Best Practices: Social Studies

Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment Plan

Kathleen Allan Jonathan Cross EL 560

Social Studies Vision Statement

The integrated study of our social studies courses will prepare students to become responsible citizens, display social understanding, and have civic efficacy. Civic efficacy is the readiness and willingness to assume citizenship responsibilities and to make informed and reasoned decisions for the public good as citizens of a pluralistic, democratic society in an interdependent world.

Understanding by Design, McTighe p. 18

We need to know where we are going.
We must ask three questions to begin. What do we want our students to learn? How will we assess to identify if our students are obtaining this information? What will we do if we identify that our students are struggling? Then we must plan experiences and instruction to obtain our desired outcome.

High School Content Expectations (HSCEs)

Link to the 72 page document: http://www.michigan.gov/documents/mde/SS_HSCE_210739_7.pdf

Social Studies
World History and Geography United States History and Geography Civics Economics

Michigan High School Social Studies

US History and Geography
This chart is located on page 32 Our area of focus is High School 9-12 Provides a snapshot of the sequence of study from K-12

Course Offerings
9
World History and Geography 1 credit , 2 semester course, graduation requirement, MME curriculum

10

U.S. History and Geography (1870 to the present) 1 credit , 2 semester course, graduation requirement, MME curriculum

11

Government and Economics .5 credit, 1 semester course each, graduation requirement, MME curriculum

12

Global Issues 1 credit , 2 semester course, elective course, NOT a graduation requirement

Social Studies Curriculum Overview

World History & Geography assists students in development of understanding of world wide events, processes, and interactions among the worlds people, cultures, societies and environments.
U.S. History & Geography from 1870 to the present provides the student with historical understanding of key events of the 20th century. The course will help the student understand the origins, development, growth, and challenges of our institutions and our culture. Government introduces the students to the form and functions of the federal, state and local government in the United States. The course will concentrate on an examination of our democratic government and the political process. Through this course on economics, students will further their economic knowledge and decision making skills to better participate in a global economy. Students will describe and demonstrate how economic forces affect consumer and producer decisions. Global issues is a thematic course addressing contemporary global concerns of the 21st century. Issues to be studied include interdependence, weapons proliferation and conflict, nationalism, human rights, peacemaking and peacekeeping, international trade, poverty, population issues and the environment.

MME Social Studies Curriculum Assessment Overview

World History & Geography

MME Social Studies Curriculum Assessment Overview

US History & Geography

MME Social Studies Curriculum Assessment Overview

Civics

MME Social Studies Curriculum Assessment Overview

Economics

US History & Geography Curriculum Map

We will take a closer look at Februarys Unit of Instruction. If you were an administrator walking into our US History class today, you will see instruction for HSCE 7.1.2

Unit of Instruction
SS - HSCE P. 43
The Great Depression The New Deal

Unit of Instruction
HSCE: 7.1.2 The Great Depression and New Deal

Formative Assessments
We plan to use formative assessments to check for understanding along the way and guide teacher decision making about future instruction. Formative assessments help us differentiate instruction and thus improve student achievement. We intend for our formative assessments to provide feedback to students so they can improve their performance. Assessments can be administered individually, partnered, in a small group, and as a whole class. Student's need to understand what success looks like and to use each assessment to try to understand how to do better the next time.

Formative Assessment Examples

Summative Assessments
We will use summative assessments as cumulative evaluations to measure student growth after instruction . They will be given at the end of a course in order to determine whether our long term learning goals have been met. The types of summative assessments used will include:
State-mandated assessments MME, used for accountability for schools (AYP) End-of-unit or -chapter tests

End-of-term final or -semester exams

Summative Assessment Examples

39 Questions Aligned to HSCEs

69 Questions Aligned to HSCEs

Summative Assessments

Activities For Implementation

Instructional Research Based Strategies 1 - Writing Across the Curriculum 2 - Cooperative Learning Activities 3 - Project based Learning 4 - Classroom Instruction That Works, Marzano (9 Strategies)

5 - A 6 Step Process for Teaching New Vocabulary Terms, Building Academic Vocabulary, Marzono

Writing Across the Curriculum

A writing-to-learn strategy is one that teachers employ throughout and/or at the end of a lesson to engage students and develop big ideas and concepts. Strategy: GIST- Generating Interactions between Schemata and Texts GIST (Cunningham 1982) is a strategy designed to help students learn to write organized and concise summaries. Summaries restate only the authors main ideas, omitting all examples and evidence used in supporting and illustrating points. For students who are at a loss as how to put a reading into their own words, GIST can be used as a step by step method. How to implement: The teacher should begin with modeling the technique by coaching the class through a paragraph. After modeling assign a reading for students to do independently.

Writing Assessments

Cooperative Learning Activities

Cooperative Learning is a powerful tool for the social studies curriculum. There are many different strategies to cooperative learning. There are five basic standards.
Practice Active Listening

Help and Encourage Each Other

Everyone Participates Explain Your Ideas and Tell Why Complete the Task

Cooperative Learning Samples

Best Practices in Social Studies Education
Click on the link next to the name to see the activity Jigsaw II Sample Cooperative Learning Strategies Number Heads Together Group Constitution Sample Lesson Plan Cubing What I Know Activity Sample What I Know Activity Journals

Project Based Learning (PBL)

Project based learning is a hands on approach for students to learn or further understanding of concepts.
It is built upon authentic learning activities that engage student interest and motivation. These activities are designed to answer a question or solve a problem and generally reflect the types of learning and work people do in the everyday world outside the classroom. Project Based Learning is synonymous with learning in depth. A well-designed project provokes students to encounter (and struggle with) the central concepts and principles of a discipline. Project Based Learning teaches students 21st century skills as well as content. These skills include communication and presentation skills, organization and time management skills, research and inquiry skills, self-assessment and reflection skills, and group participation and leadership skills. Project Based Learning is generally done by groups of students working together toward a common goal. Performance is assessed on an individual basis, and takes into account the quality of the product produced, the depth of content understanding demonstrated, and the contributions made to the ongoing process of project realization. Finally, Project Based Learning allows students to reflect upon their own ideas and opinions, exercise voice and choice, and make decisions that affect project outcomes and the learning process in general.

Project Based Learning Example

Timeline of Your History

Directions: Your first assignment for 19th Century American History will be a timeline of important events in your life. I am assigning you this task so that I may get to know you. For this reason, it is important that you take this assignment seriously and include important events that have happened to you personally. For example it would be appropriate for you to include breaking your arm when you were eight, but it would not be appropriate for you to include I passed the third grade. All items should be significant events in your life.

Classroom Instruction That Works

Researchers at Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning (McREL) have identified nine instructional strategies that are most likely to improve student achievement across all content areas and across all grade levels. These strategies are explained in the book Classroom Instruction That Works by Robert Marzano, Debra Pickering, and Jane Pollock.
1. Identifying similarities and differences 2. Summarizing and note taking 3. Reinforcing effort and providing recognition 4. Homework and practice 5. Nonlinguistic representations 6. Cooperative learning 7. Setting objectives and providing feedback 8. Generating and testing hypotheses 9. Cues, questions, and advance organizers

Six Step Process For Teaching New Terms, Marzono

A six-step process is provided here to guide the direct instruction for the targeted academic terms. The first three steps represent a set; they are designed to ensure that students are appropriately introduced to a new term and develop an initial understanding; the last three steps describe different types of multiple exposures that students should experience, over time, to help them shape and sharpen their understanding of the terms.

The six-steps are as follows:

Step 1: Provide a description, explanation, or example of the new term. Step 2: Ask students to restate the description, explanation, or example in their own words. Step 3: Ask students to construct a picture, symbol, or graphic, visually representing the term. Step 4: Engage students periodically in activities that help them add to their knowledge of the terms in their notebooks. Step 5: Periodically ask students to discuss the terms with one another. Step 6: Involve students in games that allow them to play with terms. Building Academic Vocabulary: Teachers Manual by Robert Marzano & Debra J. Pickering

Intervention
What will we do if our students show evidence of struggling? Differentiate Instruction

Unit of Instruction
SS - HSCE P. 43
The Great Depression The New Deal

USHG (Depression and The New Deal) Resource

The Great Depression: Hardship and Suffering

United States History and Geography HSCE: 7.1.2
Our Social Studies Curriculum will be rich with Primary sources and multi media student interaction
2009 Kent ISD

KC 4 Social Studies

Depression in the Cities

Unemployment rate only tells part of the story More importantly was the impact it had on peoples lives The Depression brought hardship, homelessness, and hunger to millions

 People lost jobs, were evicted from their homes, and ended up in the streets Some people lived in sewer pipes or parks, keeping warm wrapping themselves in newspaper Others built makeshift shacks out of scrap material When these joined together, they became known as shantytowns

Homelessness

 Drought in Midwest wreaked havoc on Great Plains. Why did this happen? Farmers from TX to ND broke up the grassland with tractors and planted millions of acres of farmland. This removed the thick prairie grasses. Farmers exhausted the farmland soil and it became unsuitable for growing crops

The Dust Bowl

FDR Inauguration Speech

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amNpxQANk0M&feature=related

Conclusion
Review
Feedback Questions