A Historical Approach to Social Studies Laboratory Method

Bulent Tarman,James Mauch

doi:10.46303/ressat.01.02.2

Abstract

In the early years of Social Studies education, great attention was given to "Social Studies Laboratories" and a teaching and learning pedagogy called "The Laboratory Method" This study examines historical documents about the development of the social studies laboratory. The researchers examined certain periodicals published in the US such as Education, The Historical Outlook and The History Teacher's Magazine along with the non-experimental historical research methodology. In an age of inquiry-based projects and "hands-on" approaches to the learning of Social Studies, a brief historical overview of the foundations of such approaches in the Social Studies seems appropriate from US perspective. Parallels are drawn by using comparative approach, and suggestions made, for a twenty-first century approach to a Social Studies Laboratory and a Laboratory Method of teaching the many disciplines that define the Social Studies. The findings of this study indicate that despite the social studies classroom, method and laboratory may have changed a great deal over the past century, the goals of the social studies teacher have not changed. The social studies teacher still works to keep his or her students actively engaged in learning, still works to help them learn new concepts and skills, and still works to help each and every student succeed. Above all, the social studies teacher still looks for strategies and tools to help students prepare for life outside of the classroom. In conclusion, a valuable lesson is to be learned from the early development of the social studies laboratory: the room, the technology and the innovative ideas are meaningless unless accompanied by a commitment to move toward student-centered activities and learning, a twenty-first century version of the "laboratory method". It is when technological access becomes inexorably entwined with teaching strategies that empower students to use, develop and critique the technology that substantive learning takes place in the social studies classroom.

Highlights

During the first quarter of the twentieth century, a small cadre of United States (US)social studies educators began calling for what they envisioned as a “social studies laboratory”, Tarman & MauchResearch in Social Sciences and Technology, 1(2), 55-66 a phrase that came to encompass both an idea for a separate room devoted to the exploration of social studies concepts and a methodology for teaching
As early as 1896, Professor Barnes described the duality of the social studies laboratory and the “laboratory method”: And as science has pushed her way out of the narrow textbook and the common schoolroom, with its dogmatic teacher, into the world of phenomena, and into special laboratories fitted with work-tables, collections, and apparatus...so history is destined to push its way out of the same narrow textbook and common schoolroom, with its dogmatic teacher into the world of human nature, and into special seminaries, fitted with maps, pictures, and books, with a work-table for every student, this whole provided over by a specialist who can guide the student to his sources, and show him how to interpret them truly and critically (p. 4445)
Though the social studies classroom, method and laboratory may have changed a great deal over the past century, the goals of the social studies teacher have not changed

Summary

Introduction

During the first quarter of the twentieth century, a small cadre of United States (US)social studies educators began calling for what they envisioned as a “social studies laboratory”, Tarman & MauchResearch in Social Sciences and Technology, 1(2), 55-66 a phrase that came to encompass both an idea for a separate room devoted to the exploration of social studies concepts and a methodology for teaching. Created and developed by one of Professor Barnes’ former students, the Pratt Institute’s social studies laboratory aroused both educational and public interest when it was first described. Many educators of the era took this concept one step further, insisting that teachers and students visualize the social studies laboratory as existing beyond the four walls of the classroom.

Results

Conclusion