Related Publications

The authors explore the emergence of popular photo-sharing apps and persuasive visual social media (i.e., memes, tweets, Instagrams) has made thinking critically about visual data a vital civic competency. Modern democratic life requires powerful interpretive skills to understand and evaluate non-written information. These skills are important because the production, consumption, and critique of visual data shape today’s public issues, including those grounded in social identities, power relationships, and policy decisions

Callahan, C., Howell, J.B., & Maddox, L.E. (2019). Selecting and designing visual curriculum materials for inquiry-based instruction. Social Studies Research and Practice, 14(3), 321-334. LINK

The authors share recent scholarship that has posited explanations for why visual data tend to afford learners especially powerful opportunities to think critically about the world around them. Throughout the discussion, the authors integrate applicable research-based principles that can guide the selection and design of visual curriculum materials.

Callahan, C. (2015). Creating or capturing reality? Historical photographs of the Progressive Era. The Social Studies, 106(2), 57- 71. LINK

Here, I share a wise-practice approach informed by current research into the educative potential of using historical photographs within a reflective inquiry approach to promote students’ civic competence.

Callahan, C., Saye, J., & Brush, T. (2014). Social studies teachers’ interactions with second generation web-based educative curricula. The Journal of Social Studies Research, 38(3), 129-141. LINK

This article advances a continuing line of research investigating the potential of web-based educative curriculum materials to facilitate teachers’ development of professional teaching knowledge. Our educative curriculum consisted of online lesson plans scaffolded with embedded digital resources to promote teacher understanding of a particular wise-practice pedagogy: problem based historical inquiry.

Callahan, C. (2014). Designing digital resources to effectively scaffold teachers’ learning. Journal of Educational Multimedia and Hypermedia, 23(4), 309-334. LINK

This article synthesizes a line of inquiry into the potential of educatively scaffolded digital resources to help social studies teachers understand and implement a complex model of history instruction, problem-based historical inquiry. Spanning two design-based research interventions, I followed six teachers as they each planned and implemented lessons designed from encounters with educative curriculum.

Callahan, C., Saye, J., & Brush, T. (2013). Designing Web-Based Educative Curriculum Materials for the Social Studies. Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education, 13(2), 126-155. LINK

Here I report on a design experiment of web-based curriculum materials explicitly created to help social studies teachers develop their professional teaching knowledge. Web-based social studies curriculum reform efforts, human-centered interface design, and investigations into educative curriculum materials are reviewed, as well as examples of previous efforts to develop educatively scaffolded teaching resources.

Callahan, C. (2013). Analyzing historical photographs to promote civic competence. Social Studies Research and Practice, 8(1), 77-88. LINK

In this, the first of two coupled articles, I describe the educative potential of employing visual documents, especially historical photographs, in social studies instruction and refer to implications drawn from recent research studies. I also introduce an original lesson demonstrating wise practice teaching strategies for implementing historical photographs in classroom instruction to promote students’ civic competence.

Callahan, C. (2013). Thinking historically about the Depression Era. Social Studies Research and Practice, 8(2), 25-42. LINK

This article complements the article published earlier in Social Studies Research and Practice (i.e., Analyzing historical photographs…). Here I provide a wise practice lesson and the additional ancillary materials (i.e., primers).

Callahan, C. (2009). Using educative curriculum materials to promote the development of professional teaching knowledge. Unpublished Dissertation. Auburn University. LINK

This study explored the dynamic teacher-curriculum relationship to determine whether experiences with educative curriculum materials for using historical photographs might contribute to three social studies teachers’ professional teaching knowledge as it relates to problem-based historical inquiry.