Running head: History for all

History for All: Concept-Based Instruction in the Social Sciences

Benjamin J. Rogaczewski
Alverno College

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Table of Contents
Abstract................................................................................................................................3
History for All: Content-Based Instruction in the Social Sciences......................................4
Introduction and Initial Strategies.......................................................................................4
Concept-Based Instruction...............................................................................................5
Bibliography........................................................................................................................9

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Abstract
This paper examines what teaching strategies have been suggested for the educating students
with disabilities in an inclusive environment, specifically focusing on History. Subjects within
the Social Sciences, like History, rely heavily on text-based learning and analysis and therefore
pose multiple challenges for students with disabilities. First, we will look at the issue at hand,
concerning the challenges of teaching the Social Sciences, and the teaching strategies
recommended by educators. Second, we will look at concept-based instruction, or CBI, a
primary teaching strategy which aids in the teaching of content areas, like History. Finally, we
will assess how this strategy could benefit education in the Social Sciences.
Keywords: Social Sciences, CBI, Organizational Aids, teaching strategies.

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History for All: Concept-Based Instruction in the Social Sciences
Since the establishment of the Individuals with Disabilities Act, or IDEA, in 1997,
education for all students in the classroom has been a primary focus for the general educator.
Creating a least-restrictive environment for students with disabilities and an inclusive curriculum
became necessary to educate all students, but, as we shall see, it created extra challenges for
teachers of the Social Sciences.
Introduction and Initial Strategies
One of the particular challenges for the Social Science teacher is the standard of textbased content, often times in the form of a textbook. Focusing a great deal of attention on the
analysis of these texts and numerous facts within them appears to inhibit the learning of those
students with learning disabilities (Twyman & Tindal, 2005). This creates a conundrum for these
general education teachershow do they incorporate the text-based content and reach all the
students, especially those with disabilities?
A number of strategies have been suggested in recent years from many educators. Many
of these strategies focus a great deal of attention on graphic organizers or visuals, which have
helped students with organization and processing knowledge (Steele, 2005). Along with these
visual aids, auditory aids, such mnemonic devices, have also been known to help students at least
in memorizing facts from their texts. Yet, still the issue remains of whether or not the student
comprehends the analysis of the texts, or their connection to history. Memorization of the factual
evidence is not enough.
In turning away from visual and auditory aids, teachers have turned to more student
directed methods of learning, such as peer-assisted learning strategies (PALS), to help students
comprehend better the analysis of the texts. Within these strategies, often times students are

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paired up or grouped together in which a student with a weaker literacy level might be paired up
with a student who has a stronger literacy level. In this way, both students are able to accomplish
the task of analyzing the text and answering comprehension questions for said texts. Yet, while
these methods and strategies certainly may help these students to comprehend the texts better, it
does focus more attention on pairing and grouping the students, and does not focus enough
attention on the entire class as a whole. Part of the inclusive classroom is the sentiment that
students who do have learning disabilities do not feel sectioned off in the classroom, but rather as
much a part of the classroom as any other student. To do this, the teacher must focus on adjusting
their curriculum to be more inclusive and encourage participation and text comprehension from
students with disabilities. Recently, educators have looked at one particular teaching strategy
concept-based instructionand have found it to be fostering an inclusive environment for
learning.
Concept-Based Instruction
In the past decade, concept-based instruction has been piloted by several teachers, some
of which resulting in positive outcomes. When H. Lynn Erickson began discussing the theory of
concept-based instruction (CBI) around the mid-2000s, mandated school standards were being
developed and adopted by many schools. Erickson discussed how curriculums could be
formulated within these state standards and promote critical thinking and analysis within their
content areas. Her theory focused on the big picture rather than subject-specific topics, giving
students a more real world connection with the content knowledge of their courses. Therefore,
concept-based instruction mandates more critical thinking at increasingly higher levels of
Blooms taxonomy (Erickson, 2012).

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If we focus on history, a subject indelibly connected to the Social Sciences, we may begin
to understand exactly how CBI lends itself not only to the Social Sciences, but reaching students
with disabilities as well. History focuses a great deal of attention on content within texts, whether
it be through a textbook or series of primary sources. Decades of attention to factual evidence
alone, though, has given students of history an understandably confusing disconnect between the
content of the text and context of history. Add the complex caveat of students with disabilities
and that disconnect grows larger. CBI helps fix the disconnect between the factual evidence and
the context by providing not only organizational concepts for learning, but also defining
attributes which allow the student to apply these concepts to other parts of history, or even other
subjects of study (Twyman & Tindal, 2005). The use of CBI allows the teacher to explicit draw
connections between the text and context through these transdisciplinary concepts. A history
teacher might organize their units around concepts, allowing their students the possibility to
connect those concepts to previous knowledge (Erickson, 2012).
An example of CBI at work will demonstrate its benefits. Let us say that a history teacher
is teaching a unit on slavery in the United States. Using CBI, the teacher realizes that oppression
is an understandable concept when discussing slavery. However, it is not enough to simply
connect the concept to the event in history. The second phase of CBI uses defining characteristics
applied to the concept to help students comprehend the event. In this case, the teacher might
choose three defining characteristics: (1) Oppression is fused within systemic discrimination,
bigotry, and social prejudice; (2) there is a relationship between the dominant and subordinate
parties in that the dominate party benefits through the abuse of the subordinate party; (3)
Oppression is manifested through Isms. Students in the class are able to use these defining
characteristics with oppression, and by applying them to slavery, will also be able to apply them

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to other events covered in the coursework, noticing the different yet similar patterns of history.
The student therefore begins to see history not as single threads, but rather a woven tapestry.
How does CBI benefit students with learning disabilities? In other strategies where
concepts are used for organizational and comprehensive purposes, often times there are few
examples applied to these concepts leading students to believe that the concepts can only be
applied to particular areas. This area of specificity appears to make these disciplines fragmentary
and unrelated to one another, when the reality shows that they are indeed interconnected (Brady,
2004). In a sense, CBI is used by the student as a template to help better analyze the texts. Along
these same lines, an added benefit of CBI is the use of visual organizational aids in note taking
and lesson planning. According to Todd Twyman and Gerald Tindal:
As students fill in the boxes, patterns of relationships become
clear. When used as notes, students with learning disabilities can
discriminate between examples and non-examples of concepts, and
then make evaluative statements using only the critical information
(Twyman & Tindal, 2005).
Using CBI in this way allows the student to organize their thoughts and historical facts in a
conceptual way, allowing for deeper critical thought and analysis. Not only this, teachers can
also use these concepts to organize their course units, also allowing the teacher to make
connections between the units as well.
Finally, one of the primary benefits of CBI is the amount of flexibility within the strategy
itself. Once the concept and its attributes are discussed in the class or lesson plan, the teacher has
the creative freedom to decide what kind of visual aid or organizer would be good for the
concepts. For example, one teacher who used CBI in his class found that problem/solution maps
were best suited for his some of his concepts. The same flexibility could be applied to
assessments which followed the concept maps. The same teacher from before, for example,

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decided to use maze CBMs, or curriculum-based measurements in homework as his assessment.
This particular teacher gathered examples through his concepts and attributes of revolution and
used these attributes and examples to create a maze CBM out of passage in the text (Twyman &
Tindal, 2005). Unsurprisingly, this teacher found that through CBI and these supplemental
methods, the students were more organized in their thoughts and critical thinking, and found that
even his lower functioning students were able to answer difficult questions (Twyman & Tindal,
2005).

Conclusion
Since the Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA) of 1997 and the No Child Left Behind
Act (NCLB) of 2001, inclusion and course standards have been some of the primary foci of
education. Even recently with President Obamas Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) of 2015,
student learning standards remain a forefront of education. Concept-based instruction, or CBI,
appears to benefit all students in the classroom, including those with disabilities. Not only does it
help the Social Science teacher in organization of their lesson plans and curriculum, but also aids
in comprehension of content and texts, encouraging inclusion and a least-restrictive environment
in the classroom. Along these same lines, CBI allows for flexibility in presentation of knowledge
and assessment of comprehension. The use of graphic organizers and visual aids, also encourages
better organization of notes and content. In conjunction with other teaching strategies, CBI
presents the teacher with an instruction technique that benefits students with disabilities in
reading comprehension and content analysis. (Rogaczewski, 2016)

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Bibliography
Brady, M. (2004, December). Thinking Big: A Conceptual Framework for the Study of
Everything. Phi Delta Kappan, 86(4), 276-281.
Erickson, H. L. (2012). Concept-Based Teaching and Learning. International Baccalaureate, 113.
Steele, M. M. (2005). Teaching Social Studies to Students with Mild Disabilities. Social Studies
and the Young Learner, 17(3), 8-10.
Twyman, T., & Tindal, G. (2005, May). Reaching All of Your Students in Social Studies.
Teaching Exceptional Children Plus, 1(5).