Using the Textbook as a Curriculum Resource Center

As a graduate student in a teacher-training program, I saw firsthand the gulf between the methods suggested by my professors and classroom practices that are didactic and lack depth. My concern over these issues has led me to examine research related to them, and the findings suggest that the perception that social studies is in trouble is very real and that there are many teachers who do not attempt to teach social studies in a relevant, thought-provoking way. Researchers are not in agreement on the reasons for the decline in both the quantity and quality of social studies lessons. Many blame the restrictions placed on teachers by high-stakes testing, while others blame teachers themselves, and others blame teacher-training programs for inadequately preparing new teachers to present in-depth lessons. This article looks at research on these issues and considers what can be done to address the decline in the quantity and quality of social studies lessons.     

How to Teach by the Unit Method

Using data from the National Center for Educational Statistics research spanning fifteen years, researchers examined the impact of national educational policy implementation on the role of social studies in elementary schools. Specifically, with the reauthorization of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) in 2007 and the continuation of federal-mandated testing of English language arts (ELA) and mathematics in grades three through five, researchers sought to understand how policy decisions to extend testing to science affected teacher decisions in regard to instructional time allocations for core subject areas of ELA, mathematics, science, and social studies in elementary schools. Results of this quantitative study offer large-scale evidence of the declining role of social studies in an era in which testing is clearly linked to subject-area importance. Findings provide an overview of the national scope of testing and the ramifications for social studies in elementary schools. Researchers conclude that curriculum standardization, accountability, and high-stakes testing have had adverse affects on social studies time allotments in comparison to tested subjects.     

基于社会服务项目的儿童福利资源整合

当前,我国儿童福利资源存在资源匮乏、供给分散、可获得性弱等问题,而社会服务项目则是解决这些问题的一种路径。以福利治理为理论视角,尝试以一个留守儿童社会服务项目为例的研究发现,该项目通过不同形式的合作整合了来自政府、军队、群团组织、社会组织、企业、社区等资源,提高了福利资源的供给效率,满足了留守儿童多元化的福利需求,但是,由于项目本身的周期性、制度保障的缺乏等限制,导致了项目难以持续发挥作用。因此,基于社会服务项目的福利资源整合只是一种基于实践基础上的暂时的整合,而最根本的还需要在福利制度上进行整合。     

The Manifestation of Campbell's Law: Consequences of Eliminating of Social Studies From the Curriculum

The manifestation of Campbell's Law is examined in light of the current era in American public schools of high stakes testing inclusive of narrowed curriculums and teaching to the test. The decades-long practice of reducing instructional time of non-tested subjects, which includes social studies fundamentals, has resulted in a less informed citizenry. Social studies instruction promotes citizens who are able to make informed decisions that are inclusive of differentiating between facts, generalizations, and opinions without bias. The construction of individual viewpoints through a narrow lens without discrimination between opinions and historical facts is of concern today as Americans form opinions regarding controversial social issues and engage in social activism.     

Evaluation in the Social Studies

Online role-playing games such as World Of Warcraft represent new participatory cultures in which today's students engage every day. They are appealing to players largely because of the social aspects of game play. Some features of massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) can be incorporated into classroom culture to create more dynamic interactions between students and improve both content instruction and civic competence.     

Reddit and the Social Studies: Exploring the r/Democratic Curriculum

In this article the author seeks to present social studies educators with practical means for using Reddit—an emerging social media website—as a tool for providing students with a democratic education grounded in citizenship and multicultural education. The author focuses on ways in which Reddit offers students the opportunity to learn from experts, explore social studies content that may not be present within a traditional textbook, and voice their opinion in an online community that values equality and democracy among its members.     

Myth,Romance, Philosophizing,and Irony,and the Social Studies Curriculum

Sixth-grade students are challenged in understanding social studies content relevant to particular contexts, then connecting the content and context to their contemporary lives while communicating new knowledge to peers and teachers. Using political cartoons published after September 11, 2001, one sixth-grade social studies teacher designed probing questions and developed meaningful learning experiences relating historical events to current concerns of the students supplementing their curriculum and textbook. Through verbal and written interactions, the students demonstrated in-depth understanding of September 11, 2001, and consequential global ramifications. Subsequently, this teacher used the same strategy to engage learners in additional historical events effectively integrating social studies and literacy to introduce conflict analysis, increase critical thinking, expand text connections, and enhance literacy skills.     

Integrating Computational Thinking into Social Studies

Abstract

Computational Thinking (CT) has recently been addressed as one of the key skills for the twenty-first century. Integrating CT into different subject areas of K-12 education is also now widely accepted to improve the quality of instruction. In that sense, it is important to enable educators and researchers to recognize how to integrate computational thinking into K-12 classrooms and to study how students learn to think computationally in social studies courses. Besides, providing good practice on CT helps to develop common ground for the teaching of computational thinking in social studies subject areas. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to provide a framework for social studies teachers with regard to how CT can be integrated into K-12 classrooms for social studies. Moreover, a practical implementation idea is also suggested based on this framework. This paper is expected to provide an insight to social studies teachers who want to integrate CT into their classroom in the future and support them in teaching context.     

Engaging Geography at Every Street Corner: Using Place-Names as Critical Heuristic in Social Studies

In this article I explore an often overlooked feature of everyday life that can serve as a powerful heuristic for students to engage history and geograhpy critically: everyday place-names. Drawing on scholarship in critical toponymy, I explore how the city-text—the past as it is overlaid on top of the geography of the community through place-names—serves to commemorate particular histories that are often simultaneously exclusionary and taken-for-granted. Outlining three of the city-text's primary features—its unconventional narrative structure that emphasizes a worldview, its existence as a manifestation of state control over commemoration in the community, and its exclusive focus on heroism—I suggest that social studies classrooms be sites from which students critically engage the everyday city-texts of their own communities as a way of fostering critical thinking skills and commitments to historical and geographic critique.     

Recent Happenings in the Social Studies

This article details the “journey box” project process enacted by two elementary preservice teacher cohorts. Engaging in activities and projects that promote a sense of investment in not only consuming but producing historical narratives, preservice teachers potentially become interested in sharing this type of learning with their students.     

Game Theory in the Social Studies Classroom

This article explores using game theory in social studies classrooms as a heuristic to aid students in understanding strategic decision making. The authors provide examples of several simple games teachers can use. Next, we address how to help students design their own simple (2 × 2) games.     

Community Study for Social Studies Teachers

The absence of social studies curriculum is a problem because it undermines the essential purposes of schooling: to prepare participatory, contributing members of a democratic society. In this article, we argue that integrating the literacy and social studies curricula is one meaningful way to support such civic-minded social studies instruction in elementary classrooms. As 2 teacher educators working with teacher candidates placed in their final clinical before student teaching, we saw the potential to model meaningful integration in literacy and social studies. In this 2-year qualitative study, we highlight how 14 teacher candidates engaged in the integration of literacy and social studies during their yearlong placement in a professional development school program and what factors influence their implementation of integration. Findings from this study revealed that effective integration required a strong vision of the complexities of integration and the importance of intentional planning. To get past the constraints of traditional compartmentalized scheduling, teacher candidates needed high-quality modeling of integration within their clinical placement. We offer implications for teacher educators and school/university partnerships.     

The Use of Local Statistics in High School Courses in Sociology and Social Problems

Since the inception of mandated testing in reading and mathematics, social studies instruction has been marginalized in elementary and middle schools. After the genesis of several state-mandated testing programs and nearly a decade after the launch of the No Child Left Behind legislation, the effects of limited K–8 social studies instruction are being recognized at the high school level, specifically in high school test score data. This article reveals the obstacles generated by marginalizing social studies in the elementary and middle schools and offers a model for helping teachers understand their role in offsetting the problems associated with early social studies marginalization. The article also provides a way to help teachers collaboratively fill the social studies content gaps.     

Progressivism in Social Studies Teaching

Contemporary global events of the War on Terror, the War on ISIS, and the United States contentious relationship with Muslim societies make it crucial to teach about Islam and Muslims in school. However, negative representations of Islam and Muslims often impede this process. Overcoming these challenges is critical for the development of compassionate and informed students who are capable of thinking critically in a complex and globalized world. This article shows the importance of addressing Muslim representation in the media, debunks myths about Islam and Muslims, and provides concrete classroom recommendations for teachers.     

Carl L. Becker and Secondary Social Studies

The author discusses how high school social studies teachers can have their students investigate local history topics and share their findings by producing Web pages, using a cooperative learning structure. The author discusses his firsthand experiences using this approach with high school students at Warrensburg High School. He emphasizes the need to rethink how technology is being used in the social studies classroom—in particular, by having students share their local history findings with others beyond the walls of the classroom rather than being passive learners with the Internet. In addition, he emphasizes the benefits of having students work together to collaboratively construct knowledge using technology—specifically, by using the PIES cooperative learning structure to ensure there is positive interdependence, individual accountability, equal participation, and simultaneous interaction among group members. Examples of Web pages, produced by his students using the PIES cooperative learning structure, are discussed in the article.     

Achieving Objectives in the Social Studies

To promote content literacy, students have to be actively involved. This article focuses on strategies that stimulate student interest by involving them with the content during pre-reading, during-reading and post-reading activities. these processes provide students with optimal opportunities for comprehension. The authors recommend the use of a variety of materials to supplement the social studies text, recoginizing, however, that the text, because of its breadth of knowledge will always play an important role.

The three instructional activities delineated reinforce the idea that social studies learning is promoted through literacy, just as language acts learning is developed through the social studies. All of the strategies include a form of graphic organizer. They are examples of ways teaches can adapt instruction to promote student interest in social studies. Social studies doesn't have to be boring!     

Social Theory Across Disciplinary Boundaries: Cultural Studies and Sociology

This essay proposes that sociology can learn from social theory developed in the humanities. In the face of recent challenges to sociological explanations of social outcomes (from rational choice and economic theory, cognitive psychological theories of intelligence, and communitarian social philosophy), social theory should specify the constitutive force of social signification. After identifying a key weakness in theoretical approaches currently available in sociology, the inadequacy of various conceptions of the social, I analyze three significant new works in cultural studies in order to sketch out alternative ways of defining and measuring the force of social signification. The essay concludes with an attempt to establish the basis of a dialogue between cultural studies and sociology.     

Teaching Elementary School Social Studies Methods under edTPA

This article reports a self-study that analyzes my experience as a teacher educator navigating a turbulent educational landscape with the advent of edTPA. The data consist of my journal entries, the syllabi, handouts, work submitted by my students, and course evaluations. Data were analyzed by using an inductive process to describe how the edTPA compounds my work of teaching future elementary teachers for social studies for social justice. I discuss challenges associated with my teaching and the ways that I have grappled with these challenges. Implications for teacher educators are discussed, because we all must deal with important issues in the current era of accountability and testing.     

The Changing Vogue of Liberalism

In the current era of high-stakes testing and accountability, many social studies teachers struggle to find creative ways to add depth and authenticity to a broad, shallow curriculum. Teachers can use the time after tests are administered for students to reflect back on the social studies curriculum and select topics they want to study more deeply by digging “postholes,” or inquiries into questions, persons, processes, or events of their choosing. This article describes one teacher's efforts to implement an inquiry project in which she conferred with her students individually to formulate research questions and a research strategy and gave them opportunities to publicly and authentically share their work.