Chapter6.ppt

Chapter 6
Planning for Social Studies
Teaching and Learning

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Teachers as Decision Makers
Effective teachers plan carefully and offer choices to their students.

Plans:
Help teachers think about what students need to accomplish.

Guide students through experiences.
Help teachers reflect to what extent an experience was successful.

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Basic Decisions
Teachers must make decisions about content and need to take into consideration what students already know.
In a social studies curriculum, teachers have a great deal of autonomy.
In addition, teachers must decide which type of activities students will do.

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Motivation
It is very important for students to be motivated.
How motivated a student is will influence his/her success.
A student’s motivation is to a great degree based on prior success.
Teachers should plan ways to motivate their students because successful experiences occur when students are challenged and involved.

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Retention
Retention is the ability to recall and use information.
It is the responsibility of teachers to fully develop student retention of key concepts and skills.
Short term memory items include names and dates.
Relating ideas together and active involvement in the learning process are examples of processes that come from long term retention.

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Transfer of Learning
The process of transfer of learning happens when students use knowledge learned from one situation and apply it to another.
Teachers can lead students to develop this process by using facts as tools rather than ends in themselves.
Another method that enhances student ability to do this is when teachers make connections between different subjects that are taught.

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Planning Lessons and Activities
Ellis (2007) identifies six components in lesson development:

Key idea
Instructional objective
Motivation
Activity
Assessment
Reflection

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Substance
Substance refers to what students learn.
The substance of social studies lessons includes 4 components:
Content
Concepts
Skills
Values

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Teaching Concepts
Concepts are abstract and can be used in many situations.
They transcend time and space.
The concept of supply and demand, for example, can be used to help students understand aspects of the economic system.
Concepts are very important because they can be applied to many situations.

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Developing Concepts
Ellis (2007) states that there are many ways to develop concepts.
Two of the most effective ways are direct experience and reflection.
The use of mind maps is also a good way to develop concepts.

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Teaching Concepts through Problem Solving
Another way to teach concepts is through problem solving.
Ellis explains how supply and demand can be taught to first graders through an activity.

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The Advantages of Webbing
Webbing can lead students to create new meaning about material students learn (Marzano and Arredondo, 1986).
Webbing promotes nonlinear thinking.
It allows students to explore relationships that are difficult.
It helps students understand the relationship between the whole and its parts.

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Teaching Skills
Ellis (2007) defines skills as methodological tools of social science.
Skills allow students to further develop ideas.
Social studies develops a wide variety of skills including classifying, data gathering, and analyzing.

Teaching Values
Ellis (2007) mentions that the values taught in elementary school fall into three categories:

Behavioral
Procedural
Substantive
Good teachers use a combination of variables when they teach values.

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Behavioral, Procedural, & Substantive Values
Procedural values involve problem solving and include inquiry, critical thinking, and hard work.
Behavioral values involve conduct and citizenship. Examples of these values include respecting others and following classroom rules.
Substantive values are based on feelings and experiences of individual students. It is common for students to have different substantive values, and teachers need to respect these differences.

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Planning and Developing Units
A unit is a series of lessons which involve a sequence designed to develop a theme.
Units are based on teaching students concepts, skills, content, and values.
Examples of common social studies units include: “The Gold Rush”, “Early Explorers”, and “Minority Rights”.
There are no rules as to how long a unit should be.
There are advantages and disadvantages when selecting larger and smaller units. Ellis (2007) suggests for teachers to use balance.

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Guidelines for Developing a Unit Plan
Ellis (2007) recommends that teachers use six steps when developing a unit:

Setting goals in context
Creating an overview
Developing unit objectives
Developing a block plan
Identifying unit resources
Creating an instructional design

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Setting Goals in Context

& Creating an Overview

The first stages of creating a unit involve matching the unit with the goals for the whole year.
A teacher can then write an overview.
The overview contains a rationale, which discusses why the unit that is being taught and also a description of content. The statement of content can be included using a table-of-content format.

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Developing Objectives
Unit objectives need to be clear and specific.
A statement such as “Children acquiring knowledge to improve their classifying skills” could be used as part of a rationale, but is not specific enough to be used as an objective.
Objectives need to reflect various levels of learning.

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Developing a Block Plan
A block plan states the scope and sequence of a unit indicating what will be taught and when.

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Identifying Unit Resources

Many teachers depend heavily on school textbooks, and it is fine to use these as primary resources.
Teachers need to gather additional resources that enhance their unique styles of teaching or expertise.

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Creating an Instructional Design

Ellis uses this phrase to describe the process of developing a unit plan and recommends using the following steps:

Timing the unit
Designing and building a framework of ideas
Brainstorming the plan
Organizing your ideas
Calendarizing your design
Teaching the unit

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