Page 240 - Powerful Social Studies for Elementary Students 4th Edition

CHAPTER 10
Andy Ley, Second Year teacher
It’s no wonder that in today’s classrooms during social studies lessons, you often see a lot of bored faces. Some of my K-12 social studies teachers, including “yours truly” as a pre-intern, sometimes fell into the mind numbing routine of teaching social studies as a bunch of disconnected facts taught only from the readings in the text book. As a pre-intern it was easy to have my students round robin read the chapter and then follow the teacher edition word for word. I knew deep down it wasn’t effective; however, when you are overwhelmed in planning for so many subjects you often cheat. Social studies is such an important subject in school because it is all around us, and an integral part of our lives, yet I fell into the rut and focused totally on classroom management. I feared my students might get out of hand if I let them work together, some- times be out of their seats, and so forth.
After enrolling in my first social studies course, reading this chapter, and reflecting on my early attempts at social studies lessons, I gradually began to realize that I had to listen to my head and to my heart to create a space in my classroom where my students and I could investigate the big ideas together. In order for social studies to be authentic and meaningful, I knew my students must relate to the content. By gradually concentrating my social studies units on a set of big ideas, and then planning numerous ways to engage my students in the participation of social studies, I began to notice
WHAT ARE SOME OTHER STRATEGIES FOR TEACHING SOCIAL STUDIES?
212
Copyright 2012 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.
© Keith Knighton
TEACHER VOICE