GATEways to Teacher Education

A journal of the Georgia Association of Teacher Educators were three male and five female participants who self-identified asAfrican American, White, biracial, and Latinx. The students were self-identified as being between the ages of 22 and 30. Some students were career changers after working in the private industry for several years. Other participants recently finished their undergraduate degrees. Participants in this study were enrolled in a middle and secondary social studies methods course during the Spring 2021 semester. During this time, in-person attendance at this university was optional. Some participants taught or completed field observations virtually and some worked and observed in hybrid or online settings.

Researchers’ Subjectivities

The subjectivities of researchers impact how the data in this study is collected, analyzed, and disseminated. The first author is an assistant professor of middle grades and secondary education with an emphasis on social studies instruction. She is a former middle school social studies teacher and taught undergraduate history courses at various colleges. Although she learned constructivist pedagogies in her undergraduate and graduate teacher education programs, she employed lecture methodologies when she taught social studies and history. She previously conducted a study to explore the extent active learning or teacher-centered instruction impacted student engagement in undergraduate history courses and found that a mix of lecture and active learning strategies best impacted engagement (Perrotta & Bohan, 2013). She was also the instructor for the social studies methods course in which the study participants were enrolled.

The second author is a current middlegrades instructional coach working primarily with social studies teachers. Her work as an instructional coach emphasizes using self- reflection, student observations, and student responses to teaching strategies to help teachers move toward student-centered and culturally responsive pedagogies in their classrooms. The third author is a current doctoral candidate and high school social studies educator with a focus on critical and culturally responsive pedagogy. He formerly taught middle school social studies and has conducted professional development lectures on culturally responsive teaching. His current research involves deconstructing the dominant narrative by using critical and culturally responsive pedagogical interventions (Apple, 1978; Freire, 1970; James & Amato, 2013). Consequently, maintaining complete objectivity in this study is not possible.

Findings

Several findings emerged with regard to pre-service and in-service teachers’ perspectives on lecture as an instructional method when teaching middle and secondary social studies. These findings are organized to provide important insights about how their decision to lecture aligns with the goals of the NCSS (2016) powerful and authentic social studies framework with regard to how pre-service and in-service teachers make pedagogical decisions when choosing to lecture when teaching middle and secondary social studies.

Definitions of Social Studies and the Decision to Lecture

In order to gauge how participants defined lecture, students were asked to explain their views of the goals and purpose of social studies education. Doppen (2007) noted that pre-service teachers needed to gain a “clear understanding of their own philosophy of social studies education...to make a meaningful connection with the methods they use to teach their subject” (p. 61). Among the participants’perceptions on the purpose of social studies included “to prepare students to be functioning citizens in