Textbooks have been standard schoolroom fixtures for as long as most living citizens of this country can remember. Many turn-of-the-century students were introduced to reading through the moralistic McGuffey Readers and struggled through the rather drab and colorless pages of volumes on history, geography and civics. In contrast, today's textbooks contain not only narrative content accompanied by colorful photographs and graphics, but also section and chapter exercises that are extended through the use of worksheets and other materials. Moreover, the textbook and its related student materials are packaged together with teacher's editions and tests in grade-level sets that amount to content area programs rather than mere texts.

The New Social Studies refers to a flurry of academic and commercial activity during the 1960s and 1970s that resulted in the mass development and dissemination of revolutionary classroom materials and teacher resources. In science as well as social studies, a spirit of “inquiry-based teaching” filled the air during this time, resulting in the development of curricula that were both pedagogically innovative and intellectually rigorous. “Constructivism and the New Social Studies” contains a collection of classic lessons from some of the most successful projects of the era, providing a resource of exceptional ideas and materials that have stood the test of time. These revealing artifacts are presented with commentaries from some of the original directors of major projects, including Edwin Fenton, Barry Beyer, and Suzanne Helburn. In addition to American and World History, groundbreaking lessons are represented in Economics, Government, Sociology, and Geography, including the Public Issues Series (Fred Newann), The Amherst History Project (Richard Brown and Geoffrey Scheurman) and Teaching American History: The Quest for Relevancy (Allan Kownslar, Gerald Ponder, and Geneva Gay), and Man: A Course of Study (Peter Dow). With a Foreword by Jerome Bruner, the volume not only provides a resource of exceptional curriculum ideas and actual materials, it also builds a lucid bridge between the theoretical ideas of constructivism and the pedagogical principles of inquiry learning. With over 50 years of expertise from curriculum history and social studies pedagogy, the editors make the case that “guided inquiry” as presented in these projects was constructivist by design, offering a range of instructional methods that begin with questions rather than answers and considers progress in terms of the development of analytical skills and experimental habits of mind rather than the mere acquisition of knowledge. Projects developed during the New Social Studies serve as both an interesting historical archive of powerful curricular innovations as well as a treasure trove of actual lessons and materials still useful in social studies classrooms striving to become more constructivist. The lessons and other materials we chose should be relevant if you are an historian, researcher, theorist, or teacher of any subject, but it will be especially significant if you are interested in the nature of social, civic, or historical literacy in America, including how to teach for authentic achievement in those areas.

Since 1989, with the publication of Curriculum and Evaluation Standards for Mathematics by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, standards have been at the forefront of the education reform movement in the United States. The mathematics standards, which were revised in 2000, have been joined by standards in many subjects, including the National Research Council's National Science Education Standards published in 1996 and the Standards for Technical Literacy issued by the International Technology Education Association in 2000. There is no doubt that standards have begun to influence the education system. The question remains, however, what the nature of that influence is and, most importantly, whether standards truly improve student learning. To answer those questions, one must begin to examine the ways in which components of the system have been influenced by the standards. Investigating the Influence of Standards provides a framework to guide the design, conduct, and interpretation of research regarding the influences of nationally promulgated standards in mathematics, science, and technology education on student learning. Researchers and consumers of research such as teachers, teacher educators, and administrators will find the framework useful as they work toward developing an understanding of the influence of standards.

There’s no book like this one for educators interested in issues-centered teaching. More than 40 experts have contributed articles offering comprehensive coverageof the field of social issues education. In addition to a full examination of objectives and methods, contributors show how social issues can be taught as part of history, geography, the social sciences, and global and environmental studies. The challenges of assessment, curriculum, and effective teacher education are fully explored. With its teaching ideas and useful resource section, this book is an indispensable addition to your library! Contributors include: Shirley Engle, Anna Ochoa-Becker, Jack Nelson, Carole Hahn, Byron Massialas, Jeff Passe, Jesus Garcia, Gloria Ladson-Billings, Merry Merryfield, Patricia Avery, Sam Totten, Bill Wraga, Walter Parker, and James Shaver.