>> From the Library of Congress
in Washington, D.C.
>> She is joined by Dr. Michael J. Berson,
a professor of social science education
at the University of South
Florida and a senior fellow
in the Florida Joint Center for Citizenship.
He instructs courses in technology and
social studies, elementary social studies,
visual research methods in
education, and teaching the Holocaust.
Michael has extensively published
and presented his research worldwide.
His research on child advocacy and technology
in social studies education has
achieved global recognition.
They'll be joined by Barb Kirby who has worked
in higher education administration
for over 20 years.
She was named Director of the Waynesburg
University Teaching with Primary Sources program
in 2004 and the TPS Eastern Region in 2007.
Combined, these programs have reached
thousands of teachers both directly
and through the network of
110 regional projects.
And Sue Wise also of the Teaching
with Primary Sources program
at Waynesburg University is the Assistant
Director there since August of 2005.
She was promoted to Associate Director in 2007.
Prior to joining TPS, she taught kindergarten.
Sue also teaches all undergraduate
social studies methods courses
for Waynesburg University.
So, I am going to mute myself
and drop out and turn this
over to the presenters you've all come to hear.
Thank you so much.
>> Thanks, Cheryl.
Greetings from Waynesburg.
And welcome to the Young Learners
Explore Library of Congress Images.
This is Barbara Kirby and, as Cheryl was kind
enough to introduce me, I'm the Coordinator
of the TPS Eastern Region and Director
of the TPS program at Waynesburg.
And, again, I'm pleased to be
joined by my colleague Sue Wise.
And today we're going to share with you
the work of our regional partners who are
on the leading edge of using primary
sources with very young learners.
We think you for joining us.
We could go ahead just to -- another two slides.
OK. To get started, please use the chat
feature to let us know who's on the line.
We're very interested in knowing where you're
from and what age children that you teach.
I see K-2 in Virginia from Margaret.
K-5 in Lafayette, Louisiana.
We have an administrator on the line.
Thanks for joining us.
Seven through 12 in Westchester.
Kindergarten in Jefferson, PA,
which is right down the road here.
Thanks. Please keep these comments
coming throughout the session
and include your questions too.
Early childhood education is defined
differently depending on where you live.
Here in Pennsylvania, early childhood
ranges from birth to grade four.
In the project Sue's going to present in just
a few minutes, from Cabell County schools
in West Virginia, early childhood
is defined as birth to kindergarten.
And, in Florida, where our early childhood
experts, doctors Ilene and Michael Berson teach,
early childhood is birth to 3rd grade,
which happens to align with the national,
international definitions of early childhood.
What does early childhood mean to you?
I see birth to five.
We'll get a range here I'm sure.
Our objectives for this session are all focused
on early childhood and primary grade students.
For this session, we will examine the selection
of developmentally appropriate primary sources,
explore evidence based strategies to support
student's critical inquiry with images,
and reflect on actual classroom based
examples demonstrating implementation.
I am pleased to -- or turn the mic
over now to Ilene and Michael Berson.
We've been working with them for a couple
of years now and always learn something new
from Dr. Ilene and Michael Berson.
So, I'll turn it over.
Thank you.
>> Thank you so much, Barb.
And it's our pleasure to
join you here this evening.
One of the things that we want to kind of give
a bit more context to this idea of working
with young children in the
use of primary sources.
When we're really looking at young children,
we recognize that young children already
have great familiarity with gaining meaning
about the real world through pictures.
In fact, even toddlers have been shown that
they can transfer novel information taken
from realistic images and apply that
to their emerging world knowledge.
So, one of the things we've been exploring
in our own research is how historical images
can provide a conduit for young children
to use their real world experiences and prior
knowledge and then learn how to make inferences
about time and place and expand
their understanding of key concepts.
So, we are working with teachers on how they
can build upon this pictorial competence young
children already have as it gradually
develops over time throughout the early years.
But the issue that we need
to face is that teachers need
to intentionally expand upon young
children's access to informational text.
And this, unfortunately,
tends to be marginalized
in most early learning environments.
In fact, research shows that in the typical
first grade classroom, children spend less
than three minutes a day
with informational texts.
So, our first point of access
is how we can bring
into the classroom these valuable resources.
We know that within our early
childhood classrooms
that there already is a privileged
positions of text based literacies.
Literacy forms the core of most
early childhood curriculum.
And, although text does occupy this
privileged position in classrooms, we do,
as we've already said, see
that visual representations
of knowledge are a key role for early years.
And so we're looking at how we can draw on
developmentally appropriate accommodations
to bring in visual images
as part of communication.
In fact, teachers already do this inherently
and naturally as part of their practices.
We often times will scaffold children's
learning experiences or encourage them to engage
in multimodal expressions with pictures
or accompany their written words
and verbal responses with drawings.
Unfortunately, though, many of us are --
have to negotiate our way with curriculum
that often situates these images as incidental
and we don't fully appreciate necessarily
the intellectual sophistication
that these images provide that does even rival
text based literacies for young learners.
So, here, in this image here, we have
depicted a reading lesson taking place.
A very familiar, sort of iconic representation.
And we know, although we've
already said, the inherent value
that primary sources can have
as an instructional resources.
Most early childhood and early elementary
teachers have not had formal preparation
or professional development that guides
them in how to bring these resources
into their classrooms and work with young
learners in ways that would be able to access
and engage their funds of knowledge.
Moreover, because we've had such limited
research up to this point in time
on the integration of primary sources and
the early grades, a lot of the research
that people have had to rely on have really be
situated more for how to use this instruction
with students and intermediate
grades and higher.
And we cannot just take those prophecies meant
for older learners and extrapolate
them downward.
Young children have their own unique ways
of knowing and wisdom about the world.
And so we want to be able to connect into
those valuable ways that they think about.
Even though we've had these challenges, we
also do have an opportunity and an entry point
because most states throughout the United States
have standards that require the introduction
and use of primary sources
beginning as early as kindergarten.
And so that's our entry point for
us to be able to look for ways
that we can bring them into our classes.
So, what do we mean by developmentally
appropriate practice?
Well, what we're talking about there is
the ways that we can connect specifically
with young learners ways of making
sense and meaning of the world.
We recognize, as this young child is showing
us here, that curiosity ignites discovery.
When we unveil a sort of a -- begin asking
brilliant amazing sort of questions of interest
about things that we see in front of us, that
-- and these initiates our process of discovery
and inquiry that young learners
actually have an inherent skill with.
In fact, they're very skilled at asking
us the most embarrassing questions
at the least opportune time.
But we also recognize that this
process of seeing, of what's in front
of you comes well before even the words
and the vocabulary have developed.
Children look and they recognize before
they even have the capability of speech.
And so because this visual
literacy precedes verbal fluency,
this is a very important foundation
for early reading and writing skills.
But in order for those visual images to
maximize student learning and achievement,
teachers need to include techniques
for teaching children visually.
So, this involves an intentional exploration
of images as part of this pedagogy in schools
that we move students from what we
refer to as sort of an arbitrary seeing
where there's not a lot of sense making
or exploration or deep consideration
about what's there to moving them
more to a deliberate looking.
And that deliberate looking begins to
problematize images as we construct meaning
of information that's depicted
in visual data in front of us.
So, we're going to share
with you lessons learned
from actual implementation
that's been done in classrooms
from preschool up through grade three.
And these are the field based lessons that we
have learned from our teachers and children
with whom we've worked that have
informed our body of research.
So, one of the things that we recognize
is that teachers initially face challenges
when they are searching for
developmentally appropriate resources
to introduce to young students.
So, one of the things that happens is that in
order for a primary source to be meaningful,
we recognize that our young learners need
to be able to engage with it personally.
So, there has to be something
about it that has some familiarity.
And it's on that personal connection,
that relevance and familiarity,
on which they can find initial
pleasure in looking at it,
feel interest in what they're looking at,
and then also begin exploring alternative
or deeper meanings that can expand
their intellectual engagement
and really foster their exploration of concepts.
So, given that, not all images are
well suited for young children.
The other thing is that teachers
also have some challenges
with are navigating the archives themselves
to locate developmentally
appropriate and relevant images.
And that can be frustrating sometimes
because the archives themselves can prove
to be a bit cumbersome if you don't
know the exact words to put in
or not necessarily even using words
that fit within a historical context.
So, for example, a teacher may put in the words
"grocery store," but in the historical context
or the region that they want to find a resource
maybe a better term would have been "market."
Or they may be looking for representations
because children are interested
in exploring transportation and so
they put in the words "gas station"
but historically the term
of reference to be able
to find appropriate images
may be "filling station."
Same thing with using terms like
"hair salon" versus "a beauty shop."
And so you can get a broader range
sometimes if you situate it more closer
to the historical context and
the verbiage that was used then.
And that's a challenge for teachers
to be able to negotiate through that.
But starting off with topics from a
developmentally appropriate perspective
of issues that have connections with
children in a locally familiar way.
Now, in our introduction noted Michael
and I are both at the University
of South Florida which is in Tampa.
And, for our students, a locally familiar
place is represented in this next image.
And so for some of our students
as they walk to school each day,
they actually see dolphins swimming in the bay.
And they're out about -- just around that time,
the children will be walking along the sidewalk
on the path of the bay and so this is a familiar
context of the image for them to be able to see.
But when we introduce this particular
image in a group of kindergarteners,
the one thing that they ask --
their first question of inquiry was,
"Why are the children encaged
and the dolphin gets to be free?"
So, they read this image as it was the dolphin
who came to visit the children who were in sort
of like a zoo like engagement and it was
the dolphin who gets to have the free fun
of exploring in his ocean
setting throughout the day.
Because that was the context in which
they engaged and interacted with children.
>> So, Ilene has given us some
wonderful background on the research
and the practice associated
with primary sources.
Is the primary source image attractive?
Large? And clear?
Does the image entice the
interest of the young learner?
We're going to have some fun with some primary
sources right now to give you a context
of what is a developmentally
appropriate primary source.
So, let's take a look at this image from 1940.
Publix is a Supermarket chain in Florida.
And Ilene had used the term
earlier, "Problematize."
So, when you look at this picture, what
are some problems that you might see?
What are some things that you
might see that look familiar?
Anybody know where they store the ice-cream?
Does anybody see all of those freezer cases?
Why aren't they there?
What types of fruits and
vegetables might you have?
So, when you look at an image like this
from long ago and you talk to children
about something that's a part of their lives,
a part of their regular everyday experience,
you can ask difficult questions and get them
thinking through the use of primary sources.
Our keynote speaker, Carol Highsmith, has done
a wonderful job of focusing on communities.
And one of the most amazing aspects of
using primary sources with young children is
to get them involved in their
own personal community.
Here, we have a young woman,
a little girl taking a picture
in her neighborhood in Naples, Florida.
And what we do is we send children out into
their communities much like Carol Highsmith did
and taking images of their own
to incorporate primary sources
into their own experiences and instruction.
Context and understanding
is extremely important.
As Ilene mentioned, as we work with
teachers one of the most interesting
and difficult aspects is making
meaning of the image themselves.
The context of the sense of place, the time,
and the purpose of the primary
source becomes extremely important.
The making meaning, though,
is challenging because some
of our teachers lack the content
knowledge related to the images
that they might be exploring
with their young learners.
In this particular case, we're going
to be showing you an image of
what's called a White Wing.
And when you look at this individual
and you simply look at the caption,
you might not get enough information.
So, teachers, again, and their
students might struggle to make meaning
of what's incorporated into this image.
So, how do we go about doing that?
We have to ask questions.
For example, who are the
helpers in our neighborhood?
Who were the helpers long ago?
Let's do some research.
So, when we look at this picture, let's
play a game of hide and seek for a second.
Can anyone see the pig in the picture?
Where's the pig located?
So, you can see the pig on the
left hand side in the corner.
And you might ask yourself, "Why is
something like that important especially
when you just showed us a picture
of a man sweeping the street?"
Well, pigs were used in New
York City to clean up trash.
But the pigs themselves often made more
of a mess than they were cleaning up.
So, as a researcher with your young children
in class, you can explore these discussions
about what was New York City
like, who were these white wings?
And what was their job?
These individuals would play an important role
in the health and wellbeing of New York City.
And it's interesting.
They were called white wings.
And, you know, when you think of the
image of white and nice and clean,
they were there to clean up the city.
Now, one of the interesting elements associated
with cleaning up the city is going beyond that,
taking a look at how pigs were used,
what life was like in New York City.
And there are a number of images
incorporated into the primary source collection
at the Library of Congress that
you can explore in greater detail.
Or you could even watch films
related to the white wings on parade.
And this creates a great frame of reference
for our young learners when they actually get
to see the white wings in action.
But when you look at these large pictures
and you help your students contain themselves
as they look at all of these different
images and they try to explore all
of the different representations
in an image, where do they focus?
How do you help them focus?
One of the great ways that is available
is something called the crop-it.
The crop-it technique is something
that you may or may not be familiar
with where you take two pieces of paper.
You can do it either digitally or by hand.
And you can zoom into a particular
element in a photo.
When a child explores a large image
with a lot of different representations
and a lot that's going on, they sometimes
find it difficult to focus themselves.
So, having and using a tool like crop-it
helps them in a great great way by focusing
in on a particular element of the photograph.
So, let's take an example of this photograph and
we're going to show you the crop-it technique.
When you look or you introduce this to a
young learner and it's the Palace Market
in Lincolnville in Saint Augustine, Florida,
1922 to 1927, there's a lot going on.
There are people there.
There's a bicycle there.
There's a young boy there.
There's food.
What would you have your
students focus on first?
Where would you -- as a teacher
or as an administrator --
someone working with primary sources
-- what would you focus in on?
So, let us show you what we think is an
area that would be a great place to start
when you're focusing in on this image.
Good. The boy.
Excellent.
Julie said the boy.
Exactly. And here's an example of what we
would mean by using the crop-it technique.
So, we've -- we've highlighted the
area out in the back but we boxed
in the young boy with the bicycle.
And there are a lot of questions.
Let's go back to that term Ilene used before
because we're taking children
beyond just seeing and saying, "OK.
I see a boy with a basically."
to thinking about -- inquiry, inquiry,
developing thoughtful explanations
to what's going on and asking difficult or
problematic -- or problematizing questions.
What's he doing with the bicycle?
Why is he in the store with a bicycle?
Who is he?
What do you think he's going to do?
And getting young children to start here at
this particular point and then expand out.
Anybody want to guess what they
think he is doing in this picture?
Excellent, Jamie.
Delivery boy.
Exactly. And that's why he has his bike
filled up with groceries or other materials.
Excellent.
Very good.
Another area that we want to focus on is
what's called the contextual knowledge.
And this is extremely important when
you're working with primary sources.
OK. We find amazing images
at the Library of Congress
or in our archives and what do you do with them?
What's the background knowledge
that's necessary?
In this particular case,
we were studying scales.
But beyond just bringing in the primary
sources, the images of the scale --
and there's a great image of a
baby being weighed on a scale.
They may have seen their brother or sister
in the doctor's office being weighed.
There's some larger scales or scales that they
are so old they may not be familiar with them.
But what we would like to do then is
to build a contextual knowledge base,
a background by bringing in some other
artifacts to build their content knowledge,
to get them thinking or seeing
different representations of information.
>> So, the other thing is that we recognize
is that we can utilize these primary sources
to help foster young children's
critical thinking skills.
So, I want you all to think about -- I think
our question got a little bit cut off here,
but the question is, "What can
you catch with a fishing pole?"
So, if you sit there and you kind of think
about in your mind, "What are possible things
that I might catch with a fishing pole?"
And if you're a five year old imagining the idea
again, if that's part of your favorite reference
of having places that you can
go fish and, thanks, Mike, yes!
Obviously.
We can catch fish with a fishing pole.
Well, how about this?
We can use a fishing pole
to catch a brand new toy.
So, here we have an image that
helps students begin to think
about that sometimes we can be surprised
by taking what's familiar and part
of our lived experience and now rethinking
about it in a different way and explore
about other ways that tools, resources may have
been used by others as part of their lives.
So we can think about also taking another
context that has some familiar elements
but also has some different things
because of its historical situation.
So, let's look at this one.
And we might say to children, "So,
what clues in this picture help tell us
about where the event is taking place?"
So, Brian noticed that there's a stove and pots
and pans and Mike also noted about all the pots.
And so, as children, as part of that
visual literacy, what they begin connecting
with is finding representative
data points to justify
and substantiate the conclusions
that they're drawing.
Think about how powerful that is for very
young learners to be able to bring out
and read the information they're seeing
as opposed to just looking at it.
Oh, you know, somebody is in a kitchen.
And we could go into harder questions about
what's happening or what's going on in there.
What is she doing in the context there?
And, actually, in this particular
picture, she's making an apple pie.
So, it's an interesting dynamic
for children to be able to --
and teachers to be able to support students'
critical thinking by introducing these kinds
of perspectives and orientations.
Now, one of the things we also recognize is
that young children typically assess the things
that they see visually as sort of the truth
and representations of credible information.
And so we need to continue to foster,
again, those inherent sort of questions
that they begin asking and
instruct them about evaluating
and challenging the information sources.
So, one of those representations of the way
that we might do that in our context, again,
from Florida, is introducing this sort of image.
So, if we were to introduce this
in a classroom within the context
of our early childhood setting, maybe in the
chat I'd like to hear some of you about some
of the prompts that you might ask young
students about this particular image.
So, how might you focus the
lens of your young students
to help them read the text
of this particular picture?
What is Santa doing?
Lounging out on the beach when you
should be delivering toys to us.
So, how does this young boy seem to be feeling
upon stumbling upon Santa wearing shorts instead
of pants or whatever he might be doing?
Wondering where is this place.
And so these are all very important
about fostering students' sense
of critical literacy questions and thinking
about also what kind of skills would you need
to scaffold and help children to
accomplish their thinking and engaging
in this higher level kind of inquiry?
So, as you all consider to think about and
contemplate what Santa is doing on the beach
on this particular day and how
this young boy may be reacting
to stumbling upon Santa lounging
instead of working away in his shop,
we're going to go ahead and
transition over to Sue.
>> Sue.
>> Thanks, Ilene and Michael.
Now, we'd like to share with
you another powerful example
of using primary sources with young children.
Lenore Richardson is the Director
of Curriculum and Assessment
for Cabell County Schools in West Virginia.
And she initiated and directed this TPS project.
Lenore could not be online with us
today so I'd like to share with you some
of the wonderful classroom
applications of Library
of Congress primary sources
in Cabell County schools.
Two unique aspects of the past and present
project were that there was a huge collaboration
between the primary source teachers --
excuse me, the pre-service
teachers at Marshall University
and the in-service teachers across the district.
They worked on this project throughout.
And the focus also on the
local history and culture.
Kindergarten through 5th grade students
in rural and small urban schools learned
about the history and traditions
of their own home towns
and about the wider Appalachian
culture as they explored their past
and present through multiple lenses.
First graders looked through the lens of homes.
As we were reminded yesterday during
Carol Highsmith's keynote presentation,
if you were lucky to -- lucky enough to sit in
on that -- it was a fantastic presentation --
but she said the essence of the people
and the culture of local communities
across this country can be conveyed
and understood through photographs.
First graders developed visual analysis
skills as well as their reading and math
and fine motor skills in
their study of local homes.
Local photographs paired with digitized
images were analyzed for historic
and architectural detail and later compared
and contrasted with modern built homes.
Next students worked to create scaled
diagrams of their own houses and they worked
with family members to measure
and draw important features.
As a final project, students created
model homes of their very own design.
Discussion throughout the unit helped students
think deeply about the change over time
and local cultural and --
cultural practices and changes.
Working with parents and grandparents
and discussing the project helped families
make connections with historical items
and family heirlooms in brand new ways.
Third graders at Cabell County
focused on the local school culture
as their compared historic images
with modern day observations.
They discussed daily activities and
compared classroom technologies.
They interviewed their family members
and considered how the school experiences
of their elders differed from their own
experiences and why these differences existed.
One Cabell County school, Martha
Elementary, is featured here.
The image on the lower right shows the
old school house before it was destroyed
by flooding.
The modern school, shown above, was built close
to the original location, but
in a less flood prone area.
Martha Elementary stands testament
to the local community's resilience.
Geography paired with environmentally
factors, population changes,
and economic conditions all played key roles
in this study of the local school system.
In the end, students even
got to make recommendations
that they thought would help improve their own
schools promoting civic competence and action.
Cabell County schools saw the need
to move beyond the traditional textbook driven
curriculum and to move away from passive,
unengaging student learning environments
by incorporating primary sources
as an integral part of classroom instruction.
This TPS initiative provided ongoing
and embedded professional development
for Cabell County teachers focused on locating
and carefully selecting primary sources
from LOC.gov and other local
sources to promote inquiry learning.
As Michael and Ilene mentioned earlier, the
careful selection of primary sources for use
with young children is of utmost importance.
Miss Richardson's report on the results
of this project included these highlights.
The strategies and resources provided by
the TPS program have been instrumental
in shifting instruction from teacher
directed to more student directed learning.
And we hear that all the
time, how important that is.
Young students and struggling readers have
shown increased ability to gather information
by utilizing visual primary
sources, making observations
that contributed to collaborative discussions.
So, students who were not able to
read well could contribute much better
in this environment using
the visual primary sources.
Cabell County School District continues
to provide annual professional development
events based on these positive results
and this case study continues to inform
teacher preparation at Marshal University.
While the projects presented here were managed
through the TPS Eastern Region program,
the Library of Congress has a wealth
of resources freely accessible
for PreK to 2 teachers directly.
The teaching with the Library of Congress
blog is the go-to place for discovering
and discussing the most effective techniques
for using primary sources in your classroom.
Projects presented today from
the University of South Florida
and Cabell County Schools
demonstrate definitively
that even kindergarteners can observe,
reflect, and ask good topic related questions
and provide targeted reasons for their thinking.
Allowing children to get
hands on with primary sources
and providing question starters are
developmentally appropriate ways
to make deeper thinking and learning
more accessible for young learners.
The first example here on the screen,
kindergarten Historians, features video footage
of yet another group of kindergarteners
in action this time from New York City.
So, if you have a moment, please check that out.
Educational staff at the library have
developed three sets of primary sources
with the specific needs of K
through 2 classrooms in mind.
Symbols of the United States,
Washington and Jefferson and Lincoln,
the three great presidents, and
children's lives at the turn
of the 20th century were all
designed for this age group.
Each of these is easy to download
and print as a PDF document.
And each includes age appropriate primary
sources, historical background information,
teaching ideas for the early childhood
classroom, and analysis tools.
The children's lives set features the
ways that children worked, played,
and learned at the turn of the century.
And this is one of several primary source
sets that's also available as an eBook.
Youngsters can use iPad tools to manipulate
and electronically markup individual
sources to help communicate their ideas.
The library also has several ready-to-go
learning activities to help foster observation,
reflection, and questioning
skills in their youngest --
in our youngest students and use
these skills across the curriculum.
Each one is aligned to state standards and
you can select whatever state you are in
and find the primary source activities
that relate to your own state standards.
Engaging multiple senses, as you know,
can be beneficial for young learners.
Listen and wonder, is it a chicken or a
boy, can be effective for engaging students
across the learning spectrum
and lots of fun too.
These are just a few of the highlights
of the resources featured on the teaching
with -- the Library of Congress Blog.
We encourage you to subscribe
to the blog and get new entries
and resources delivered straight
to your inbox or your RSS feed.
We'd like to open it up now to some questions.
So, what questions do you have?
>> Yes. Great.
Thank you, everyone, for your
participation and I have a few questions.
But feel free to add any more
as we go along right now.
We have a few minutes for question and answer.
One of the questions that came through is one
for either of -- either Ilene or Michael Berson.
And that is, "Could you say
more about having students focus
on one particular detail in a primary source?
What's the advantage of having them focus
on a detail whether in crop-it or whatever
that you choose and when would you want them
to choose a detail of interest on their own?"
>> That's a wonderful question.
Thank you, whomever asked that.
So, part of the process of working with
primary sources with very young learners is
to scaffold their skillset and be able
to help them over time develop enhance
and increased visual competencies in
working with the sort of sense making
that is an inherent skill that
they have, is seeing what they have
but really looking intently, as we said.
It's very intentional movement
from just seeing to looking.
That idea of focusing on a small subset of an
image is really that initial scaffolding step,
is that we don't want them just
to kind of go all over the place.
And quite honestly there can be a lot of
distracting elements that are in a visual image
that may take away from either the core concept
that you're trying to teach or emphasize as part
of your instruction, or just
may create too much information.
So, almost an information overload for the young
learner to be able to optimize their meaning
and active engagement with
that particular element.
The other thing is that it's sort
of like the interest and fun.
You know, when we're working
with young learners,
we always want to be very
playful in our approach.
And so this sort of gradual
unveiling of the various little pieces
of the puzzle also adds interest and also
helps facilitate their active engagement
in that process of learning.
>> Right. We've also explored the
use of some single concept images.
And really we've been talking a lot today
about the formal use of primary sources.
So, using crop-it techniques, you know,
selecting images, focusing
in student's attention.
But there are single concept
images at the Library of Congress.
For example, we found a few.
Children washing their hands.
And those can be informally placed in the
classroom where children can specifically look
at a particular concept, washing your
hands, which is something that's done
in most classrooms across the country.
So, focusing in on a particular topic through
a crop-it technique or selecting an image
that focuses on a particular concept.
>> And the question about at what
point do you kind of move or shift
to students being able to
direct or engage in that.
And that's always about sort of the
readiness and the skillset of the student.
We are very strong proponents
of a child-centered curriculum.
Sort of following the lead of children, what
their areas of interest and inquiry sort
of being the guiding framework is a wonderful
way to mobilize and foster their interests
in looking and exploring and information.
And one of the things that we also should
mention, you know, for anyone who's worked
with very young children, although there's
been this preponderance of representation
of fictional resources in early learning
classrooms, actually research bears
out that young children have
a much greater preference
for authentic representations
of the world around them.
It's the things that they connect with better.
So, although adults version
of the way children think
that they should see the world is
cartoon-like, children actually prefer looking
at real representations of other
people, places, and the lives
and experiences of those around them.
>> Thank you very much, both of you.
Let's skip around a little bit.
Perhaps Sue Wise could address
this question from Bonnie Welsh.
"With young children, is one photograph
enough or is it better to have multiple photos
so the children compare and look more closely?"
>> Thank you.
That's a great question and when you're starting
to use primary sources in the classroom,
sometimes the inclination is to use
a wide variety of primary sources.
But I have found in my experience
to start with one source
as kind of launching point for a topic.
As Ilene and Michael mentioned, narrowing
down that information that they are taking
in to focus on the details that are
important, building that context,
and then bringing in additional primary sources
to build on that prior knowledge over time.
I saw earlier someone mentioned a gallery walk,
setting up a series of images that are focused
on a particular topic, can help students build
their ideas about perspective and understanding
of multiple views on a topic as well.
But, starting small and building
from there would be what I would
advise based on my experience.
And I invite Ilene and Michael to add to that.
>> Thank you very much and, in
fact, I'm just interrupting to say
that Bonnie Welsh has just add a little detail.
She's wondering as well about whether
multiple copies of the same photo.
I guess she -- perhaps she's thinking about
grouping or how do you have students work?
>> Oh, excellent.
Yes. Oh, excellent question.
And thank you for that question.
Having children be able to have in front of them
actual images where they can circle, explore,
use magnifying glasses we bring into our work
with young children in the
context of the classroom.
We give them their own hard copies of the
crop-it tools where they can sort of narrow in
and focus their lens themselves on
particular aspects like as we said
that particular question, "What is a
clue in this picture that tells you
where you think this is taking place?"
And they could actually themselves
crop in to maybe the pots
or the stove in that particular context.
So, either individual images
that children can look --
use and demonstrate their own ways of thinking
with it, or in small groups be able to work
with peers is a wonderful strategy
in early learning classrooms.
>> Terrific.
And Sue Wise has just mentioned using
iPads for marking up the digital images.
This was a fabulous presentation and
I -- so much valuable information.
Thank you so much to the presenters
and thank you to all of you
for sharing your thoughts
and asking your questions.
Just a couple of details before we end.
Please give us your feedback.
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and it's just a three question survey.
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Again, we thank all of you for joining
us and we thank the presenters.
I'm going to end the recording
now and end the meeting.
Good night.
Thank you, again.
>> This has been a presentation
of the Library of Congress.
Visit us at loc.gov.