Teaching content in practice: Investigating rehearsals of social studies discussions

Abstract

Despite evidence of its benefits, discussion remains rare in history/social science classrooms. To address this problem, communities of teacher educators (TEs) have begun supporting novices to approximate discussion facilitation. Some scholars are concerned that this turn to practice will come at the cost of content preparation. Focusing specifically on rehearsals of discussion facilitation in three history/social science methods courses, our analysis investigates whether, how, and in what ways TEs worked on content while engaging novice teachers in practicing discussion facilitation. We found that TEs found ways to work simultaneously on content and practice during rehearsals of discussion facilitation.