Reflection 1
Kanieshamm
Chapter6.pptChapter 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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