Page 39 - Powerful Social Studies for Elementary Students 4th Edition

CHAPTER 1 Elementary Social Studies: What Is It? What Might It Become? 11
Joy Hakim’s A History of US Series (2002) is an example of a text focused on particu- lar disciplinary content and processes in history education. Hakim is a former journalist who set out to make history textbooks lively, engaging, and relevant to children. She draws upon primary sources (e.g., core documents, diary entries, advertisements, maps, photographs) and invites readers to interpret these primary materials themselves. The Freedom: A History of US Series comprises 10 chronologically organized volumes from the very beginnings of the United States to the present. For more information, see www.joyhakim.com.
While this approach has the potential for learning in both content and processes of each discipline, a drawback is that it can lead to the study of each discipline indepen- dently of one another rather than in the integrated manner in which real-life issues and problems are framed. This challenge reflects a perennial dilemma in social studies educa- tion: whether to teach by discipline or by topic. Your goals and what you want social studies to become in your classroom should guide your decision making.
Instructional Approaches
There is a wide range of instructional approaches that teachers can select to make the curricular content meaningful and memorable. Again, the decision begins with your goals, your vision for social studies education, and the nature of the content you are teaching. We describe several widely used instructional approaches.
Inquiry-Based Inquiry teaching, a set of processes that can be applied to a wide range of curricular approaches, has been around for a long time. In fact, in his classic book, How We Think (1910), John Dewey outlined the basic steps of inquiry teaching that are still followed in principle. These steps include describing the key features of a problem or situation, suggesting possible explanations or solutions, gathering evidence that can be used to test the accuracy of the explanations or solutions, evaluating the solutions or explanations, and developing tentative conclusions. Students ask questions, then formulate hypotheses, collect data to answer the question, analyze the data, and answer the questions posed. More discussion of inquiry-based approaches is located in Chapter 10.
All inquiry approaches share a common feature of asking and answering questions scientifically. Inquiry connotes “minds-on” learning—asking questions and exploring possibilities. It requires pulling ideas apart, analyzing them, and putting them back together. It can be used at all grade levels; however, more guidance is needed in the early grades. While many experts characterize inquiry teaching as student centered, we believe it requires balance to be effective, with the teacher playing an active role throughout the process.
Narrative Approach In a narrative approach, children ask questions, conduct research, and answer questions about social science concepts in the context of an engag- ing story (either based on actual events or based on general community and economic structures such as neighborhoods or local businesses). Storypath is an example of this approach that draws upon inquiry and problem-solving. The intent is for students to create meaning from experiences. Students actually “live the story” as they co-construct the story plot with their teacher and acquire deep understandings of the people and events in a time and place. All students are included in the story as they create believable characters and grapple with real problems. The approach engages students, and through personalizing it makes the experience meaningful and memorable (McGuire & Cole, 2010, pp. 25–27).
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