Assessing Historical Thinking and Understanding

by Bruce A. VanSledright

Assessing Historical Thinking and Understanding advocates for a fundamental change in how educators think about making sense of learners’ developing cognition and understanding in history. Author Bruce VanSledright argues that traditional and typical standardized testing approaches are seldom up to the task of measuring the more complex understandings students are asked to attain, as they cannot fully assess what the student knows. Rather, he points forward along a path toward changes in learning, teaching, and assessing that closely aligns with the Common Core State Standards. He delves into the types of history knowledge the standards require, illustrates how they can be applied in-use in history learning contexts, and theorizes how the standards might fit together cognitively to produce deep historical understandings among students in teaching-learning contexts. By providing a variety of assessment strategies and items that align with the standards, and identifying rich, useful assessment rubrics applicable to the different types of assessments, he offers an important resource for social studies teachers and curriculum writers alike.

144 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2013

Reviews

[Sandie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book overall wasn't that bad...it has a lot of good information about VanSledright's ideas on assessing history and historical thinking: Incorporate weighted multiple choice, do NOT teach solely for the test, forget about standardized tests that don't measure anything...I am completely and totally in agreement with him. I found this book, though, soooo dry and so boring to read that I just couldn't push myself to read it all the way through. I suppose this content isn't designed to grip the reader and keep them wholly engaged, but perhaps if it was written in a more laymen-like style, it would have been a little less torturous to get through. But this is only my opinion. Others may read this book and find it amazing and fully intriguing. I'm jealous of them!

[Kris · Rating 3 out of 5]

I do like the book, and if I were still a classroom teacher, I'd vacuum all the info up and see what I could do in my own classroom. however, I'm not in the classroom, I'm at the state level, looking for creative and outside the box ways to look at state-level mandated social studies assessments. VS makes no secret of the fact that he does not like those types of assessments. Fine, great. We get it. But what about answers and ideas for those of us who must work within that system?

[Mills College Library]

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