Cognitive Apprenticeship into the Discipline: Helping Students with Disabilities Think and Act Like Historians

This study explored the apprenticeship of students with high-incidence disabilities into the discipline of history through mediation of a web-based instructional environment, the Virtual History Museum (VHM). Thirteen students with high-incidence disabilities spread across two co-taught classrooms participated. They engaged in two units of American history within the VHM. Students' written responses, interviews, and classroom discussions revealed their emerging understanding of multiple perspectives and apprenticeship into the role of historians. Specifically, the students were able to see and accurately represent multiple perspectives about controversial figures in history, as well as take a position and support their position with a rationale. (Contains 5 figures and 2 footnotes.)