Page 275 - Powerful Social Studies for Elementary Students 4th Edition

CHAPTER 11 How Can I Design, Implement, and Evaluate Instructional Activities? 247
Summary
Instructional activities play a major function in elemen- tary social studies. We encourage you to pay careful attention to the activities that are selected to ensure that they are all related to the goals, are the appropriate level of difficulty, and are feasible and cost effective. Your activities should promote major social studies understandings. After all, what makes an activity worthwhile in the long run is not just that it is
memorable but that it has led to important learning. There is a great deal of room for improvement here. It can be accomplished primarily by placing more emphasis on selecting learning activities with major social education goals in mind, emphasizing these goals when structuring and scaffolding the activities for students, and reemphasizing them in post-activity debriefing exercises.
Reflective Questions
1. How would you respond to a principal or teaching colleague who insists that all activities should be “hands-on” for meaningful learning to occur?
2. Imagine you have been asked to give a talk to building principals in your district. The topic is Instructional Activities. You have decided to use this chapter as the basis for your presentation.
What unfamiliar but useful information would
you include?
3. What previous misconceptions about instruc-
tional activities were dispelled as the result of reading this chapter? How will these inform your future practice?
4. How do you view the relationship between instructional activities and student achievement?
Your Turn: Learning Activities
In order to assess your level of understanding regarding the principles for designing and selecting instructional activities contained in this chapter, we have provided an exercise focusing on a third-grade land-use unit. Study the goals of the unit carefully, and then read each of the activities. Using the guiding primary principles, rate each activity as “good,” “bad,” or “conditional.” Be pre- pared to give reasons for your decisions.
The content for this exercise was adapted from the third-grade Houghton Mifflin textbook, From Sea to
Unit Goals
• Develop an understanding and appreciation for how we use the land to meet our needs and wants. (The San Joaquin Valley is described to demonstrate how modern technology is used to produce huge amounts of food. Pittsburgh is used as the example of an industrial city because it occupied an important place in the industrial history of our country, its geographical location influenced its growth as an industrial giant, and its economic history reflects
Shining Sea, Unit 4, Chapters 9 and 10 (pp. 167A-215). The focus is the United States today. Chapter 9 addresses our current use of the land to meet our needs. Specifically the chapter deals with agriculture, industry, and trans- portation. Chapter 10 focuses on some of the conse- quences of our use of natural resources, emphasizing the need for us to work together to solve environmental problems.
various periods in the economic development of our nation. Another theme woven into the chapter is the role of transportation, especially railroads, in carry- ing goods and people from coast to coast.)
• Develop an understanding and appreciation for the earth as our shared home, the importance of con- serving our natural resources, and the consequences of our misuse of these resources.
• Develop understanding, appreciation, and life applications for solving environmental problems.
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