Page 306 - Powerful Social Studies for Elementary Students 4th Edition

278 Powerful Social Studies for Elementary Students
as observers, data gatherers, and primary sources for a follow-up in-class discussion. The entire class would be involved in the initial reading and planning. The active student participants would go to the session armed with questions from their peers and return having fulfilled a class mission. The follow-up discussion could address the preliminary peer questions and the participants’ observations. Such an out-of-school opportunity should serve to whet the appetite of others and provide the class with another avenue for becoming informed and involved citizens of the community. Students would be expected to take turns taking on special assignments with their parents, so that their classmates could benefit from a range of field trips that would not be feasible within the parameters of most school budgets.
Suppose a class were studying government with special attention to rules and laws. Taking the whole class on a walking tour of the community looking for signs of unwrit- ten and written rules and laws might be too time-consuming; however, this task could be a very productive and meaningful use of after-school time. Students could easily combine this assignment with the regular school bus ride or walk home or running errands with their family members. For signs of unwritten rules, they could study human behavior and routine (e.g., do young children hold older family members’ hands while crossing the street? do people use lower voices in certain indoor settings? do people wait their turn in line?); for signs of written rules, they could examine signs to parks, traffic signs, and traffic lights. For best results, the teacher should provide a data retrieval form so that the next day’s discussion would not be based simply on memory.
Other examples of homework that are not cost effective if done during school time, yet could be useful when structured appropriately and tied to in-school goals, include watching a specific television show with an eye toward examining gender roles or acquir- ing knowledge and appreciation about a particular place or group of people (e.g., a special program on women in Islamic countries). These out-of-school learning opportunities expand students’ learning horizons, serve as validity checks for book learning, and provide authentic connections that extend beyond the school day.
Keeping the Curriculum Up to Date
Social studies education courses based on textbooks as their chief data sources are often years behind world events. Moreover, sometimes the textbooks children use were written years or even decades earlier. In such cases, it is important to supplement the text with learning opportunities involving newspapers, magazines, television broadcasts, and Inter- net resources. The additional information can be used to inform discussions of the changes occurring and the challenges created by a new set of conditions. Instead of only reading outdated material regarding U.S. leadership and our country’s affairs, stu- dents learn at the cutting edge of national and world developments. For example, discus- sion could be focused on the effects of the events of September 11, 2001. How has our country changed since that historical event? Engagement of adults in the students’ households or neighborhoods in discussion of such questions may cause them to view their children in a new light and create a cross-generational dialogue about a significant topic of real interest.
Principles for Designing and Implementing
Meaningful Homework Activities
We will consider meaningful homework within the context of the principles for planning and implementing social studies learning activities that we described in Chapter 11. These principles include four primary criteria that all learning activities must meet: (a) goal relevance; (b) appropriate level of difficulty; (c) feasibility; and (d) cost. Secondary
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