TE 401: Teaching Subject Matter to Diverse Learners, Social Studies

September 4, 2008The Purposes, Content, and

Representation of Social Studies

Agenda

Consent formsReflections and QuestionsThe Hook: Social Studies MemoriesWhat is social studies?A history of social studiesFor next timeTeaching for understanding

Consent Forms

Please complete the surveys on discussion. WRITE YOUR NAME ON THE TOP OF THE SURVEY

These are private and I will not see the results of this survey (your individual responses) until after the course is over.

Reflections and Questions

Pedagogical purposes of a walk around?

What questions do you have from the syllabus?

Digital Storytelling

PhotoStory 3

The Hook: Social studies experiences

Two-minute pause - write about thefollowing experiences:

1.Your favorite memory ofsocial studies and why?

2. Your least favorite social studies memory and why?

The Hook: Social studies experiences

Connect this hook activity with number smart learners:

Find commonalities Create categories (i.e. projects,

memorizing facts/dates, field trips, etc.)Graph Analyze data for patterns

BREAK

A Current Events Minute

Think back to all that happened in the world and the United States since last Thursday . . .

What, most likely, would elementary kids talk about or discuss related to these current events?

How do we, as teachers, take these discussions and ground them into the purposes of social studies?

For next time . . .

Brophy and Alleman, Ch. 4, 14Weinstein and Mignano, Chapter 7(This is

the classroom management textbook from the science section.)

If you have not already done so, watch/follow the remaining part of the Republican National Convention

The State of Social Studies: A National Random Survey of Elementary and Middle School Social Studies Teachers *

Purpose: Gain some level of understanding of what exactly is going on nationally with social studies in elementary and middle schools.

Focus: Public elementary and middle schools where formal history and civic education

allegedly begins.

Data collection: Nationally representative telephone survey of 1,051 randomly selected second-, fifth-, and eighth-grade social studies teachers through the University of Connecticut's Center for Survey Research and Analysis

Results:  (1) Less importance placed on social studies than most other subjects (2) 2nd and 5th grade teachers spend little classroom time on social studies (3) acceptance of cultural diversity most important reason for teaching social

studies.

* Source: Leming, James S.; Ellington, Lucien; Schug, Mark, Social Education, v70 n5 p322-327 Sep 2006 (Journal from NCSS)

Purpose of Social Studies

Social studies helps answer the essential question: What does it mean to be human?

Chapter 1 of Brophy and Alleman supports this notion:

- Uncovering powerful ideas about basic human conditions

- What else? What are competing visions about what social studies should be? (p.5)

Social studies bears a special responsibility to citizenship education . . . helping young

people develop the ability to make informed and reasoned decisions for the

public good as citizens of a culturally diverse, democratic society in an

interdependent world.

Brophy & Alleman,

Social Studies

is

citizenship

knowledge

skills values

Purpose of Social Studies

NCSS Website -http://www.socialstudies.org/positions/powerful/

Document title: A Vision of Powerful Teaching and Learning in the Social Studies: Building Social Understanding and Civic Efficacy

But, what does powerful teaching look like? And, how does a person plan for it?

Background of Social Studies

Chapter 1 of Brophy and Alleman

NCSS formed in 1921

SS replaces “stand-alone” history and geography curriculums

Question: How does the NCSS make this definition meaningful?

The NCSS divides social studies into 10 strands. The strands are thematic in nature and provide the basis of social studies.

How NCSS defines social studies

Social studies is the integrated study of the social sciences and humanities to promote civic competence. Within the school program, social studies provides coordinated, systematic study drawing upon such disciplines as anthropology, archaeology, economics, geography, history, law, philosophy, political science, psychology, religion, and sociology, as well as appropriate content from the humanities, mathematics, and natural sciences. The primary purpose of social studies is to help young people develop the ability to make informed and reasoned decisions for the public good as citizens of a culturally diverse, democratic society in an interdependent world.

NCSS Thematic Strands

I. Culture II. Time, Continuity, and Change III. People, Places, and Environments IV. Individual Development and Identity V. Individuals, Groups, and Institutions VI. Power, Authority, and Governance VII. Production, Distribution, and Consumption VIII. Science, Technology, and Society IX. Global Connections X. Civic Ideals and Practices

What disciplines correspond with each of these strands?

Scope and Sequence of Social Studies in the Elementary Schools

The question is how to place thematic strands and disciplines in a logical sequence for the grades

Currently in U.S. public schools, “expanding environments” provides the sequence

K: Me

Expanding Environments

K: Me

1st Grade: Family and

School

K: Me

1st Grade: Family and

School

2nd Grade: Local Communities

K: Me

1st Grade: Family and

School

2nd Grade: Local Communities

3rd Grade: Regional Communities

K: Me

1st Grade: Family and

School

2nd Grade: Local Communities

3rd Grade: Regional Communities

4th Grade: States

K: Me

1st Grade: Family and

School

2nd Grade: Local Communities

3rd Grade: Regional Communities

4th Grade: States

5th Grade: the United States

K: Me

1st Grade: Family and

School

2nd Grade: Local Communities

3rd Grade: Regional Communities

4th Grade: States

5th Grade: the United States

6th Grade: Western Cultures*

•Sometimes Eastern Hemisphere

Criticisms of the Expanding Environments Approach? (B&A, p. 10-11)

Boring; covering material with which children are already familiar

Traditional and focused on stereotypical middle-class experiences and values

Does not allow children to experience the long-ago and far-away

Alternatives? E.D. Hirsch and cultural literacy; Brophy and Alleman’s “cultural universals”

However…EE is not going away

Expanding Environments

Currently in Michigan: Michigan grade level content expectations (GLCE’s) do not follow the traditional expanding environments curriculum any more since.

Michigan is now in third grade U.S. History in fourth grade Integrated U.S. History in fifth grade This is the first year teachers are

implementing the new curriculum so it might be somewhat chaotic this year as teachers work out the transition.

Teaching is like an iceberg…

Teaching is like an iceberg…

There’s the visible…and the invisible…

Teaching( What’s visible in the

classroom during a social studies lesson?)

Teaching ( What’s not visible in the

classroom)

1. What problems/challenges teachers face in planning to teach social studies

2. What teachers must know and be able to do in order to plan, design, and enact lessons that help students learn the social studies

3. How teachers make informed, professional decisions about what they teach and how they teach, and what methods they use to determine the impact of their teaching

How does Brophy and Alleman recommend trying to make social studies “powerful”? (pg. 51-54)

MeaningfulIntegrativeValue-BasedActiveChallenging

What do each of these mean?

Metacognitive Moment: 3-2-1 Shape it up

1 Question that circles around my

brain

2 Goals that squared with me

3 points that I will remember