Social Studies

Theories, Methods, and Strategies

Dr. Helen Bond

9-26-2011

Agenda for 9-26-2011

Table of Contents Review of Key Theories and Methods

– Constructivism– Banking Theory of Education (Paulo Freire)– Spiral Curriculum – Anticipatory Set – Objective Writing

Table of Contents, Continued

• The Content of Social Studies

• Social Studies Standards– Methods:

• Expanding Environment Scope and Sequence• (textbook page 23)

• Multiple Intelligences (Howard Gardner) • (textbook page 71)

– Textbook Readings (Chapters 1-2)– Sample Social Studies Lesson Plan

Table of Contents Constructivism (Piaget)

– Constructivism's central idea is that human learning is constructed, that learners build new knowledge upon the foundation of previous learning.

– This view of learning sharply contrasts with one in which learning is the passive transmission of information from one individual to another

Table of Contents Constructivism• There are two important things to remember about Constructivism:

• The first is that learners construct new understandings using what they already know. Learners come to learning situations with knowledge gained from previous experience, and that prior knowledge influences new learning.

• The second is that learning is active rather than passive. • Learners confront their understanding in light of what they encounter in

the new learning situation.

• If what learners encounter is inconsistent with their current understanding, their understanding can change to accommodate new experience.

• Learners remain active throughout this process (Accommodation and Assimilation)

Constructivist Teaching

• Provide concrete props and visual aids, such as models and/or time line

• Use familiar culturally appropriate examples to facilitate learning more complex ideas,.

• Allow opportunities to classify and group information with increasing complexity; use outlines and hierarchies to facilitate assimilating new information with previous knowledge. (Concept Maps)

• Present problems that require logical analytic thinking; the use of tools such as "brain teasers" is encouraged.

• Use visual aids and models.

• Provide opportunities to discuss social, political, and cultural issues.

• Teach broad concepts rather than facts, and to situate these in a context meaningful and relevant to the learner

Constructivist Textbook Connection

• See page 20– “The hardest lesson for beginning teachers to

learn is that …….

• See page 32-33

• See page 34 (constructivist social studies classroom example)

Banking Theory of Education (Paulo Freire)

• Constructivist Teaching is the Opposite of the Banking Theory of Education .

• Education thus becomes an act of depositing, in which the students are the depositories and the teacher is the depositor.

• Teacher makes deposits which the students patiently receive, memorize, and repeat when tested.

•

Paulo Friere.

•(Authored The Pedagogy of the Oppressed)

Anticipatory Set • The "anticipatory set" is set up at the beginning of a lesson or during a

transfer of activities. The object of the anticipatory set is to guide students into the new lesson by having them recall past information. It causes the students to begin to focus on the new material and used to stimulate the students' interest and give them the motivation needed for learning.

• An Anticipatory Set:•  is the attention getter for the lesson• grabs interest• accesses student prior knowledge• has all students involved• provides for transfer from prior knowledge to the new learning• leads to the learning objective

What Is a K-W-L?

• K-W-L is a 3-column chart that can serve as an anticipatory set in a lesson plan as well as an assessment of student learning.

• • K stands for Know: Prior knowledge activation question. • W stands for Will or Want: What do I think I will learn

about this topic? What do I want to know about this topic? • L stands for Learned: What have I learned about this

topic• Q: What further questions do I have about this topic?

(KWL MODIFICATION)

KWLKWL (Modified)

Performance Objectives

• The student will be able to (The stem) :

– Summarize two prevailing perspectives of the cause of the Civil War (Target performance)

– In the text entitled “The American Civil War - The Struggle to Preserve the Union? (Measurement conditions)

– With 95% accuracy (Criterion for success)\

Bloom’s Taxonomy

Examples of Performance Objectives

• The student will be able to describe the five stages of mitosis

• The student will understand the five stages of mitosis

• Students will be familiar with the different types of cultural diversity.

• Students will be to compare and contrast the holiday celebrations of different groups of people.

•

Avoid using verbs that are difficult to measure objectively.

• know • comprehend • understand • appreciate • familiarize • study • be aware • become acquainted with • gain knowledge of • cover • learn • realize

Guide to Writing Performance Objectives

• Review Checklist:•

Does the learning objective stem from a course goal or objective?_____• Is the learning objective measurable?_____• Does the learning objective target one specific aspect of expected performance?

_____• Is the learning objective student-centered?_____• Does the learning objective utilize an effective, action verb that targets the

desired level of performance?_____• Do learning objectives measure a range of educational outcomes?_____• Does the learning objective match instructional activities and assessments?

_____• Does the learning objective specify appropriate conditions for performance?

_____• Is the learning objective written in terms of observable, behavioral outcomes?

____

Table of Contents, Continued

• The Content of Social Studies

• Social Studies Themes (Standards)– Methods: – Expanding Environment Approach– Multiple Intelligences (Howard Gardner) – Textbook Readings (Chapters 1-2)– Sample Social Studies Lesson Plan

What is the Social Studies?

• What do you remember learning during Social Studies in your elementary classroom experience?

What is Social Studies?

• According to the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS), social studies is the integrated study of the social sciences and humanities to promote civic competence. (p 15)

What are the fundamental attributes of the definition of social studies (as defined by the National Council for the

Social Studies)?• primary purpose is citizenship

education• integrated content from social

sciences• higher order thinking skills• multicultural understandings• decision making and personal

responsibility

10 Themes of Social Studies

*• See the inside cover of the front and back

of the textbook

• See pages 26-27 in your textbook

Culture: (Theme 1)

• Social studies programs should include experiences that provide for the study of culture and cultural diversity, so that the learner can:

Culture: Examples• One of the classroom activities describes the experiences of a teacher, Carlene

Jackson, who uses a new program to develop geographic understanding in her first grade class.

• Before the first day of school, Jackson looks over her class list, inferring that she will have students of Mexican, Vietnamese, and Korean ancestry, as well as of African-American and European-American backgrounds.

• Jackson and her students decide to study how families meet their basic needs of food, clothing, and shelter in five places: their community; Juarez, Mexico; Hanoi, Vietnam; Lagos, Nigeria; and Frankfurt, Germany.

• The class reads books and stories, looks at photos and slides, watches videos, and talks to speakers from their cities.

• Students sharpen their reading, writing, and speaking skills and learn new geography skills such as map reading.

• For each city, they read and discuss something about its location, climate, region, and people.

Time, Continuity and ChangeThe past, as well as stability and change over time

Theme 2 • Family Interview: Tell students they will have

an opportunity to interview their parents or other adults in their family about the types of products or material things they had growing up and about how they spent their time when they were children.

• See Family Interview Inquiry Log below.

Family Interview INquiry Log

Time, Continuity and Change

• After students have conducted their interviews, discuss their findings as a class.

• Writing: Ask students to write one to two pages about their family interviews on one of the following topics:

• 1. Compare and contrast their attitudes about possessions and money with those held by their parents or grandparents.

• 2. Ask students to explore how having greater or fewer material goods has affected their own family

Culture and Time, Continuity, and Change

(Theme 1 & 2)

• Units include the following topics:

Japanese American InternmentYosemite: First Visits, Lasting Impressions, Preservation The Great MigrationThe Dust BowlCherokee Removal

People, Places and Environments :Spatial concepts and relationships

Theme 3

• Geography • Students learn how to explore their personal world

and the larger world through the use of maps, globes, and atlases.

• Lessons are taught on how to recognize the different physical features of maps.

• Students also learn the various land features such as plateau, prairie, peninsula, isthmus, mesa, mountain range, delta, straight, and channel

People, Places and Environments: (Theme 3)

• Bedroom Maps: Grades: 3rd Grade and up: A lesson that integrates writing and map skills

• In order to reinforce map skills, my students write a detailed description of their bedrooms including shapes, sizes, colors and directional relationships between objects in their rooms.

• After a few lessons on maps, keys and symbols the students create an aerial view map of their room. I display the bedroom maps on the bulletin board and include a zip lock bag with the children's descriptions in the middle.

• There are only numbers that I can identify on the descriptions so the students don't know who wrote them. During free time, the children can take out a description and try to match it to a map on the board. If the work was done accurately, the challenge shouldn't be too difficult

Individual Development and IdentityTheme (4)

Types of groups and institutions and their relationships to individuals

• LESSONS ON COMMUNITY HELPERS

Community Helpers

Individuals, Groups, and Institutions: Theme (5)

• Types of groups and institutions and their relationships to individuals

Power, Authority, and Governance:

Structure of specific governments and various types of government across time and cultures

(Theme 6)

• The Iroquois Confederacy inspired many ideas in the United States Constitution.Grade Levels: 2 - 5

Production, Distribution, and Consumption (Theme 7)

• Decisions that peoples and governments make when limited resources exceed wants

• Creating a Classroom Economy: Click on Document Below.

  Classroom Economy

Science Technology and SocietyTheme (8)

After a Museum Visit –

(The Influence of Transportation Technology

Railroads)

-A display was created after students visited a local museum. During their time at the museum, students learned how the railroads affected the area.

-Upon return to school, they did an Interactive Writing lesson that allowed them to summarize their ideas about what life was like both before and after the railroads.

After visit students drew illustrations to accompany their text (see above)

Global Connections (Theme 9)

• The increasing links of peoples and societies across the world in terms of economy, communication, technology, and other factors.

• Clock on icon (below) labeled Global Connections to see an example of a lesson focusing on this theme.

Global Connections

Civic, Ideals, and Practices Ideals, beliefs, values, and practices associated with informed

citizenship(Theme 10)

• .

• Example: Students will learn about the United States political system in historic context and from the standpoint of present-day practice.

• Students learn from using primary sources such as The Articles of Confederation, The Constitution, and The Bill of Rights.

Civic, Ideals, and Practices: (10)The Democracy Project

• Great ideas for integration of social studies and language arts

• To Parents: The Democracy Project and online community offers many opportunities for you and your child to examine election-related topics such as issues, persuasion, and map-reading. Read more about how you can expand on this online activity with your kids offline.

To Teachers: The activities and lesson plans you see on the site have been designed with the following goals in mind

DCPS StandardsSS

1. The evolution of the concepts of personal freedom, individual responsibility, and respect for human dignity over time.

2. The struggles that men and women have faced in overcoming political oppression, economic

exploitation, religious persecution, and racial injustice.3. The growth and impact of centralized state power

through time.4. The birth, growth, and decline of civilizations.5. The influence of economic, political, religious, and

cultural ideas as human societies movebeyond regional, national, or geographic boundaries.

Methods to Teach the Social Studies

• The Content of Social Studies– Methods:

• Expanding Environment Scope and Sequence (page 23 textbook)

• Multiple Intelligences (Howard Gardner) (page 71 textbook)

– Textbook Readings (Chapters 1-2)

Methods: The Content of Social Studies

Expanding Environment Scope and Sequence (page 23 textbook)

Click on the icon below to see an example of the Expanding Environment Scope and Sequence

Expanding Environment Scope & Sequence

Multiple Intelligences

Dr. Helen Bond

September 26, 2011

Textbook Chapter 2 (page 71-72)

What makes a person intelligent ?

Traditional Notions of Intelligence

• Intelligence is Definable

• Fixed

• Stable

• Genetic

• Deterministic

• Measurable

Alternative Notions of Intelligence

• Not easily definable

• Changing/interconnected

• Impacted by the environment

Multiple Intelligences

• Howard Gardner

• When Howard Gardner's book, Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences (Basic Books, 1983)

• Gardner School

IMPLEMENTING GARDNER'S THEORY IN THE CLASSROOM

• Gardner says, "(I) t's very important that a teacher take individual differences among kids very seriously … The bottom line is a deep interest in children and how their minds are different from one another, and in helping them use their minds well."

Integrating MI in Your Unit

• Click on the document below to learn more about multiple intelligence (MI).

MI Inventory

Monday October 3, Online

Midterm Exam

• Lesson Plan Development

• Textbook Chapters 1-3

• Due Monday October 10 in Blackboard

In-Class Worksheet

• Please complete and hand in at the end of class.

• Online students, please post your answers in the designated Discussion Forum.

Project Based Learning(PBL)

• A project based learning method is a comprehensive approach to instruction.

• Your students participate in projects and practice an interdisciplinary array of skills from math, language arts, fine arts, geography, science, and technology.– CHECKLISTS

Examples of PBL

• In project-based learning, students work in teams to explore real-world problems and create presentations to share what they have learned. Compared with learning solely from textbooks, this approach has many benefits for students, including:

• Deeper knowledge of subject matter;• Increased self-direction and motivation;• Improved research and problem-solving skills

Examples of PBL• In project-based learning, students try to answer a

question -- one that has relevance for them -- that is greater than the immediate task at hand.

– EX: Students at a Kentucky elementary school conducting surveys, doing research, building models, and taking field trips with the goal of determining the best kind of new bridge to build over the Ohio River.

• Students conduct research using a variety of sources, from the Internet to interviews with experts.

• They work on the project over an extended period of time -- six weeks or more -- because of the in-depth nature of the investigation.

Examples of PBL

• Fifth graders in Lackawanna, Pennsylvania, let Houston know they’re up to the Space Day design challenge.

Examples of PBL

• At Newsome Park Elementary School in Newport News, Virginia, second graders curious about the number of medicines a classmate takes and her frequent trips to the doctor investigate -- with the classmate's permission -- the causes of cystic fibrosis. They invite experts to tell them about the disease, write up their research, use graphs and PowerPoint® to tell the story, sell pledges to a cystic fibrosis walkathon, and participate in the walkathon.

Examples of PBL

At The Mott Hall School in New York's Harlem, a fifth-grade project on kites involves using creative writing skills in poems and stories with kite themes. While designing their own kites on the computer and then making them by hand, students learn about electromagnetism and the principles of ratios and proportions. A casual remark by one student leads to an in-depth study of the role of kites in various cultural celebrations.

Examples of PBL

• A project on worms captures the imaginations of first graders in Newport News, Virginia.

PBL in-depth investigation of a real-world topic worthy of children's attention & effort."

Three-phased approach: • Phase 1 involves an initial discussion of a

project topic, including children's firsthand experiences related to the topic.

• Phase 2 involves fieldwork, sessions with experts, and various aspects of gathering information, reading, writing, drawing, and computing.

• Phase 3 is the presentation of the project to an audience.

Blooms Taxonomy

• In 1956, Benjamin Bloom, a professor at the University of Chicago, shared his famous "Taxonomy of Educational Objectives". Bloom identified six levels of cognitive complexity that have been used over the past four decades to make sure that instruction stimulates and develops students' higher-order thinking skills.

Blooms Taxonomy

• Knowledge : Rote memory skills (facts, terms, procedures, classification systems) 

• Comprehension : The ability to translate, paraphase, interpret or axtrapolate material. 

• Application : The capacity to transfer knowledge from one setting to another. 

• Analysis : The ability to discover and differentiate the component parts of a larger whole. 

• Synthesis : The ability to weave component parts into a coherent whole. 

• Evaluation : The ability to judge the value or use of information using a set of standards. 

MI Tests

1. Index of Learning Styles Questionnaire

2. Multiple Intelligence Inventory

3. Additional Online Resources

4. Find Your Strengths