Developing Quantitative Literacy Skills in History and the Social Sciences: A Web-Based Common Core Standards Approach

by Kathleen W. Craver

Overview

History and social sciences educators have been charged with ensuring that our students are quantitatively literate. Being able to integrate research data in the form of graphs, charts, and tables and deconstruct quantitative evidence to address questions and solve problems is no longer the domain of mathematicians. Being quantitatively literate is considered an educational imperative in a data-drenched world that holds so many employment challenges. The internet contains a treasure trove of valid and reliable sources of quantitative data that history and social sciences teachers can easily use to satisfy the quantitative literacy requirements of the National Common Core Standards.

This book features 85 interesting and exciting multi-century and multicultural web sites that are accompanied by numerical critical thinking questions and activities. Teachers can pose the questions to their entire class or individually assign them. It also contains lists of best practices and examples for interpreting, visualizing, and displaying quantitative data. History and social sciences educators will find this book an indispensable tool for incorporating numerical literacy skills into their class activities and assignments.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781475810523
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	07/22/2014
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	190
File size:	448 KB

About the Author

Kathleen W. Craver, Ph.D., is Head Librarian at National Cathedral School in Washington, D.C. She is the author of five books, including School Library Media Centers in the 21stCentury (1994), Teaching Electronic Literacy (1997), Using Internet Primary Sources to Teach CriticalThinking Skills in History (1999), Creating Cyber Libraries: An Instructional Guide for SchoolLibrary Media Specialists (2002), and Term Paper Resource Guide to Nineteenth-Century U.S. History (2008).

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments xi

Preface xiii

Introduction 1

The Need for Instructional Change 1

Responding to the Workplace 2

Making the Connection 3

Obtaining the Skills 4

Rethinking the Textbook Approach 5

Required Hardware, Software, and Expertise 6

Book Arrangement and Recommended Use 7

Site Selection Criteria 7

Internet Idiosyncracies 8

References 9

1 Using Quantitative Sources 11

An Overview of Quantitative Literacy 11

Definitional Problems 13

Quantitative Literacy Criteria 14

Quantitative Literacy Research Results 15

Applying Quantitative Literacy Skills to the Study of History and the Social Sciences 17

What are Quantitative Sources? 19

Quantitative Classification 20

Quantitative Source Caveats 24

Quantitative Source Preparations 24

Instructor-Designed Quantitative Literacy Curriculum Activities 24

Quantitative Literacy Curriculum Activities Sites 25

Quantitative Instructional Strategies 27

Team Up and Publicize It 28

Quantitative Literacy Assessment Rubric 29

References 29

2 Interpreting, Displaying, and Visualizing Data 33

Displaying Quantitative Data 35

Chart Types 40

Visualizing Quantitative Data 46

Animation and Video Data Displays 48

References 49

3 Social Sciences Sites 51

Accidental Discharges of Oil 51

Ancestry: U.S. Census Bureau 52

Association of Religion Data Archives 54

Children and Youth in History 56

Children's Defense Fund 57

City-Data.com 59

Cost of War Calculator 60

Critical Thinking Questions and Activities 61

Death Penalty Information Center 61

Economagic 63

Economic Historical Data 65

Harris Interactive Vault 66

Homeland Data and Security Statistics 68

Library of Congress Country Studies 69

Literacy Rates of the World 71

NationMaster.com 72

Pew Global Attitudes Project 74

Roper Center Public Opinion Archives 76

Statistical Abstract of the United States 77

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration 79

Terrorism 80

UN High Commission for Refugees 82

Women Watch 84

World Bank Data 85

Youth Indicators 87

ZIPskinny.com 88

Note 90

4 U.S. History Sites 91

All About California and the Inducements to Settle There (1870) 91

American Soldier Surveys of World War II 92

BIOWAR 94

The Bisbee Deportation (1917) 95

Coal Mining in the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 97

Cold War Air Defense Relied on Widespread Dispersal of Nuclear Weapons 98

The Cyclopedia of Temperance, Prohibition, and Public Morals 100

The Domestic Slave Trade 101

The Drought of 1934 102

Historical Census Data Browser 1790-1970 104

How Many Nukes and Where are the Nukes? 105

Illinois Central Railroad and Its Colonization Work 106

In the Footsteps of Lewis and Clark, U.S. Population Growth 108

The Influenza Epidemic of 1928 to 1929 with Comparative Data for 1918 to 1919 109

Lend-Lease Shipments: World War II 110

Lessons Learned from U.S. Humanitarian Intervention Abroad 112

The Marshall Plan 113 National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States 115

Native American Documents Project 117

1929 Stock Market Crash 118

The Peter G. Peterson Foundation 119

Report of the Chicago Relief and Aid Society 121

The Salem Witchcraft Site 122

San Francisco Great Earthquake and the Fire of 1906 123

The Southern Diaspora and the Urban Dispossessed: Demonstrating the Census Public Use Microdata Samples 125

Statistical Information about Fatal Casualties of the Vietnam War 126

The 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire 128

Twenty-Fifth Anniversary of the 1973 Oil Embargo 129

U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey: The Effects of the Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, June 19, 1946 131

The Wealthiest Americans Ever 132

Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793 134

5 World History Sites 137

African Activist Archive 137

Argonaut Conference, January-February 1945: Papers and Minutes of Meetings 138

The Berlin Airlift 1948-1949: Facts and Figures 140

Bosnia's Civil War Origin and Violence Dynamics 141

Census of India Reports 1871-1901 143

The Chernobyl Catastrophe-Consequences on Human Health 145

The Chiquita Papers 146

Colonial Reports Annual No. 1504 Gold Coast Report for 1929 to 1930 148

The Death Toll of the Rwandan Genocide: A Detailed Analysis for Gikongoro Province 149

East India Company Ships 151

The Famine in Ireland: Statistics 152

Guns-for-Slaves: The Eighteenth Century British Slave Trade in Africa 153

The History of the Present State of the Ottoman Empire 155

Iranian Production of 19.75 Percent Enriched Uranium: Beyond Its Realistic Needs 156

Jewish Emigration from Germany 1933 to 1939 158

Lenin: The Development of Capitalism in Russia 159

Migration Information Source-Global Data Center 161

The Nanking Massacre Project 162

The Normandy Invasion: D-Day, 1944 164

On the Mode of the Communication of Cholera 165

Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics 167

Piracy and Maritime Crime: Historical and Modern Case Studies 168

Statistical Materials for Learning about Japan 169

Statistics Canada 171

The Survey of Scottish Witchcraft 1563 to 1736 172

Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database 174

Trenches on the Web (1914 to 1918) Casualty Figures 175

U.S. and Allied Efforts to Recover and Restore Gold and Other Assets Stolen or Hidden by Germany during World War II 176

A Vision of Britain Through Time 178

References 181

Index 187

About the Author 191

Editorial Reviews

It is far more important that high-school graduates understand standard deviations than derivatives. The Common Core requirement that students acquire basic skills in quantitative analysis is a small but important and long overdue step in preparing our graduates for a world of Big Data. This book by itself can reduce pedagogic math anxiety by making it easier for teachers to integrate these quantitative skills into their History and Social Science courses.

Ian Ayres

With the current excitement and energy involving the Common Core State Standards, “reading like a historian,” and historical literacy, Dr. Craver’s work is extremely timely. The 85 web sites that she describes are wonderful resources for social studies teachers. The activities/questions that she provides require higher order thinking; promote high levels of engagement with historical data; incorporate questions that are interesting to young people and relevant to current events; and foster historical thinking skills. The web-based activities that are suggested require students to “use diverse formats of media, including visually and quantitatively, as well as in words” (Common Core State Standards, 2010, 60), just as the standards suggest. The activities engage students in reading, analyzing, synthesizing, writing, and speaking about evidence in descriptive, narrative, and persuasive ways. By doing so they immerse students in authentic disciplinary literacies. Kudos to Dr. Craver for compiling this list of resources and for creating these activities.

Jeffery Nokes

Educators looking to integrate technology and quantitative research into the humanities classroom will find this book to be a valuable resource. Dr. Craver has compiled an array of online resources and designed activities and questions that encourage student collaboration, development of critical-thinking skills, and appropriate use of technology. Using statistics in the classroom— even a humanities classroom— helps students identify cause-and-effect relationships. Here, Dr. Craver provides educators with accessible resources for statistics and methods for teaching quantitative literacy.

Blair Parker

Craver uses a Web–based approach to transform the national common core standards requirement for quantitative literacy in the humanities into a powerful instrument for teachers. She provides history and social science educators with resource sites for lesson plans, educational activities, and opportunities to use the search software that accompanies these sites. Many teachers and their students avoid using numbers as evidence in history and the social sciences due to their own math anxiety. Craver addresses the fear of numbers in the first two chapters of this book, and provides basic instructions for how to use, interpret, display, and visualize quantitative sources. The remaining chapters contain a variety of quantitative websites that include relevant topics for high school students such as piracy or natural disasters, plus site-related critical thinking questions. Educators may want to recommend this book to their secondary students as a potential term paper resource book. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readership levels.

Choice Reviews

A valuable and important resource for history and social science teachers wanting to integrate quantitative evidence in the form of graphs, charts, and tables into class instruction and student assignments. Filled with multicentury and multicultural sources and offering critical thinking questions and activities, it is an indispensable tool for teachers aiming to meet National Common Core Standards regarding the use of quantitative data.

Mary DiQuinzio

Craver uses a Web–based approach to transform the national common core standards requirement for quantitative literacy in the humanities into a powerful instrument for teachers. She provides history and social science educators with resource sites for lesson plans, educational activities, and opportunities to use the search software that accompanies these sites. Many teachers and their students avoid using numbers as evidence in history and the social sciences due to their own math anxiety. Craver addresses the fear of numbers in the first two chapters of this book, and provides basic instructions for how to use, interpret, display, and visualize quantitative sources. The remaining chapters contain a variety of quantitative websites that include relevant topics for high school students such as piracy or natural disasters, plus site-related critical thinking questions. Educators may want to recommend this book to their secondary students as a potential term paper resource book. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readership levels.

Choice

Craver uses a Web–based approach to transform the national common core standards requirement for quantitative literacy in the humanities into a powerful instrument for teachers. She provides history and social science educators with resource sites for lesson plans, educational activities, and opportunities to use the search software that accompanies these sites. Many teachers and their students avoid using numbers as evidence in history and the social sciences due to their own math anxiety. Craver addresses the fear of numbers in the first two chapters of this book, and provides basic instructions for how to use, interpret, display, and visualize quantitative sources. The remaining chapters contain a variety of quantitative websites that include relevant topics for high school students such as piracy or natural disasters, plus site-related critical thinking questions. Educators may want to recommend this book to their secondary students as a potential term paper resource book. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readership levels.

CHOICE