MIT Year 1,

Winter, 2004

HISTORY PROJECT

EXPANDING ROLES OF EDUCATION:

WELFARE, WORKPLACE, AND MERITOCRACY

 

GUIDING QUESTION: How did ethno-centrisim, racism, sexism, class and religious values, democracy, and a developing capitalistic economy affect the evolution of public schools in America?

 

Your task is to research the social, economic, and political contexts that led to public schools assuming roles connected with moral development, work skills, and determining students' worth through tests.

 

  1. Each person will need to seek information from at least 3 sources, BEGINNING with Chapters 11, 12, & 13 of The American School by Joel Spring. Take thorough notes about the issues that affected the development and content of schools during this period.
  2. After gaining an overview of the issues from Spring, meet as a group and decide on .particular issues to focus on as each of you pursues your next two sources (see linked websites for possible source material).. For example, one of you might want to learn more about Froebel and the kindergarten movement, another could research Herbart's influence on schools, another could look at Thorndike's role in educational testing, another could learn more about the development of high schools and vocational education, and another could explore the development of testing to determine merit.
  3.  Each person will hand in an individual annotated bibliography of her/his sources.
  4.  Next, your group needs to meet and decide how to create a time-Iine of the time from 1870 to approximately 1920. Include events pertaining to education, politics, the economy, and society that you discovered in your research.
  5. Then, as a group, create a poster that provides a visual representation of an overview of key issues from the chapters in Spring's book, and, .the particular topics each of you investigated. You could use H-maps, Venn diagrams, or a concept map for the overview.
  6. Then, decide together how you will present your findings to the program. You will have 40 minutes to teach your peers about the issues you researched. Review the models of teaching, select an approach, and write your lesson plan. Be sure to connect the information you researched to the functions of schooling that education served in this time period and to the guiding question.
  7. Finally, write three assessment questions (and their answers) that could be used to assess your peers' understanding of the information you will be presenting. Before writing your questions, revisit Arends' section on Bloom's taxonomy. Only one question can be at the  knowledge or comprehension level.
  8. On Tuesday, Feb. 3 you will teach your section and hand in