Page 273 - Powerful Social Studies for Elementary Students 4th Edition

CHAPTER 11 How Can I Design, Implement, and Evaluate Instructional Activities? 245
but they all remember our reenactment of the First Thanksgiving.”) Such justifications are questionable if the students remember the activities only because they were fun or if they report undesirable learning outcomes (e.g., stereotyped perceptions of Native Americans acquired through participation in First Thanksgiving reenactments).
We identified as “best” activities those that produced reports of noteworthy cognitive learning (a significant conclusion or insight) combined with desirable affective outcomes (interest or empathy). Thematic units, simulations, discussions/debates, and field trips most often emerged as “best” activities. Lectures/presentations were depicted positively by many students, mostly due to memorable media presentations or visits by resource people. Seatwork and construction projects were least likely to be named as “best” activities. Activi- ties such as memorizing the state capitals, learning the states in alphabetical order, writing out definitions, answering questions about the text, coloring maps, doing ditto sheets, or memorizing the locations of states and nations often were criticized as boring or pointless.
Discussions and debates typically yielded positive reports (especially current events discussions, as opposed to discussions of events in the past). So did simulations, field trips, and activities that were embedded within thematic units that allowed for sustained study of a substantial topic (archeology, Native Americans, states or nations). However, research reports on states or nations often produced little substantive learning. Appar- ently, these reports focused on activities such as looking up and listing the states’ birds and flowers or the nation’s exports and imports (without learning much about the rea- sons for these economic characteristics). Social studies goals would be better served if report assignments were structured with emphasis on learning the more important aspects of states or nations and the geographical, historical, and economic reasons why they have the characteristics that they do.
Many students reported constructing products. Often these were maps, photo mon- tages, or other illustrations to accompany reports on states or nations, but many were time-consuming activities such as building a pyramid, making a papier-mâché globe, mak- ing flags, creating a puzzle of the United States, or building a bridge. The time involved in some of these construction activities raises cost-effectiveness concerns, especially because the learning outcomes associated with most of them were not impressive.
Low-level, repetitive seatwork was mentioned frequently and often disparaged as boring or counterproductive. Two other activities did not appear frequently, but were singled out for pointed criticism when they were reported. The first was memorizing and reciting (e.g., the Gettysburg Address, the states in alphabetical order). Students who mentioned these activities usually did so contemptuously, pointing out that they no longer remembered much of what they had memorized. The other disparaged activity was taking turns reading aloud from the textbook. Rather than mere contempt, students reported this activity with resentment. In addition to sheer boredom, they mentioned the humiliation that it caused poor readers. Some of these students added that such activities made them “hate” social studies and/or the teacher.
The implications of the five qualities of powerful social studies teaching and learning (meaningful, integrative, value-based, challenging, and active) described in Chapter 3 sug- gest the importance of combining content with activities that meet the criteria outlined in
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Principles for Evaluating Activities: NCSS Position Statement on Powerful Teaching and Learning