Teaching and Learning with Time Lines

Beginning of article

Ms. B's fifth grade class was discussing what they knew about Malcolm X prior to reading a biography of the civil rights activist--part of an on-going study of the '60s. One student asked,

"Did he know Abraham Lincoln, JFK, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.?"

Quickly, the teacher sketched parallel time lines on the board, indicating that while the lives of JFK, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Malcolm X overlapped, Abraham Lincoln had died long before any of the others were born.

The students gazed with interest at the impromptu time lines until one student raised his hand,

"Yes, but did Malcolm X know Abraham Lincoln?"

Questions that Reveal

To the teachers present, the time lines clearly indicated the possible relationships among the biographies in question. To several students this was not obvious at all. For our group of informal teacher-researchers, this episode raised several questions. In what ways do students understand--and misunderstand--time lines? How are time lines used and taught in textbooks and history-related materials? What potential do time lines offer for helping students make sense of history?

Time lines abound in social studies and other textbooks, in biographies, and occasionally in juvenile historical fiction. Adult authors assume that time lines clarify information and events and help students develop accurate chronology and even a sense of cause and effect. But do they? Our work as teacher researchers indicates that there are often gaps between what adults assume students know and understand and how students actually make sense of, and assimilate, information.

As teachers and teacher educators, we have long believed that quality teaching demands an in-depth knowledge of student thinking, development, and learning. To be most effective in our teaching, we must plan instruction and select resources that meet students at their point of need. Teachers must be consistently aware of how students perceive information. As practitioners, we look for broad trends as well as individual idiosyncrasies in student understanding.

After observing the student responses described above in one fifth-grade classroom, we wondered if these responses were unique to this particular group of students or if they represented broader patterns of thinking among fifth- and sixth-grade students. Therefore, we designed some simple activities allowing us, as practitioner-researchers, to gather information about student conceptions and misconceptions regarding time lines. Our activities, which included student …