universally recognized as high quality in all aspects of social studies.
Recently, EdSurge spoke with Kathy Cisne, a veteran social studies education professor with 20 years of experience at the University of Kentucky. Swan worked as a bank examiner for the FDIC before transitioning to teaching, a role she pursued both nationally and internationally for approximately 10 years. He later earned his Ph.D. from the University of Virginia before joining the faculty at the University of Kentucky.
Throughout her career, Swan has been interested in research-based pedagogy, drawing on her experiences as a teacher. Despite initially having reservations about the standards, she became the lead writer and project manager for the University, professional and civic life framework (C3), a set of national standards for social studies education. Swan views the C3 Framework and inquiry-based learning as guides for teachers to create and implement effective and engaging social studies classrooms. She has taken advantage of her experience to contribute to Imagine learningwhere she served as a leading consultant in the development of crossyour new social studies program.
EdSurge: What is inquiry-based learning? Why is it considered an effective instructional strategy?
Swan: Research is life. Our lives in the natural world are driven by a number of existential questions, as well as supporting questions (or just-in-time questions), which help us navigate each moment. Just today I asked myself: “Should I eat that? What do I think about the state of the union? Should I go for a walk or go directly to work?
Inquiry-based learning frames learning through questions rather than answers, and in the classroom, students ask those questions with guidance from teachers. Social studies education, in particular, has often focused on answers to questions about when something happened or who someone was, learning the molecular parts of the content. Inquiry attempts to translate that into questions that students can think about, giving them greater agency with the questions that drive learning. In other words, they don't just memorize answers.
That is the strength of research; It unites us across the educational spectrum. In a book I recently co-authored, I suggested that Research is to education as freedom is to democracy: it is built into the cake.. We don't just discover inquiry, which I find really reassuring as an educator because we're in this field where there can be a fad every week. The fact that we have been talking about educational research for over a hundred years, since John Dewey codified it, helps me believe in it and invest my time and energy in it. We're just having an old conversation with new tricks.
How is the C3 Framework different from traditional sets of standards, and what factors contributed to its widespread adoption in social studies education?
The C3 Framework is the equivalent of our national standards document, but it is No a set of standards. The Common Core in ELA and math was a set of standards intended to be adopted almost entirely by states, and overnight, nearly 90 percent of states adopted them. Science (standards) followed that idea.
We understood that a set of standards in social studies would be complicated because of the names, dates, places, and events that people fight over. There can be negative reactions, especially around content that people are passionate about, so we take a different approach. Instead, we created a framework that describes these dimensions and indicators that establish could use to inform your social studies standards. We wanted the social studies standards to have the flexibility to speak to culturally responsive pedagogies and, on the other hand, not allow the federal government to tell local or state governments how curricula should be created.
C3 Framework was released in 2013. We really hoped the phones were ringing the day it was released. We joked about it in the book we just wrote, Revolution of ideas: a decade of C3 research. C3 fell like a feather. Nobody seemed to care (laughs). Then, over time, C3 gained momentum in every way. It has become the vernacular, the lodestar of social studies.
One of the reasons the C3 Framework finally saw widespread adoption is that it is a flexible document that gives states greater agency. However, the most important reason is that the framework provides good ideas that resonate with real teachers and policymakers. The foundation is very well established. Who can argue with research? C3 won on the strength of its ideas.
A research-based education equips students for college, career, and civic life: C3! The most important thing we do in social studies education is prepare citizens to live in a diverse democracy. Inquiry is a way to build democratic laboratory experiences where students can practice living in a deliberative and diverse democracy.
How is inquiry-based learning integrated into the development of HQIM for social studies?
The acronym HQIM may be fairly new, but the concepts behind it are not. HQIMs are standards-based, query-based and allow for differentiation. The C3 framework is based on compelling questions: Questions designed for multiple perspectives and more than one answer. The social studies practices of HQIM speak directly to the disciplinary practices in C3. And research, as a practice, is based on examining diverse perspectives to understand human phenomena.
The C3 Framework and HQIMs complement each other; Both support an equity lens that we need in social studies through research. The sources we use within an investigation that students examine should allow those perspectives to emerge. The inquiry process not only considers different past and present perspectives, but also emphasizes students' perspectives as they use evidence and their own reasoning to answer compelling questions. It is important to unravel the layers of those perspectives within an inquiry experience.
What additional insights can we draw from the C3 Framework in defining HQIMs for social studies?
It is essential that we, as educators, teach the entire Consultation arc – the four dimensions. Dimension One involves developing questions to drive the research. Provides the So What? for social studies practices. But sometimes teachers want to jump to Dimension Two, where content concepts and disciplinary practices reside. The third dimension focuses on the evaluation of sources and the use of evidence. The Fourth Dimension is important because it pushes students to express their conclusions and take informed action. This can be another tricky space for teachers. Dimensions Two and Three are already in most teachers' wheelhouse, but Dimensions One and Four can feel like Narnia. But those complicated spaces are the spaces that make the difference. They speak to the vitality of the social studies curriculum.
When I look at a social studies curriculum, I don't just think: Can students construct an evidentiary argument after reading a source in response to a question? I'm thinking, Where is life? Where is the energy? Where is the vitality that can be transferred to the classroom? Vitality develops into that important question that makes students want to learn more, and then comes to the end, where students can express themselves and take action. You can have many curricula that meet requirements, but will they come to life in the classroom?
