Inquiry Cycles Can Make Social Studies Meaningful—Learning about the Controversy in Kosovo

ome social studies teachers treat S their field as a set of uncontroversial and humdrum historical facts to be memorized by students (Cuban 1991). Some students, in turn, treat social studies as a boring set of facts to be memorized for the test and then forgotten. We contend that the first prerequisite to the creation of a meaningful and relevant social studies learning environment for students is to ensure that social studies learning is meaningful and relevant to its teachers. We are professional development facilitators for the Schools for Thought (SIT) initiative (Secules, Cottom, Bray, and Miller 1997; Bruer 1995) at Vanderbilt University’s Learning Technology Center. In addition to holding doctoral degrees in fields directly related to teaching and learning, we are certified public school teachers with K-12 social studies teaching experience. As facilitators, we work with a group of Nashville public school social studies teachers, supporting