Page 25 - Powerful Social Studies for Elementary Students 4th Edition

community, for example, we would begin with the local community and study its history, its geography within the five themes, past and present economic conditions, its political or governmental structure, and sociological aspects such as the roles of community members in their work, as citizens, and so on.
5. How are you treating multicultural education in this text?
We take the term multicultural to refer not to a separate topic or set of lessons but to pervade all aspects of powerful social studies teaching. It begins with establishing a learning community that celebrates diversity as an asset and reaches out to students’ families and home cultures. It implies that history will be taught with attention paid to multiple perspectives on significant events and the stories of people whose histories are often ignored. It assumes teaching about regions, countries, states, and other locations, with attention focused on their cultures along with their geographic and economic char- acteristics. More generally, it means teaching social studies topics in ways that help stu- dents come to understand local and familiar practices within global and multicultural perspectives that “make the strange familiar” and “make the familiar strange.” Finally, we highlight human activities related to cultural universals because it facilitates teaching with a focus on commonalities rather than differences. This emphasis can be applied not only to the lower grades but woven into studies of states and regions in the upper grades. This promotes empathy and helps redirect children’s tendencies toward present- ism in thinking about the past and chauvinism in thinking about other cultures.
6. How is technology treated in your textbook?
Throughout our book, we reference websites that fit naturally with the content. We encourage teachers to use technology when it matches the goals and enhances the development of the big ideas within the unit, but caution against technology-based activities that lack goal relevance or cost-effectiveness. The guiding principles for selecting, implementing, and evaluating activities emphasized in Chapter 11 apply as much to technology-based activities as to more conventional activities. The instructor’s manual provides additional sources. A new feature of the third edition is “Technology Tips,” whereby in each chapter we provide suggestions for websites or technological tools to enhance your social studies teaching.
7. Why is there so much more attention given to units than to individual lessons? We are proponents of depth of development of powerful ideas over breadth of cov- erage. We want to illustrate for the reader the value of networks of connected knowledge structured around powerful ideas that can be learned with understanding and retained in ways that make them accessible for application. In contrast, discon- nected bits of information presented as isolated lessons are likely to be learned only through low-level processes such as rote memorization.
8. What are your views on assessment?
We view assessment as an integral part of ongoing teaching and learning. Different forms and times for assessment should be determined by the purpose of the learn- ing situation, the kind of information acquired, and how it will be used to accom- plish social studies goals. Learning activities play an important role, as they are both curriculum components that need to be assessed as such and mechanisms for eliciting indicators of student learning.
Currently, teachers are faced with many obligations, responsibilities, and frustra- tions regarding assessment. To aid with these challenges, we acknowledge, describe, and provide examples to illustrate how state and national standards can inform instructional planning. Chapter 9 features guidelines for designing paper-and-pencil tools as well as a range of informal measures. Special attention is given to authentic instruments for serving our diverse learners.
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