How do ‘enquiry questions’ help
struggling students learn
history?
Scottish Association of Teachers of History
8 November 2014
Christine Counsell
University of Cambridge Faculty of Education
Who were the victims of the
Holocaust?
Jewish people
Other groups
Geographical diversity
Ethnicity
Age, generations
Relationships
Those left behind?
But WHO are they in relation to the Holocaust? “…victims”?
The unborn?
truncated communities/traditions/families
Perpetrators? Bystanders?
But ‘victim’ ???
What is a ‘victim’?
So, WHO were the victims of the Holocaust?
What made this question work well?
WHO were the victims of the Holocaust?
It’s deceptively simple…
…but it has a puzzle at its centre.
That historical puzzle emerges only gradually.
The puzzle is clearly located within
one second-order concept…
History’s second-order concepts
History’s ideas, structures or big concepts that shape typical historical
questions and organise historical accounts
•
•
•
•
cause and consequence
change and continuity
similarity and difference (diversity)
historical significance
Traditional approach. A lesson on
each category. Fine, but where is the
puzzle?
Jews
Gipsy Roma
peoples
Homosexual
s
Mentally ill
further persecuted
categories
An approach driven by a sim/diff
puzzle. Each lesson confronts the
SAME problem (‘Who?’). Crucially,
each lesson addresses ALL victims
at once. Each lesson we see them
all through a new lens, a new
taxonomy for handling the ‘Who…?’
All the traditional
categories
Geography
Ethnicity
Age (etc)
History’s second-order concepts
History’s ideas, structures or big concepts that shape typical historical
questions and organise historical accounts
•
•
•
•
cause and consequence
change and continuity
similarity and difference (diversity)
historical significance
Lessons learned in 1980s and 1990s
What went wrong?
Sources reduced to atomised ‘skills’
Misconceptions fostered
Weaker students often alienated and
confused
Emerging solutions: the ‘enquiry question’
Riley, M. (2000) ‘Into the Key Stage 3 history garden:
choosing and planting your enquiry questions’, Teaching
History, 99.
•
•
•
•
•
A sequence of lessons around ONE question
Sources only used as part of a real puzzle
Evidential thinking LINKED TO THE QUESTION
Full integration of knowledge context
SUBSTANTIAL, MOTIVATING outcome activity
Across the 2000s…
Clearer professional thinking about question types
(second-order concept) and how they recur.
Progression = teaching pupils to notice recurring
features across the second-order concepts
History’s second-order concepts
History’s ideas, structures or big concepts that shape typical historical
questions and organise historical accounts
•
•
•
•
cause and consequence
change and continuity
similarity and difference (diversity)
historical significance
History’s second-order concepts
History’s ideas, structures or big concepts that shape typical historical
questions and organise historical accounts
•
•
•
•
cause and consequence
change and continuity
similarity and difference (diversity)
historical significance
causation
•
•
•
•
Why did Scotland become Protestant?
Why did Mary lose her throne?
Why did the Atlantic slave trade last so long?
How important were economic factors in
making Scots emigrate?
• How far was Nicholas II responsible for the
collapse of Tsarist Russia?
How do history teachers
learn to frame effective
enquiry questions?
How do history teachers manage interplay of content and
concept in planning?
Research questions:
What were history teachers’ recurring objects of
concern as they wrestled with the wording of an
enquiry question?
How did these these properties interact during
planning?
Data:
3 MEds; 4 PCPSs; 5 PGCEs: analytic notes on supervisions/tutorials, enquiry
plans (including successive earlier drafts); lesson plans; observations;
discussion after observations; assignments, follow-up interview.
History’s second-order concepts
History’s ideas, structures or big concepts that shape typical historical
questions and organise historical accounts
•
•
•
•
cause and consequence
change and continuity
similarity and difference (diversity)
historical significance
Example: Elody and her French
Revolution enquiry
Effort 1: How big was the change from subject to citizen?
Effort 2: How big was the change experienced by French
people?
Effort 3: Who experienced most freedom during the French
Revolution?
This was closer to what Elody was trying to do, but she couldn’t get a sense of
the final judgements pupils would make, and feared they would be simplistic or
overly speculative and unhistorical.
types of change (Shemilt 1980)
• degree/extent?
• speed/rate/pace?
• nature/type?
• direction of change?
Example: Elody and her French
Revolution enquiry
Effort 1: How big was the change from subject to citizen?
Effort 2: How big was the change experienced by French
people?
Effort 3: Who experienced most freedom during the French
Revolution?
This was closer to what Elody was trying to do, but she couldn’t get a sense of
the final judgements pupils would make, and feared they would be simplistic or
overly speculative and unhistorical.
Effort 4: How quickly did France change during
the French Revolution? Almost there? But is pace of
change actually doable and is it what I want to focus on?
Palek, D. (2013) Was the Great Depression
always depressing? Examining diachronic
diversity in students’ historical learning,
International Journal of Learning and Lesson
Studies, 2.2
Example: Elody and her French
Revolution enquiry
How big was the change from subject to citizen?
How big was the change for French people?
Who experienced most freedom during the French Revolution?
How quickly did France change during the French Revolution?
EUREKA! What KIND of change was the French
Revolution?
How do history teachers manage interplay of content and
concept in planning?
Research questions:
What were history teachers’ recurring objects of
concern as they wrestled with the wording of an
enquiry question?
How did these these properties interact during
planning?
Data:
3 MEds; 4 PCPSs; 5 PGCEs: analytic notes on supervisions/tutorials, enquiry
plans (including successive earlier drafts); lesson plans; observations;
discussion after observations; assignments, follow-up interview.
Two themes: she is trying to find:
1
stable conceptual focus
How much can Vera Brittain tell us about experience of
women in the First World War?
What was going on in the “Glorious” Revolution of 1688?
What did the master mason of Ely Cathedral know?
What did the craftsmen of Cordoba know?
Why did Islamic empires grow?
What does Henry VI’s reign reveal about medieval
kingship?
How much can Vera Brittain tell us about experience of women in
the First World War?
EVIDENCE
What was going on in the “Glorious” Revolution of 1688?
CHANGE/CONTINUITY
What did the master mason of Ely Cathedral know? SIM/DIFF
What did the craftsmen of Cordoba know? SIM/DIFF
Why did Islamic empires grow? CAUSATION
What does Henry VI’s reign reveal about medieval kingship?
SIGNIFICANCE
Two themes: she is trying to find:
1
stable conceptual focus
2
dynamic content scope
As she tests the EQ against the
unfolding lesson sequence, Elody is
trying to find …
1
recursive encounter
2
emergent puzzle
3
a knowledge-transforming
resolution
Where do I want
the content
scope fixed and
where do I want it
dynamic?
How can I keep
the conceptual
focus stable?
WHAT DO HISTORY TEACHERS DO WHEN THEY WRESTLE WITH
ENQUIRY QUESTIONS THAT WILL MOTIVATE AND BUILD
PROGRESSION IN BOTH HISTORICAL THINKING AND KNOWLEDGE?
Two themes:
Finding stable conceptual focus (framework for historical
thinking; type of historical question)
Establishing dynamic content scope (substantive knowledge
to be acquired; scope for pupil selection &
transformation)
Three dimensions:
Knowledge-transforming resolution, recursive encounter,
emergent puzzle
Emerging solutions: the ‘enquiry question’
Riley, M. (2000) ‘Into the Key Stage 3 history garden:
choosing and planting your enquiry questions’, Teaching
History, 99.
•
•
•
•
•
A sequence of lessons around ONE question
Sources only used as part of a real puzzle
Evidential thinking LINKED TO THE QUESTION
Full integration of knowledge context
SUBSTANTIAL, MOTIVATING outcome activity
Across the 2000s…
Clearer professional thinking about question types
(second-order concept) and how they recur.
Progression = teaching pupils to notice recurring
features across the second-order concepts