Seeing Is Believing

Abstract

This study addresses the following questions: Does professional development (PD) designed to meet third-, fourth-, and fifth-grade teachers’ pedagogical and content needs influence how teachers teach and engage with graphical devices found in social studies texts? If so, what effect does that instruction and engagement have on students’ comprehension of those devices and social studies reading materials that contain them? We worked with teachers and students in a context-embedded PD series that emphasized literacy skills specific to standards that address accessing and sharing information (Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts) as social studies specialists (e.g., historians, geographers, economists; C3 Framework), with a particular focus on the graphical devices commonly found in social studies instructional materials (i.e., captioned images, maps, tables, timelines). Using teacher interviews, curricular materials, field notes, and student pre- and post-assessments as data sources, we explain the impact of this intervention on teaching and learning.

Keywords

practice-based teacher education teacher knowledge instructional practices elementary education standards

Well-resourced classrooms are beneficial for students and points of pride for schools, but simply having the right “stuff” is insufficient for ensuring learning. Students need time and instruction related to using those resources in productive ways. Similarly, when it comes to professional development (PD), teachers need the trifecta: adequate tangible resources, time to try out and refine instructional techniques, and professional content and pedagogical knowledge (Shulman, 1986). However, many teachers with whom we have worked lament that this ideal is far from their reality, echoing Shulman’s conclusion: “There are lots of ideas but no time to figure out how to use them and no materials [e.g., books, lesson or unit plans] to implement”; and “[We] often don’t get to see how the PD will work for us.” In addition, in elementary schools, the PD time and resources available are typically spent on tested content areas (i.e., math and language arts), leaving little time for PD on untested subjects, such as social studies. In fact, when we asked the participants in this study about PD related to social studies, we were met largely with blank stares—it simply did not exist in their experiences.

For some time, this narrow curricular view may also have been due to the adoption of new language arts and math standards (National Governors Association Center for Best Practices & Council of Chief State School Officers [NGACBP & CCSS], 2010). However, in 2013, leading organizations in science and social studies also released standards documents (National Council for the Social Studies [NCSS], 2013; NGSS Lead States, 2013) that have since been widely adopted. According to the inservice teachers with whom we work, these standards have simply been handed to teachers, who perhaps received a day of PD on them. Many teachers have been given little support to learn about, teach, and assess four new sets of standards released in the last 6 years—each of which merits ongoing, focused PD.

It is not feasible to focus on one set of standards at a time when all need to be implemented. Engaging in token amounts of PD in each subject area would likely also be ineffective. One approach that could mitigate the drawbacks of these approaches would be to address areas of overlap in the standards, for example, between the social studies content and literacy skills needed to access that content. We cross-walked the social studies and language arts standards documents and saw a unique opportunity “double-dip.” The Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts (CCSS; NGACBP & CCSS, 2010) emphasize the use of literacy skills for the purpose of informational text comprehension and creation, particularly in the content areas, whereas The C3 Framework for Social Studies State Standards (C3; NCSS, 2013) focuses on the inquiry arc that can be used to comprehend social studies concepts from a variety of sources, including informational texts, and to create new knowledge. The purpose of this article is to explore the impact of a PD model focused on these areas of overlap, closely examining its impact on both teachers’ instruction and students’ learning.

Theoretical Framework

This research is grounded in two interconnected theoretical frameworks: pedagogical content knowledge (PCK; Shulman, 1986) and situated learning (Lave & Wenger, 1991). PCK includes teachers’ understandings of specific content, the ways in which content can best be represented and shared to make it comprehensible to others, and knowledge of the most common conceptions and misconceptions that students bring to the content learning (Shulman, 1986). Situated learning posits that we learn best when we have opportunities to practice new skills in authentic contexts, progressing from newcomer to expert through authentic activities within a community of practice (Lave & Wenger, 1991). Together, these theories served to guide our thinking about what teachers need to successfully teach literacy skills in the context of social studies instruction (PCK), and how we might to support them as their PCK, related to particular content and skills, moves from novice to expert.

In the design stage of this study, we began by collecting published, peer-reviewed research related to what students need to know and be able to do to be successful, independent social studies learners. We also interviewed all participating teachers and observed them teaching social studies and literacy lessons to determine aspects of PCK including (a) students’ understandings and misconceptions, (b) teachers’ understanding of what discipline-specific skills and knowledge are needed, and (c) teachers’ disciplinary-specific pedagogical understandings. Triangulating these points situated our own learning and that of our participants within a particular context and community, and allowed us to identify particular content upon which to focus. With this information, we were able to design PD to address PCK, specifically centered on teaching students to read the most common graphical elements (i.e., captioned images, maps, tables, timelines) found in social studies resources, an area in which students had several misconceptions and about which teachers had very little PCK. To examine the effectiveness of our approach, we asked the following in relation to this particular context:

Research Question 1: Does PD designed to meet third-, fourth-, and fifth-grade teachers’ pedagogical and content needs influence how teachers teach and engage with graphical devices found in social studies texts? If so, in what ways?

Research Question 2: If so, what effect does that instruction and engagement have on students’ comprehension of those devices and social studies reading materials that contain them?

Literature Review

Building on the PCK and situated learning frameworks, we draw on three areas of educational research: (a) visual literacy and graphical devices, (b) learning of literacy and social studies, and (c) PD. The PD implemented in this study was designed with pedagogy related to visual literacy and graphical device comprehension (content) as a central focus. Furthermore, we worked collaboratively with teachers to design PD grounded in their particular context (e.g., school community, grade, classroom curricula).

Visual Literacy/Graphical Devices

For the purposes of this study, we use graphics and graphical devices interchangeably to describe visual presentations of content with or without textual adjunct, such as captioned photographs, flowcharts, graphs, illustrations/drawings, maps, and tables. These types of devices are prevalent as primary sources (e.g., Lewis and Clark’s maps of North America, photographs of the Dust Bowl), and nearly universal in the text and trade books that serve as secondary sources for students’ learning of social studies (Fingeret, 2012). It is not surprising that the research community recommends that students learn to comprehend both written and visual representations (e.g., Staley, 2006). Although there is a good deal of research that examines students’ understanding of graphical devices under particular conditions (e.g., Barton, 2002; Pozzer-Ardenghi & Roth, 2004) and their responses to particular instruction or support (e.g., Gersmehl & Gersmehl, 2007; Masterman & Rogers, 2002), there is little research that examines teachers’ preparedness to teach with and about them. So, although we know that it is possible for students to learn more from integrating graphics and print, research does not provide much guidance as to the best ways to prepare teachers to help students do so.

Learning of Literacy and Social Studies

The skills and knowledge needed to comprehend text vary by context, text type, purpose for reading, interest, background knowledge, and topic, among other factors (e.g., Duke, 2005; RAND Reading Study Group, 2002), all of which fluctuate with content area. The skills and knowledge needed to read a social studies textbook, atlas, or historical document—the types of texts common in social studies instruction—differ from the skills needed to read the narrative fiction texts with which elementary students tend to be bombarded (e.g., Duke, 2000; Jeong, Gaffney, & Choi, 2010). It stands to reason that instruction should differ, as well. To be successful, social studies learners must be provided with opportunities to learn appropriate, domain-specific literacy skills (Bain, 2006; Moje, 2007; VanSledright, 2005).

It is well established that readers’ understandings of text-based differences, such as text structures or content-specific vocabulary, can affect comprehension (e.g., Meyer & Poon, 2001; Williams, Stafford, Lauer, Hall, & Pollini, 2009). However, variations in the literacy skills required for content-area learning go well beyond the written text. For example, many social studies texts include maps designed to show geographic relationships between events. To effectively comprehend these, readers must understand when and how to access information from the map and successfully integrate it with information from the running text. Similarly, readers must be able to use captions to interpret images, tables to explore relationships between data, and timelines to contextualize events. Not only do these graphics help readers to understand the written text, they also provide information that cannot be gained from the written text, alone (Fingeret, 2012). In addition, the ability to accurately interpret these graphical elements of informational text uniquely contributes to overall understanding of the full text (Roberts, Norman, & Cocco, 2015). Therefore, successful social studies learning, in addition to general skills (e.g., decoding and encoding words) and habits of mind (e.g., acknowledging varied perspectives, questioning sources), requires that students are able to access and share information via a variety of modalities, many of which are distinct to the field.

Professional Development

There is a large body of research on what is likely to lead to effective PD. First, PD should reflect student and teacher needs, which is best accomplished by involving teachers in its planning, development, and implementation (e.g., Hawley & Valli, 2001; Lieberman & Grolnick, 1996). This entails that we understand PD not as something given or done to teachers, but rather something created and implemented with teachers. In addition, PD should be part of a larger plan for collaborative, school-wide change (e.g., Hawley & Valli, 2001), providing an environment in which everyone can support each other in working toward a common goal. Ball and Cohen (1999) note the importance of sustained PD opportunities throughout teachers’ careers, a call echoed by others (e.g., Bailey, 2010; Feiman-Nemser, 2001). Furthermore, PD should also be relevant to daily classroom life and embedded across the school day (e.g., Darling-Hammond, 1998; Garet, Porter, Desimone, Birman, & Yoon, 2001). Without such opportunities, teachers are less likely to adapt their teaching to meet ever-changing learning needs of their students and standards of practice.

Method

With this research in mind, we (two researchers) began to design a mixed-methods study to examine a job-embedded PD initiative in which we worked collaboratively with teachers to improve their PCK and students’ understanding of social studies informational text. We identified a consistent theme in the analysis of preintervention interviews with the teacher participants in this study, which was the need to help teachers and students better understand the graphical devices most frequently found in social studies trade and textbooks (i.e., captions, maps, tables, and timelines) as a means to help them better understand social studies content and build informational text reading skills. The teachers understood graphics in some ways. They talked around the concept of visual literacy from describing the posters on classroom walls to students drawing pictures across the curriculum, and were able to discuss what graphical devices they used in their classrooms. To this point, Ms. Ruler (all names are pseudonyms) gave as examples such as “using graphs [and] mapping.” However, they had more difficulty describing how they were used instructionally or to aid in student comprehension; thus, these facets of graphical comprehension became the focus of our PD work with the teachers.

Theories of situated learning (e.g., Lave & Wenger, 1991) assert that learning is most effective when it is a part of authentic, context-embedded activity in which one can apply new knowledge to an existing context. Therefore, we positioned ourselves within participating teachers’ classrooms, aligning the content of our PD and model lessons to classroom rhythms and social studies curricula, as well as the coidentified pedagogical practices associated with graphics.

Intervention Design

Essential to our intervention model was time for teachers and researchers to collaboratively identify needs, learn from each other through observation and discussion, and put that learning into practice through teaching followed by reflection. Also essential was time frame—the PD in which we engaged focused on one topic (graphical comprehension in social studies texts) over an extended period of time (8 weeks), allowing teachers the time to learn, observe, implement, reflect, question, and implement again (Figure 1).

Figure 1.

Overview of job-embedded PD phases.

Working with grade-level teams, we delivered five 20- to 30-min PD sessions. In the first, we discussed content-area and graphical literacy in the context of student assessment results (described below). In each of the next four sessions, we focused on a particular graphical device, its role in textual understanding, and instructional pedagogy. For example, when we conducted the PD on captioned images with fourth-grade teachers, Ms. Rollins and Ms. Ruler, we started with sharing some of the responses their students gave to caption items on the Visual Literacy Assessment (VLA, described below; Brugar, Roberts, & McGuire, 2013; Duke, Roberts, & Norman, 2011), and worked together to identify patterns in student’s understandings and misunderstandings. Then, we defined canonical captions as illustrations or photographs accompanied by words, phrases, or sentences, near (but not within) the graphic, but separate from the running text (Roberts et al., 2013). With this definition in mind, we introduced visual thinking strategies (VTS; Yenawine, 2013). VTS entails presenting students with an image and asking what they see happening within it, and what they saw that made them believe so. We then talked coplanned a social studies lesson using VTS in which their students would create captions for historical photographs of the Michigan lumber industry.

A few days later, we modeled the lesson in one fourth-grade classroom while both teachers observed, after which we debriefed the lesson together. Next, after approximately a week of independent implementation, we observed the teachers as they taught about and with the device and debriefed those lessons with each teacher, individually. Teachers then continued to teach with the devices between sessions (cumulatively, as they were introduced), which were about 1.5 to 2 weeks apart, depending on individual teachers’ schedules. This structure was used for all three grade levels.

Participants

This study took place in an ethnically diverse suburban school with approximately 400 students in Grades K-5 (Table 1). All teachers who taught Grades 3 (n = 2), 4 (n = 2), and 5 (n = 3) participated in the study, as well as their collective 173 students, including 41 focal students (11 third-, 12 fourth-, and 18 fifth graders). Six students per classroom were selected as focal students, using a random number generator app (one third grader was unable to complete the study). All classes dedicated most of their days to math and language arts instruction. Teachers reported teaching two to four social studies lessons per week, with the exception of the three fifth-grade teachers, who reported daily instruction (Table 2).

Table 1.

School Demographics.

	Adams elementary
Student population	444 (K-5)
White	63%
African American	23%
Multiracial	4%
Hispanic	8%
American Indian	n/a
Native Hawaiian	n/a
Asian	2%
% third graders passing State Reading Test	59%
% free and reduced lunch	72%

Source. Michigan Department of Education (n.d.).

Table 2.

Teacher Demographics.

Teacher^a	Grade	Years teaching	Literacy time (all daily)	Social studies time
Allen	3	<1
Paul	3	<1	3 hr	30 min/week
Rollins	4	26	2 hr 45 min	40 min/day^b
Ruler	4	22	2 hr 45 min	30-45 min,^b sometimes 60 min every other day
Gaines	5	14	3 hr (includes social studies and science)	30 min/day
Henderson	5	10	3 hr	30 min every other day
Miller	5	12	3 hr	40-45 min/day

All names are pseudonyms.

Alternated teaching science and social studies units during these time frames.

We chose to work with Grades 3 to 5 because demands for independent reading of informational texts, including social studies texts, increase dramatically in the upper elementary grades (Chall & Jacobs, 2003), coinciding with an increase in more consistent social studies instruction (Fitchett & Heafner, 2010). Also, one of our measures required independent reading, which would likely have been invalid or extremely frustrating to complete for any student reading below grade level in a lower grade, resulting in sampling bias.

Data Sources and Analysis

Using mixed methods allowed us to describe processes and outcomes, and investigate possible explanations for each through data triangulation of qualitative and quantitative data (Johnson & Onwuegbuzie, 2004). Data sources and analyses are discussed together here, as analyses of some data influenced decisions related to intervention design and, in turn, the other types of data collected.

Teacher measures

Prior to the beginning of the PD series, all participants engaged in individual, semistructured interviews, which lasted approximately 20 min. Teachers were asked to reflect on their past PD experiences and the kinds of PD in which they would like to participate, as well as social studies and literacy (including visual literacy) content knowledge and classroom instruction. Interview transcripts were subsequently analyzed using open coding to identify categories of participants’ self-identified needs. Detailed results of these analyses are not reported here as they informed the PD design, but do not speak directly to the research questions.

During the 8-week intervention, each researcher spent approximately two full days per week at the research site. We observed five of our seven teachers teaching a social studies lesson prior to the start of the intervention, observed all teachers teaching several lessons during the intervention, and all teachers teaching one lesson postintervention (pre- and postintervention lessons were analyzed for this article). The two fourth-grade teachers in the study were not observed teaching a social studies lesson preintervention because they alternated teaching science with social studies, and were teaching science during the preintervention period. However, we do include all other data points for these two teachers as excluding them would create an artificial rendering of the social studies instruction in this setting, and including them provides important insight into the teaching and learning that occurred at the school.

During each observation, we took descriptive field notes (Bogdan & Biklen, 2006) to document teachers’ instruction and students’ responses and interactions. Also, we documented each teacher’s use of instructional materials, particularly graphical devices (i.e., detailed descriptions of all materials; detailed notes on how they were introduced, discussed, and used). Finally, we photographed or collected and copied all lesson materials.

To analyze the field notes, we used an interpretivist approach (Miles & Huberman, 1994). We first highlighted all references to graphical content (e.g., text illustrations, tables created by students or teachers, maps). Then, using artifacts from the lessons (e.g., student work, photographs of work on the board, textbook pages) as a means of contextualization, we worked collaboratively, discussing and ultimately agreeing upon scores for each reference based on teachers’ and children’s degree of interaction with the graphical content, using a five-point (0-4) scale (Table 3). (Children’s independent interactions were also scored, but not analyzed for the purposes of this article.) The scale is somewhat cumulative; higher numbers on the scale indicate higher level interaction with graphics. For example, if a teacher was scored as a Level 4 for a lesson (creates opportunities for students to use graphical devices in a way that helps them to construct or convey meaning), graphics must have been present in the lesson (Level 1) and referenced (Level 2), and may also have been a point of direct instruction (Level 3). Thus, we ultimately labeled each observation at the lesson level, with the highest level of interaction observed. Coded observations were then analyzed within teacher, across time points to determine whether teachers had increased their pedagogical attention to graphical elements of text and facilitated higher levels of student engagement.

Table 3.

Teacher Observation Codebook With Examples.

Teacher instruction
Category	Definition	Example
No evidence (0)	There is no evidence of the teacher’s use of graphical devices within the lesson.	n/a
Decorative (1)	Graphical devices are present, but not a part of instruction. They may serve decorative purposes.	Graphics are present, but not mentioned, in a book the teacher is reading aloud
Reference (2)	The teacher references a graphical device, but does not engage in instruction or use of the graphic to create or convey meaning.	Teacher: If you draw pictures, label it so I know what that is. Words and pictures!
Teach (3)	The teacher explicitly instructs about a graphical device.	Teacher: What did we make here? Gestures to the tableStudent: a comparisonTeacher: yes, a graph, or chart, or table. What is it called? The title is “Everyday Life” so it is called Everyday Life.
Construct or convey meaning (4)	The teacher creates opportunities for students to use graphical devices within the/a lesson in a way that helps them to construct or convey meaning.	Students create table to share information related to the food and homes of Native American tribes

Student measures

After identifying content-area literacy skills and graphical comprehension skills as areas of need based on initial teacher interviews, all participating students were given one of two versions of a pre- and postassessment we refer to as “passages” (randomly assigned and counterbalanced within classroom). Each passage included approximately 200 words, timelines, maps, captioned pictures, and tables (see example, Appendix A). We selected social studies topics that do not appear in the state curriculum until middle school, increasing the likelihood that students would need to attempt to gain information from the articles, not by relying on prior knowledge. Prior to giving the students the passage, we administered a Vocabulary Recognition Task (VRT; adapted from Stahl, 2008) to gauge students’ prior knowledge of the content (see example, Appendix B) and to use as a variable in analyses, if necessary. The results of the VRT indicated that students did not have significant prior knowledge on these topics, thus, the measure was not used beyond this point in the study. After or while reading a passage (at their discretion), students responded to 12 questions, eight of which are included in the analyses for this study. Each of the eight questions focused on content from the written text or graphics, in equal proportion (Appendix A). Written text, graphics, and composite scores were computed to provide insight as to the contribution of each type of question to composite scores and relative to each other. Means for each score type were also compared pre- and postintervention using nonparametric statistics.

In addition, 41 randomly selected focal students (five to six per classroom) were assessed one-on-one using the VLA (Brugar et al., 2013; Duke et al., 2011) both pre- and postintervention. This assessment consists of a series of open-ended questions in which children identify, interpret, and interact with four types of graphical devices commonly found in social studies trade and textbooks (i.e., captioned images, maps, tables, and timelines). Maps tasks were not included in the original assessment design, but were added for the purposes of this study to more accurately reflect the graphical content of social studies texts designed for students in Grades 3 to 5. At the time this study was conducted, there were no published assessments of visual literacy for this age group available for purposes of conducting concurrent validity. The authors of the original measure minimized threats by drawing on previous research and pilot work to design the tasks. In addition, they used authentic children’s texts to increase ecological validity, as well as age-appropriate language in questions and follow-up prompts. Finally, they designed multiple tasks for each concept. These multiple tasks provided an opportunity to triangulate the data and lessen the possibility of one item disproportionately affecting the results (Duke et al., 2013). These procedures were replicated in the creation of the maps tasks.

During the assessment, students were shown a variety of authentic texts and asked specifically about individual graphical devices. For each of the four devices assessed, students were first shown an array of examples of the device and asked what they were called and what they were for. Then, students were shown several individual instantiations of the devices and asked to extract information (e.g., “What country is directly east of Pakistan?”) or perform a task (e.g., determine the distance between two locations on a map). Responses were subsequently assigned short descriptive codes, each of which was assigned a score (0, 1, or 2) indicating the level of understanding it indicated (no demonstrated understanding, partial, or full). Two trained coders scored all responses using and refining an existing codebook for captions, tables, and timelines. Then, researchers created codes for maps to be included in the existing codebook based on the first 25.00% (n = 10) of the transcripts, and used the codebook to code the remaining responses. Raters were in agreement on 92.31% of all level-of-understanding codes; all disagreements were discussed and resolved prior to statistical analysis. Scores were recorded for each of the four devices, as well as for the total score and ability to name the devices (recorded separately). Finally, within and across grade levels, we calculated percentage scores (points earned/points possible) for the naming of all devices, use of each device separately, and composite scores for using all devices. We then compared pre- and postintervention mean scores in each category using a (nonparametric) Wilcoxon signed-ranks test (Table 4). The results of these analyses informed our decisions as to the particular content to address in each PD session and subsequent model lesson.

Table 4.

Comparison of Visual Literacy Assessment (VLA) Scores.

Graphical comprehension category	Preintervention M (SD)	Postintervention M (SD)	Change	Z-score	Significance (two-tailed)	Effect size
Captions	65.00 (17.03)	72.64 (20.56)	+7.64	2.78	.005	.31
Maps	60.85 (22.66)	65.82 (20.19)	+4.97	1.49	.136	.16
Tables	64.15 (26.46)	70.00 (22.80)	+5.85	1.92	.055	.21
Timelines	72.26 (24.92)	81.10 (25.02)	+5.84	2.65	.008	.29
Total	65.56 (19.11)	72.39 (18.32)	+6.83	3.73	.000	.41
Total naming	47.07 (18.74)	54.63 (21.22)	+7.56	2.98	.003	.33

Teachers Teaching and Learning: Intervention Lessons

In the following sections, we profile lessons for each graphical device addressed during the intervention. For each device, we first describe a lesson that we modeled for a grade-level team, and then profile one teacher at that grade level’s early attempts at instruction implementing PD content and model lesson pedagogy. Although for each device, we only describe lessons at one grade level, we taught model lessons for each device at each grade level and observed all teachers doing the same; teachers also taught lessons using the devices when we were not present. As a point of context, we also open each section with the preintervention VLA assessment results that informed our decisions regarding the focus of our instruction (reported across grades unless there were significant between-grade differences). Although the passage results generally indicated a need to address graphical content, we found the results of the VLA more useful in our planning as they highlighted particular patterns of misconception.

Captioned images

Very few children were able to accurately name (9.76%, n = 4) or describe the purpose (24.39%, n = 10) of captions. When asked to create canonical captions for two images, 22.73% of third graders’, 33.33% of fourth graders’, and 30.55% of fifth graders’ captions were canonical (defined here as a phrase or sentence(s) that “describe[s], comment[s] on, or provide[s] additional information related to the graphic”; Duke et al., 2013, p. 16). The next two tasks required children to recognize and select the best of four provided captions for an identified image in a trade book. With the exception of two fourth graders, all students were successful on at least one trial; 73.17% (n = 30) were successful on both.

Although children were generally aware that captions should relate closely to images, they were unclear or inconsistent regarding the purposes of captions and canonical phrasing (e.g., C3, Dimension 2, Geographic Representations; CCSS, Reading Informational Text Standard 7, Integration of Knowledge and Ideas). Consequently, we designed a lesson in which we guided students through the process of captioning historical photographs of Michigan’s lumber industry, the current topic of study in the class.

First, we engaged Ms. Ruler’s students (all names are pseudonyms) with a lumber camp image using VTS (i.e., Yenawine, 2013). We then explained that authors or photographers may include a caption to communicate their ideas, and gave direct instruction on the purposes of captions and their common characteristics. Next, we guided students through drafting a caption for the image, using the descriptions they had created in combination with what they thought the photographer might have wanted us to know, and then revised according to the criteria for content and length. Finally, we gave students time to engage in this process in pairs and independently. We ended by sharing a few of the newly captioned images and reviewing the purpose and structure of captions.

Following the model lesson and debrief, we, and Ms. Ruler, observed a lesson in which Mrs. Rollins displayed historical photographs associated with the daily life of lumberjacks and engaged in the VTS process with her students, asking them to make observations, provide evidence, and think more about the photographs. During this lesson, Mrs. Rollins went beyond “call and response” types of interactions. Rather, she asked students to explain their answers, provide further details associated with each photograph, and record their understandings in the form of captions. When we debriefed this lesson, both fourth-grade teachers noticed that, although the students had a good grasp of length and content, they were having a difficult time distinguishing between conversational and the “book” language typically used in captions. Accordingly, they identified this as a topic for a subsequent lesson.

Maps

Most students, 80.48% (n = 33), were able to identify maps by name. When students were asked to describe the purpose(s) of four maps taken from social studies texts, third graders had quite a bit of difficulty doing so (18.18%, n = 2), whereas fourth (50.00%, n = 6) and fifth graders (77.78%, n = 14) fared much better. Next, we asked children to determine the purpose of a map of South America with a prominently displayed, color-coded key titled “environments.” Just over a third (39.02%, n = 16) of students responded with an accurate response (e.g., “to tell you what the environment is in different parts”); of those who did not, 39.02% (n = 16) were able to describe the purpose of the key when asked explicitly. When students were asked to “point to a desert” (presumably by using the key) on a map of South America, they were largely successful across all three grades (third grade, 90.90%, n = 10; fourth grade, 75.00%, n = 9; fifth grade, 100%, n = 18).

Next, children were given a map that included a scale and asked to explain how they would determine the distance (in miles) between two cities. We then identified and explained the purpose of the scale, provided students with a ruler and string, and asked them to try to determine the distance. In the full sample, 36.50% (n = 15) were able to describe a feasible process; 21.95% (n = 9) were able to make a reasonable attempt at implementing that process. In addition, we gave students a map that featured a compass rose (though we did not point it out) and asked them to identify “the country directly east of Pakistan.” The majority of students across all three grades (61.00%, n = 25) inaccurately identified “Bangladesh” or other countries to the east, but not directly east of Pakistan. Finally, students were shown a compass rose and asked what it was called and to describe its purpose. Many students were able to name the compass rose (80.49%, n = 33), whereas slightly fewer were able to describe its purpose (68.29%, n = 28).

In both fourth-grade classrooms, students frequently completed Daily Geo (Johnson, 2004) worksheets. We included this in our model lesson plan to maintain the classroom routine and the teachers’ objectives for the day. However, as we reviewed the students’ answers to the day’s worksheet, it became clear that students were not utilizing symbolic information, even though a legend was prominently featured on the map. Rather, children appeared to be guessing, and when pressed as to how they arrived at their answers, either stated that they did not know or that they “just looked at the words on the map.” This was consistent with the finding that few children effectively used the map legend on the VLA. Because we knew that students would continue to do Daily Geo worksheets, we decided to switch gears and model how teachers could facilitate that work in ways that would help students understand how to strategically read maps for information within a Daily Geo Lesson (e.g., C3, Geographic Representations; CCSS Writing Standard 9, Research to Present and Build Knowledge).

We introduced the terms legend/key, symbol, and label to help the children better understand the types of conceptual information available on the map. Then, we went through the five Daily Geo questions together, guiding students through the thought process for utilizing the map features to answer each question as they followed along on their own maps.

In subsequent lessons, we observed each of the fourth-grade teachers displaying and annotating the maps associated with the Daily Geo and reinforcing map vocabulary (e.g. labels, symbols), not only discussing what the correct answers were but also modeling or asking students to describe how they arrived at them.

Tables

No student correctly named tables, rather they identified the tables as “graphs,” “charts,” or simply “information.” When asked to describe the purpose(s) of tables, 9.09% (n = 1) of third, 25.00% (n = 3) of fourth, and 38.89% (n = 7) of fifth graders were able to demonstrate a complete understanding, making statements such as “organizing data” and “listing different things and giving you information about it at the same time in a short answer.” Students were then shown two tables (one at a time) and asked to describe what each showed. Averaging across two tasks, 36.36% of third-grade, 62.50% of fourth-grade, and 83.33% of fifth-grade responses accurately described the information conveyed in the tables. Finally, students were shown two tables (one at a time) and read the titles and column and row headings for each. They were then asked to use each table to answer a question. For these tasks, 54.55% (n = 6) of third graders, 33.00% (n = 4) of fourth graders, and 66.67% (n = 12) of fifth graders accurately identified both correct answers.

With this in mind, our lesson in Ms. Allen’s third-grade classroom on push/pull factors associated with the Michigan economy included a table to enhance understanding. First, we defined “push factor” and “pull factor” (C3, Dimension 2, Economic Decision Making; CCSS Language Standard 4, Vocabulary Acquisition and Use) and identified common examples of each, which we documented on a table. We then transitioned to reading segments of the textbook describing why various immigrant groups left their home countries (push factors) and came to Michigan (pull factors). Students worked in small groups, each focused on a passage about a particular group of immigrants, to create a one-row table with the column headings “Country,” “Push Factor,” and “Pull Factor” (D3.1.3-5, Gathering and Evaluating Sources). We then combined the rows to create a master table of push and pull factors associated with several countries and guided students through reading it (e.g., looking for similarities, locating particular information). The table was later copied and inserted into their textbooks as a point of reference for the remainder of the unit.

Subsequently, we observed the use of tables across the curriculum in both third-grade classrooms. For example, Ms. Paul’s students created a table documenting examples of things imported to and exported from Michigan (Figure 2). When the table was complete, the class reviewed the information in each column and definitions of import and export.

Figure 2.

Table completed by students.

Timelines

Many students were able to accurately name timelines (41.46%, n = 17). When asked to describe their purpose(s), 18.18% (n = 2) of third graders, 33.33% (n = 4) of fourth graders, and 50.00% (n = 9) of fifth graders were able to do so accurately. The children were then shown two timelines (separately) and asked to describe the information depicted. Across these two examples, students were able to accurately describe the information in 62.20% of their responses (40.91% of third-grade, 50.00% of fourth-grade, and 91.18% of fifth-grade responses).

With this in mind, we modeled a lesson using chronological order and timelines in Ms. Gaines’s fifth-grade classroom. Previously, the students had completed a unit about the development of The Constitution and The Bill of Rights. We planned a lesson to help students understand that the causal relationships between pre-American Revolutionary events and these documents (D2.His.5.3-5. Explain connections among historical contexts and people’s perspectives at the time; CCSS, Key Ideas and Details, Standard 5).

We opened the lesson by reviewing The Bill of Rights—reminding students these are the first 10 amendments, or changes, to The Constitution. Next, we put students into small groups and gave them seven event cards associated with the American Revolution and related to the rights of the people. The students were prompted to read the cards and put them in the order in which they occurred, first based on memory, then checking their answers by using their textbook. Then, each group contributed one card to construct a whole-class chronology at the front of the room. We then explained that it was easier to understand how far apart events occurred if we could see the relative distance between them. Subsequently, we converted the chronology to a timeline with even increments of 5 years per foot from 1755 to 1775.

Next, we explained that creating this timeline helped us see what was happening during the era leading up to the creation of The Constitution. Then, we posed the question, “What are some of the events that led to the need for the Bill of Rights?” We proceeded to read each amendment and students made assertions about the events on the timeline that may have influenced the development of each. This was the final social studies unit for the year; thus, teachers did not have an opportunity to implement instruction around this device.

Results

Teacher Implementation

Our teacher participants made it clear that they felt they had a tenuous grasp on some of the knowledge and skills they were expected to teach, which they attributed to little preparation/support, changing curricular expectations, and frequent changes in teaching assignments. Perhaps, because of this lack of content knowledge, teachers had little idea of what common understandings, misconceptions, skills, and knowledge students might have in relation to that content, any of which might have been impeding student learning. Thus, it was understandably difficult, for teachers to identify appropriate pedagogy to meet the needs of their students in relation to the standards they were tasked with teaching; this study sought to address this problem.

As is the case in most PD initiatives, for a variety of possible reasons (e.g., interest in the topic, confidence, comfort level with new pedagogy), the degree of uptake of the PD varied by teacher. In the following sections, we discuss teachers who had high (i.e., had at least one example of Level 4 teacher interactions or increased their highest level of interaction in an observation by at least two levels from pre- to postintervention) and low (i.e., highest level of interaction increased by less than one level or decreased) uptake.

High uptake

Five teachers demonstrated a high level of uptake: Ms. Allen and Ms. Paul (Grade 3), Ms. Ruler (Grade 4), and Mrs. Henderson and Ms. Miller (Grade 5).

Ms Allen

In our initial observation, Ms. Allen did not teach about graphical devices or elicit engagement with them to help children construct or convey meaning. However, she did reference the graphics as she quizzed the students on factual information (Level 2, reference), as in this discussion of a projected map:

Teacher:

Which two rivers flow into the Atlantic Ocean?

Child:

[inaudible, presumably says “Ipswitch”].

Teacher:

That should be written down for number one. Ipswitch (writes on overhead).

Postintervention, we observed Ms. Allen guiding her students through a lesson in which they created a table on the division of labor between males and females in lumberjack camps, discussing both the content and the structure of the table (e.g., asking what the table was about, talking explicitly about the location and purpose of the title; Level 3, teaching about a graphic). She also guided the children to use the table to make inferences about what their own roles would have been in that context (Level 4, purposefully engaging children with graphics to construct meaning).

Ms Ruler

Although we did not have an opportunity to observe Ms. Ruler teaching social studies preintervention, we consider her level of uptake to be high as she engaged in instruction in the postintervention observation that reached a Level 4. Ms. Ruler guided her students to create a table showing the relationship between resources and goods. She began by referencing a table they had created the day before about capital, natural, and human resources (i.e., each resource type was a column on the table). During the observation, students identified examples of these resources and filled in a new table linking the resources they selected to goods that could be produced from them. As students worked, Ms. Ruler capitalized on teachable moments. For example, one student brought up the idea that each resource might be used to make multiple goods, and Ms. Ruler talked them through how they could represent that in their tables (Level 4, purposefully engaging children with graphics to convey meaning).

Ms Henderson

In her preintervention observation, Ms. Henderson did a think aloud in which she modeled using pictures in a biography of J. K. Rowling that she had already read to remind herself of what she had learned (Level 3, teaching about a graphical device). She modeled looking back for information on her education, stating, “Look at this. I see ‘University of Exeter’ [on a sign in this picture]. Does that sound like education?”

During her postintervention observation, she incorporated graphical literacy instruction at a higher level, teaching a lesson that was very close to the timelines lesson she had observed in Mrs. Gaines’s room. However, she extended the lesson by leading her students through a discussion, using the timeline as a tool, of what they would say in response to the question, “What events led up to the creation of the Bill of Rights”? (Level 4, purposefully engaging children with graphics to construct or convey meaning).

Ms Miller

In our preintervention observation, Ms. Miller’s students were also working on reading biographies and taking notes. Their task was to highlight their (photocopied) biographies, using three different colors to indicate three different types of information. Although graphics were not incorporated in this lesson in a conventional way, the children had been asked to use a color-coded key to categorize information. As the students worked, Ms. Miller reminded them several times to use the key (Level 2, referencing graphics) to make sure they were using the correct colors.

When we returned for the postintervention observation, Ms. Miller was leading her class through a modified version of the VTS process that she had observed in Ms. Gaines’s room. The students had photocopies of four images, and for each, she asked them to describe what they saw and then helped them to interpret it “correctly,” as in the following exchange:

Teacher:

I want you to look at the picture and try to figure out what’s going on. [Displays John Trumbull’s painting, “Declaration of Independence”] on the overhead.] [Reading] “In the painting: [Thomas] Jefferson and other committee members presented the Declaration of Independence to the Continental Congress.” Take a look at page 126 in your book. [Reading] “After the Continental Congress approved the Declaration of Independence, a handwritten copy was prepared for the delegates to sign.” Does it look like they are presenting it?

Child 1:

No, because there are papers on the ground . . . This scene takes place before July 4th, 1776 because—

Child 2:

They are rough drafting!

She proceeded with additional images, asking students to describe what they saw and then infer what those pictured might be thinking or saying (Level 4, purposefully engaging children with graphics to construct meaning). Although not a prototypical VTS lesson, Ms. Miller made a clear and successful attempt to help children make inferences by integrating the graphics and text (captions).

Low implementers

Ms Paul

In our preobservation in Ms. Paul’s class, students were engaged in a lesson she described as interdisciplinary (language arts and social studies). The students were writing a story as if they were a traveler to a Michigan pioneer village; no graphical devices were used (Level 0).

In our postobservation, Ms. Paul opened the lesson by assigning parts of a chapter in the textbook to small groups of children, and tasking them with creating a poster to teach other students in the class the information in their section. Although there was no instruction associated with the creation of these posters, as Ms. Paul circulated among the students she did refer to graphics (Level 2), reminding students, “If you draw pictures, label it . . . Words and pictures!” Later in this lesson, she shared a completed poster and explicitly pointed out the positive attributes, including that it included a title, words describing the title, and pictures with labels.

Ms Rollins

We were not able to observe a preintervention lesson in Ms. Rollin’s classroom; thus, we cannot speculate on her growth over time with regard to inclusion of graphics in her social studies instruction. At the time of the postintervention observation, Ms. Rollins was integrating graphics into her instruction, though not in ways that reflected PD learning. In her postintervention observation, Mrs. Rollins tasked her students with filling in a “double-bubble” mind map, placing vocabulary words only pertinent to the lumber industry in the 1900s in the left-most bubbles, only pertinent to today’s society in the right-most bubbles, and pertinent to both in the middle. After providing the directions, she circulated and pointed out when information was placed correctly or incorrectly, and in the case of the latter, to which bubble it should be moved. Graphics (the mind map) were referenced in this lesson (Level 2), but without related instruction or facilitating their use to create or convey meaning.

Student Learning

We first analyzed students’ pre- and postintervention responses on the VLA using nonparametric statistics to determine whether students were better able to name and understand individual graphical devices postintervention when asked about them, explicitly. The mean preintervention total score was 65.56 on a 100-point scale, which increased to 72.39 postintervention (statistically significant at p < .001). Also, students showed statistically significant improvement at p < .01 for captions, timelines, and naming subscores. Growth in scores for maps and tables was positive, but did not reach statistical significance (Table 4).

We then analyzed pre–post differences in passage scores to determine whether children’s abilities to apply their understanding of the instructed graphical devices in authentic reading situations had improved (i.e., transfer). Results indicated that there were no statistically significant differences between time points on graphic (M = 4.11, SD = 2.87 for Time Point 1; M = 4.07, SD = 2.88 for Time Point 2) or total scores (M = 9.67, SD = 5.00 for Time Point 1; M = 9.35, SD = 4.77 for Time Point 2). Interestingly, there was a small, but significant difference favoring Time Point 1 on text scores (M = 5.56, SD = 2.60 for Time Point 1; M = 5.28, SD = 2.48 for Time Point 2).

Discussion

Our research provides a description of the type of collaborative (university–elementary school), embedded intervention that research suggests is most likely to influence teacher practice and, in turn, student outcomes. It is also reflective of the existing research on visual literacy that emphasizes the importance of graphical devices to understanding elementary-level texts. This study furthers both of these lines of inquiry by presenting a context-embedded model for PD to increase teachers’ and students’ purposeful engagement with graphical devices, and in turn, students facility with skills integral to the English Language Arts (NGACBP & CCSS, 2010) and social studies standards (NCSS, 2013).

Although the relationships between standards, teaching, and learning the application of visual literacy skills to comprehension may seem natural given the amount of graphical material in text and trade books, for the elementary school teachers with whom we worked, this was not always the case, even with the support of PD. It is possible the differences in uptake were related to factors internal to the participants such as interest or efficacy. However, given the data from teacher interviews, it is also likely due, at least in part, to the fact that these teachers (early career and veteran) had limited preparation and PD to support PCK in the areas of content-area literacy and social studies. Yet, standards for both English Language Arts and social studies call for students to engage with visual elements of text in critical ways.

Implications

In an era of decreased time for elementary social studies instruction (Fitchett & Heafner, 2010) and increased expectations related to elementary students’ reading of informational texts, this study expands the ways in which teachers may view elementary social studies instruction and the resources/points of access for students to acquire social studies content. Specifically, this work addresses how we might support teachers and students to use the informational text comprehension skills called for by the CCSS–ELA to construct meaning from social studies texts. In addition, this study expands cross-curricular social studies/history and literacy intervention research, which most often focuses on middle and high school students (e.g., De La Paz, 2005; De La Paz & Felton, 2010; Monte-Sano, 2010), to include research on younger students.

This research also has practical implications for instructional leaders and teacher educators. First, we need to be sure that the preservice and inservice teachers with whom we work are aware that graphical comprehension plays an important role in comprehension of informational text (e.g., Roberts et al., 2015), and is thus worth instructional time. Then, we need to be sure that teachers have the PCK that will allow them to read and create these types of devices with their students. Currently, the CCSS is driving a strong focus on print literacy and reading across and within the content areas, but we need to acknowledge in our instruction that nearly every trade and textbook that students are given to read in the content areas is replete with graphical devices, and that simply being able to see these graphical devices does not ensure comprehension. Rather, like print-based reading skills, we need to be sure that classroom teachers understand how to teach students to read the graphical aspects of text. In addition, the texts used by children in all grades include graphical devices, and the standards associated with all grades call for related instruction. Thus, sustained and scaffolded instruction and practice for students is essential across their academic careers.

In response, teacher educators need to work with teachers, inservice and preservice alike, to create opportunities to learn about graphical comprehension instruction. These opportunities would vary depending on each teacher’s PCK but may include readings, modeling instructional strategies, or providing critical feedback on instructional ideas or practice. We also need to engage in sustained work around the topic, as opposed to the more common “one and done” approach to PD. Our relatively short, but intensive, intervention with teachers and students was enough to contribute to statistically significant gains on the VLA (which entailed direct prompting to use graphics), whereas transfer to independent construction of knowledge on the passage assessment continued to pose difficulties. This may have been because students and teachers alike simply needed more time, more support, and a more gradual release of control. However, the fact that scores increased at all over such a short time period indicates that some facet of the intervention was likely effective because maturation is an unlikely factor given the time frame.

Limitations

As with any study, there were compromises to be made, which resulted in four notable limitations. First, there was the potential for response bias. The participating teachers were aware of our interest in graphical comprehension as a possible PD topic based on preintervention interviews, and, subsequently, the consent forms we sent home with the children that described our assessments of graphical comprehension, which the teachers saw. Therefore, it is possible that some teachers may have given more attention to the instruction of graphical devices in the preintervention observations than they might have under other circumstances.

Second, our intervention lasted 8 weeks at the end of the school year (April and May). Although it was more intensive than is the norm, we would have liked a full academic year to release our level of support more gradually and allow teachers more time to implement new learning with each device, observe and give feedback to each other, and refine their practices to best meet the needs of their students. With these time constraints, we were only able to observe one pre- and one postintervention lesson, as scheduling additional observations would have shortened the intervention period. It is possible that one or more of the lessons we observed were anomalies, not representative of teachers’ typical practice. On a related point, we did not have the opportunity to follow these teachers and students into the next year to see whether the intervention “stuck,” influencing teaching and student skills and knowledge.

Third is the issue of replicability: The time and resource commitment required for this model PD experience was significant for teachers and researchers. While the opportunities these teachers had to observe, as a group, as we or one of their colleagues taught a lesson was invaluable to their learning and ours, they also required juggling of classroom schedules and teaching assistants, writing plans to be implemented in their absence, and all the other logistical issues that arise when a teacher is out of the classroom. Also, to embed the PD in everyday classroom life and the curriculum, we met with teachers in grade-level teams to provide the PD sessions and plan the lessons, putting the researcher to teacher ratio at 1:2-3, which if scaled up to the district or building level, would be resource prohibitive.

Conclusion

This study highlights a successful approach to PD that addresses the academic needs of a teacher, and facilitates student growth in the use of graphical devices and social studies knowledge, as called for in standards documents for both content areas. This is important in the face of a persistent achievement gap in indicating that children in the United States are generally not as adept at reading informational texts of the types used in this study as they are at reading narrative text.

Taking a step back from this particular PD, this study also serves as a model for one way in which we might meet the recommendation that successful PD be contextually bound (Garet, Porter, Andrew, & Desimone, 2001). Removing some of the demand that exists in traditional PD for teachers to learn new skills in isolation from the content to the context in which they would apply them may increase levels of implementation by increasing self-efficacy and perceived value of the instructional model.

Footnotes

Appendix A

Japan Passage and Questions.

Name: —————Teacher(s):—————

Appendix B

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Author Biographies

Kristy A. Brugar, PhD, is an assistant professor in the Department of Instructional Leadership and Academic Curriculum at University of Oklahoma. She teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in elementary and secondary social studies education. Her research focuses on social studies education, interdisciplinary instruction involving social studies, literacy, and visual arts, and teacher development.

Kathryn L. Roberts, PhD, is an associate professor of reading, language, and literature at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan. She is a former kindergarten teacher, and currently teaches preservice and graduate-level courses in literacy education. Her research interests include content-area literacy, visual literacy, and emergent literacy.

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