Sam Wineburg

Sam Wineburg
Born1958 (age 65–66)
Academic background
Education
Doctoral advisorLee Shulman
Academic work
InstitutionsStanford University

Samuel S. Wineburg (born 1958) is an American educational and cognitive psychologist. He is the Margaret Jacks Professor of Education and, by courtesy, of History & American Studies emeritus at Stanford University.

Since the 1990s, Wineburg has been a leading figure in research on historical thinking and the teaching and learning of history.[1][2][3] Wineburg's work has proved foundational in establishing a "heuristic" stream of research on historical thinking which seeks to close the gap between the critical and interpretive work of historians and the fact-based work of students.[4] Wineburg's more recent work has focused on how individuals evaluate the reliability of digital information.[5][1]

Early life and education

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Sam Wineburg was born in 1958. He was raised in Utica, New York in a Reform Jewish family.[6]

Wineburg attended Brown University, where he studied under Jacob Neusner. Neusner told Wineburg "you will have to leave Brown to become Jewishly educated," prompting Wineburg to spend a year and a half in Israel studying Hebrew and living on kibbutzes.[6] Upon his return to the United States, Wineburg transferred to the University of California, Berkeley, where he graduated with a degree in the history of religion.[6] Wineburg earned his Ph.D. in Psychological Studies in Education at Stanford University in 1990,[7] where Lee Shulman served as his advisor.[8]

Research Career

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Wineburg's work has formed the foundation for one of two dominant streams of research on historical thinking in the United States. Wineburg argues that while historians critically analyze documents and examine the motives of authors, American students of history are relegated to the task of "searching for facts." According to Wineburg, this "breach" between school and academia can be addressed through three historical thinking heuristics: sourcing, contextualization, and corroboration.[4] Wineburg defines heuristics as "sense-making activities [that] help their user resolve contradictions, see patterns and make distinctions among different types of evidence."[9] Wineburg's approach "has been criticized for its overemphasis on a disciplinary form of knowledge more attuned to academic education than to the broader educational context and its attention to civic republicanism and the sociocultural milieu in which history learning takes place."[4]

Wineburg co-founded the Stanford History Education Group in 2002[10] and became a member of the National Academy of Education in 2015.[11]

Verified

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In 2023, Wineburg and Mike Caulfield released their book Verified: How to Think Straight, Get Duped Less, and Make Better Decisions About What to Believe Online. It provides a guide on how to use Caulfield's 'SIFT' method to quickly figure out what is likely or unlikely to be true.[12]

References

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  1. ^ a b Onion, Rebecca (2018-09-18). "Amid the Online Glut of Facts and Fake News, We're Teaching History Wrong". Slate Magazine. Retrieved 2022-02-24.
  2. ^ Berg, Christopher W.; Christou, Theodore M. (2020-04-03). The Palgrave Handbook of History and Social Studies Education. Springer Nature. p. 548. ISBN 978-3-030-37210-1.
  3. ^ Arum, Richard; Roksa, Josipa; Cook, Amanda (2016-05-02). Improving Quality in American Higher Education: Learning Outcomes and Assessments for the 21st Century. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-1-119-26851-2.
  4. ^ a b c Metzger, Scott Alan; Harris, Lauren McArthur (2018-03-02). The Wiley International Handbook of History Teaching and Learning. John Wiley & Sons. p. 132. ISBN 978-1-119-10077-5.
  5. ^ Hess, Rick (2021-04-08). "The Stanford Scholar Bent on Helping Digital Readers Spot Fake News". Education Week. ISSN 0277-4232. Retrieved 2022-02-28.
  6. ^ a b c Miller, Robert Nagler (2018-09-13). "Q&A: How do we learn in a time of competing realities?". J. Retrieved 2022-02-24.
  7. ^ "Sam Wineburg". The Conversation. 2019-01-07. Retrieved 2024-01-24.
  8. ^ Hess, Rick (2021-04-08). "The Stanford Scholar Bent on Helping Digital Readers Spot Fake News". Education Week. ISSN 0277-4232. Retrieved 2022-02-24.
  9. ^ Downey, Matthew T.; Long, Kelly A. (2015-07-30). Teaching for Historical Literacy: Building Knowledge in the History Classroom. Routledge. p. 131. ISBN 978-1-317-50902-8.
  10. ^ University, Stanford (2020-10-07). "Judging fact from fiction online". Stanford News. Retrieved 2022-02-24.
  11. ^ "Sam Wineburg". National Academy of Education. Retrieved 2022-02-24.
  12. ^ Warner, John (October 28, 2023). "Biblioracle: If you've ever been lied to or misinformed online, try this book". The Chicago Tribune (Book Review).
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