Page 331 - Powerful Social Studies for Elementary Students 4th Edition

CHAPTER 14 What Is the Research Base That Informs Powerful Social Studies Teaching? 303
In general, teachers are likely to be most successful when they think in terms of stretching students’ minds by stimulating them and encouraging them to achieve as much as they can, not in terms of “protecting” them from failure or embarrassment.
Summary
Many of the principles for powerful social studies teaching emphasized in this text are social studies adaptations of more generic principles for teaching school subjects for understanding, appreciation, and life application. It has been challenging for American teachers to apply these principles in recent decades because of the mile-wide but inch-deep problem with the textbooks as well as their failure to structure the content or the suggested learning activities around big ideas. Teaching for understanding, appreciation, and life application has become even more difficult recently because of pressures associated with high-stakes test- ing, primarily in literacy and mathematics. If you teach in states or districts where these pressures are particularly intense, you may have to make at least temporary compromises between doing what you view as best for your students and doing what appears
necessary to prepare them for the tests. Some potential strategies for accomplishing this were suggested and illustrated early in the chapter.
The rest of the chapter presented and briefly elab- orated on a list of 12 generic principles of good teach- ing distilled from the large body of research literature on the topic. Because so much of what is suggested in this text relates to these 12 principles, we have pre- sented them at the end of the text as a way to synthe- size much of its content. Both now and in the future, if you find yourself “losing the forest for the trees” as you learn more and more about the details of imple- menting particular teaching strategies or learning activities, you should find it helpful to revisit these principles as a way to reconnect with the big picture. Remember, powerful teaching and learning depends on you.
Reflective Questions
1. Imagine that the principal of your school indi- cates that you have to follow a very “set” cur- riculum and underscores the importance of following pacing guides including prescribed teaching strategies. How will you respond, given what you have just read?
2. Which of the 12 principles of powerful teaching do you think will be easiest to implement and why? Most difficult to implement and why?
What resources will you draw upon to imple-
ment the principles you find difficult?
3. Select one of the 12 principles—probably the one that will be most easily implemented throughout
the core subjects. How will you incorporate this into your planning? What sorts of notes will you include in your daily or weekly plans to insure you are consistent in implementing the principle—and develop “habits” of good practice?
TeachSource Video Case
Video Case Teaching as a Profession: What Defines Effective Teaching? This video shows a range of examples of effective teaching. As you watch, consider the fol- lowing questions: How do these examples reflect some of the 12 principles? What teaching practices do you want to use in your own teaching?
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