Stewart Waters

• Ph.D
• Professor (Full) at University of Tennessee at Knoxville

Social media has undoubtedly shifted the landscape of educator professional development in the 21st century. The establishment and development of identifiable professional learning communities (PLCs) like the #SSChat social studies community on Twitter enables educators to connect and collaborate with other professionals across the globe from their...

Social media is becoming more eminently woven into the sociocultural fabric of global societies in the 21st century. From emerging platforms and ever-evolving multimodal features, to algorithmic changes and privacy concerns, social media is indubitably shaping the frontier of how people communicate, interact, and perceive the world around them. Usi...

Today’s students are more technologically attuned than any previous generation of teenagers. Due to this, classroom teachers are heavily encouraged to integrate technological resources, such as websites and interactive whiteboards, into their pedagogical practices in an attempt to maintain students’ attentions and promote deeper connections to the...

This qualitative study shares the differing experiences of two social studies teacher interns completing their year-long clinical internship at the same rural high school in the Southeast United States. Kenny completed his internship virtually with a mentor who taught in-person, while Dolly completed her internship in-person with a mentor who taugh...

What makes a successful student teaching experience? The purpose of this 18-month long project was to improve social science educator preparation through embedding skills and practices of teaching with primary sources into teacher preparation coursework associated clinical experiences. This project involved professional development opportunities fo...

Racial literacy was introduced in the early twenty-first century and has proliferated as a research framework and methodology. In education research specifically, racial literacy has been used as a foundation for empirical research and as a broader concept informing education practices. Mindful of this wide-ranging approach, a multidisciplinary tea...

Testing has been a contested aspect of education for decades. The way in which testing, standardized tests, and student motivations correlate is a separate issue. This action research study investigates the relationship between pre-tests and students’ perception of their personal growth. Three classes of 11th grade U.S. History were utilized to col...

Social media continues to evolve and change the way people interact, learn, and communicate. As social media continues to grow in importance within societies, it is critical to better understand how teachers view social media as an educational resource. This quantitative study examines the general attitudes, perceptions, and utilizations of social...

Today’s world is no doubt one that continues to be shaped and influenced by the rise of social media platforms. These platforms have spread throughout the lives of contemporary students and, unfortunately, have heightened the severity and prevalence of cyberbullying. The purpose of this paper is to explore the intersections between social studies,...

Mobile technology continues to change and evolve the way people and society function in their everyday lives. Much like the phenomenon that was the Internet 20 years ago, educators now find themselves facing increasing pressure to adapt classroom instruction to accommodate for new and emerging technologies. This article offers practical considerati...

The emergence of the Times Up and the #MeToo movements has sparked a conversation in the United States uncovering the grim realities that many women face. As the focus on gender equity and power dynamics between men and women continue to garner national attention, the authors of this article were curious to see if this progress manifested itself in...

This study examined the perceptions of 15 teachers and 103 middle school students at a progressive private school located in Mumbai, India to determine their support for the use of mobile phones in the classroom, their perceptions of the mobile phone features that are beneficial for school-related work, and the instructional benefits and barriers t...

Geography is a fun and exciting discipline involving the interrogation of place and space. Film is a powerful and meaningful tool, which also transmits perceptions of place and space. Therefore, this article builds a rationale for utilizing film in the teaching of geography, particularly animated film. Next, it discusses two classroom-tested method...

The researchers in this study investigated rural middle school teachers’ perspectives regarding bullying. The researchers gathered information about the teachers’ definitions of bullying, where bullying occurs in their school, and how to prevent bullying. Peer-reviewed literature associated with this topic was studied in order to achieve a broader...

We expand on the use of monuments and memorials in the social studies classroom, while further promoting a more inclusive curriculum that better represents women in the social studies. The way and frequency in which history textbooks and social studies classrooms represent women has improved over the decades; though, it still needs refining. The im...

The contemporary era of high stakes testing and accountability are placing unprecedented time constraints on K-12 teachers. As the emphasis on covering material increases, less classroom time is allotted to meaningful learning strategies, such as service learning projects. This paper will provide a definition and rationale for service learning proj...

The purpose of this phenomenological study was to understand the experiences of six secondary pre-service teachers that completed a semester long internship with a supervising mentor at a virtual school in the Southeastern United States. The secondary pre-service teachers in this study voluntarily chose a placement in the virtual school over a trad...

All over the world, schools are tasked with the objective of preparing young adults to be contributing members of society. Perhaps no other content area is as important in this task than the field of social studies. Unfortunately, social studies continue to be a marginalized field in the United States. This article seeks to explore the dynamics of...

The inclusion of technology in the classroom is an increasingly important feature of effective instruction. The implementation of Common Core Standards in many states also requires teachers to consider new pedagogical strategies to support meaningful learning. This article explores the intersection between technology demands and curricular change b...

The purpose of this phenomenological study was to understand the experiences of six secondary pre-service teachers that completed a semester long internship with a supervising mentor at a virtual school in the Southeastern United States. The secondary pre-service teachers in this study voluntarily chose a placement in the virtual school over a trad...

Growth in racial and ethnic diversity among public school P-12 students stands in stark contrast to the teaching population who tend to be monolingual, White females. Secondary social studies teachers defy demographic teacher trends, as they tend to be male, albeit White males who still are not representative of the students they teach. What is mis...

This research study explores the correlation between the purposeful inclusion of young adult historical fiction novels and middle school students’ academic achievement and attitudes towards social studies. The researchers designed an afterschool program for 6th grade students to voluntarily participate in a book club about ancient Greece. A group o...

At a time when technology is rapidly changing, educational use of that technology is staggering behind. Schools should be places that prepare students for the rest of their lives. In any case, whether it is at college or in a career, students will need to be prepared to use all sorts of technology. Additionally, students are carrying powerful techn...

Character education is one of the most controversial domains of academic instruction in the United States. At the present time, many states and individual schools are considering the question of their responsibility for educating students about democratic prin- ciples and moral values as a vital part of a teacher’s role. This study investigated the...

The middle school years are a critical time in the physical, intellectual, and moral growth of young adolescents. This article examines how film can be used to engage students in moral-dilemma discussions to promote critical thinking and character develop- ment. The authors argue that the use of film in the classroom can challenge students to expan...

Building on the success of the first edition, Essentials of Middle and Secondary Social Studies 2nd Edition focuses on the key issues central to the teaching of middle and high school social studies, including lesson planning and instructional strategies. Written in an engaging, conversational style, the text encourages teachers in their developmen...

This article explores using films to spark moral dilemma discussions and thereby promote critical thinking and character education for global citizenship in elementary classrooms. After clarifying some of the basic concepts associated with the fields of character education and global citizenship, and the interrelationship between the two, the autho...

This study examines the attitudes of pre-service elementary teachers' at-titudes toward the instructional value of film. Using survey research methodologies, a total of ninety-five pre-service teachers enrolled in ele-mentary education programs at two different major United States re-search universities in the southeastern states completed a Likert...

Essentials of Elementary Social Studies is a teacher-friendly text that provides comprehensive treatment of classroom planning, instruction, and strategies. Praised for its dynamic approaches and a writing style that is conversational, personal, and professional, this text enables and encourages teachers to effectively teach elementary social studi...

The authors of this article examine several controversial U.S. monuments and offer teachers a rationale, resources, and suggested activities for incorporating these historical monuments into classroom instruction. The authors discuss why controversial issues should be discussed in the social studies classroom through the critical examination of nat...

The world is ever changing and the way students experience social studies should reflect the environment in which they live and learn. Digital Social Studies explores research, effective teaching strategies, and technologies for social studies practice in the digital age. The digital age of education is more prominent than ever and it is an approp...

Cultural geography is a unique, diverse, contested, and at times, confusing branch of study in the geography curriculum. Much like many other sub-branches of the social sciences, there has been significant controversy and struggle over the place of cultural geography in the curriculum. This article encourages social studies teachers to consider new...

International revulsion at the violation of human rights during World War II helped spark a global movement to define and protect individual human rights. Starting with the creation of war crimes tribunals after the war, this newfound awareness stimulated a concerted international effort to establish human rights for all, both in periods of war and...

The field of social studies is unique and complex. It is challenged by the differing perspectives related to the definition, goals, content, and purpose of social studies. Contemporary Social Studies: An Essential Reader discusses the contemporary issues surrounding social studies education today. Contemporary Social Studies: An Essential Reader e...

There has been substantial research conducted in the field of social studies education relating to effective instructional pedagogy. However, many research studies fail to take into account one very important variable: How do the students enjoy learning social studies? This paper is a survey research study designed to see what a group of middle sch...

This article examines how film can be used to engage students in critical thinking, and it offers a framework for using film to build citizens of character. We argue that the use of film in the classroom can help students analyze their values and decision making for the purpose of becoming effective citizens. A brief history of character education...

The following article is brief history of The Journal of Social Studies Research. As well, this article provides readers with an index of all articles published in JSSR from 1977-2009. The index is arranged by year. Within each year, the includes all bibliographic information in APA format and a brief summary/abstract of the article.

Values, attitudes, and beliefs have been depicted in movies since the beginning of the film industry. Educators will find this book to be a valuable resource for helping explore character education with film. This book includes an overview of the history of character education, a discussion of how to effectively teach with film, and a discussion ab...