What challenges did your students face with claim testing, and how did you address them?

I think my biggest challenge was simply incorporating teaching claim testing explicitly in my curriculum. While my department does a lot of debates, thesis writing, and source analysis we do not have lessons that explicitly talk about sources or claims strength in comparison to one another. In general, I have always pointed out weak claims when I give individual feedback on thesis writing or moderating student debates. Adding claim testing into my curriculum has been difficult and I am still experimenting with how to teach the skill effectively in my classroom. 

I think my biggest challenge was simply incorporating teaching claim testing explicitly in my curriculum. While my department does a lot of debates, thesis writing, and source analysis we do not have lessons that explicitly talk about sources or claims strength in comparison to one another. In general, I have always pointed out weak claims when I give individual feedback on thesis writing or moderating student debates. Adding claim testing into my curriculum has been difficult and I am still experimenting with how to teach the skill effectively in my classroom. 

I think the biggest challenges came with being really specific and having trust that they could still find information to support or refute their claims. Some of the claims tended to be vague even after modeling and explanation of historical claims. I would look forward in future activities with claim Testing to have more specific claims as their efficacy grows in both research and claim development. 

One of the things I tell my AP World History students is that it is insufficient for them to identify that a document/source is "biased" because ALL sources contain bias. Bias means opinion in my classroom, and as everyone has an opinion on everything - and those opinions have been influenced by any number of life experiences, identities, time and place in which a person lives, etc., then they need to qualify the reason for the opinion (bias) that exists. While not an easy skill to master, starting from the point that there are no "neutral" points of view and that every source has bias forces students (and teachers) to address not just the "what" but the WHY behind the words written in the document (or the WHY behind the artistic representation - portrait or photograph...or social media post).

I used the claim testing worksheet scaffold https://www.oerproject.com/OER-Materials/OER-Media/PDFs/SBH/Unit-5/5-2-How-Do-Earth-and-Life-Interact/Claim-Testing-Worksheet, which was great in helping students understand the purpose of claim testing. At least for the first time, I would provide students with a list of reliable resources (can only use the provided resources) for them to check whether the claim is accurate. OER project has some fantastic specific articles on a number of history topics. I found students were just using google, even the AI generated responses, which often misinterpret the question, and provide vague responses for the last box of the chart, rather than using specific detailed responses from their Bentley textbook or an academic article to 'back up' their reasoning for 'passing' each part of the test.

One of the biggest challenges my students faced with claim testing was understanding the difference between opinion and evidence. They often wanted to argue based on their own beliefs or what they thought happened, rather than using specific historical facts and details from the sources. To address these issues, I have focused many lessons on source analysis where we closely examine various types of historical sources and discuss their strengths and weaknesses as evidence. Another challenge, especially at the beginning of the school year, I found that a lot of my students struggled to explain how a particular piece of evidence supported or contradicted the argument they were making. To improve this I have implemented the use of graphic organizers to help students visually map out the relationships between evidence and claims.

Some common things that students struggle with when faced with claims testing is that they have a hard time differentiating between the claim and the evidence.  They struggle with not being able to use the evidence correctly to support the claim.  I have tried this year to scaffold down some of the resources they use so they don't get overloaded and give up.  Also, with the internet and so much information available to use students struggle with the historian's opinion rather than factual firsthand experiences.  To help combat this I will use examples with them to show the difference between primary and secondary sources. 

Most of my students also had a hard time worrying about being right or wrong. It's something they often struggle with when making a claim or argument in class. I find we always have to go back to the basics with a non-content related question to help. For example, "What is the best ice cream flavor"? They need to answer the question and back up their answer with evidence. That seems to help refocus them from worrying about right and wrong. 

Some students might conflate evidence with the historian’s interpretation or opinion. They might focus too heavily on the historian’s argument without considering whether the evidence genuinely supports the claim. To combat or solve this,  emphasized the difference between primary sources (facts, documents, direct evidence) and secondary sources (interpretations of those facts). THis encouraged students to ask, "What evidence is being presented, and how does it relate to the claim?"   I would also address this by teaching about source bias and how different perspectives (from a ruling class, a minority group, or a foreign observer) can shape a claim.

My students like to come to conclusions without gathering all the evidence - they just make an intuitive decision and then run with it, looking for information to support their initial intuitive response. It's the easy way out. When we do claim testing and support, I always make them pull arguments from both sides and weigh them against each other. Sometimes, it's difficult to find resources that have strong arguments on both sides, but when I do I make sure they read both carefully, showing them how to pull out claims. Finally, they have to reflect on their initial intuitive response with a Before I thought ____________________ and now I think _________________ thinking routine.