Fourth Grade Social Studies Standards

In all three of these artifacts, I have developed relevant, integrative, challenging, and exploratory units of study. The “Preserving the Past” unit incorporates all four core subjects as well as a service learning opportunity. My interdisciplinary unit on geography connects Language Arts with Social Studies with visual art mixed in, and the Greek mythology ELA unit was taught in conjunction with a Social Studies class (1). The Civil War unit and NC geography unit I have created incorporate Common Core standards as well as NC Essential standards. Lesson plans and assessments in all of these units were created using backwards design in which I started by looking at the standards and objectives students would be expected to reach and based my assessment based on those objectives (2,10).

The changes are meant to help the student to have a better understanding of the social studies in preparation for middle school. For instance, every grade in elementary level has the Map and Globe skill as the next to the last topic to help the student learn how to use maps to retrieve social studies information. Additionally, the syllabus gives a more detailed approach, which the teacher must address fully. The information processing skills as mentioned earlier is also one of the vital changes (GADOE, 2016).

The Common Core Standards were developed in order to create a clear and consistent message of what students are expected to learn and know at the end of each grade level so educators and parents will know what they need to do in order to help them prepare to be career and/or college ready.

Also, throughout curriculum development the goals and aims of the curriculum need to be taken into account. Without specific goals and aims for the curriculum, the curriculum could be unfocused with no purpose identified. Within the social studies curriculum that I analyzed, I noticed societal goals for the curriculum (Posner, 2004). Societal goals are emphasized because the curriculum supports the development of knowledgeable and engaged citizens within our country. By understanding the goal of my curriculum I am better able to understand the purpose of what I am teaching, which in turn helps me to differentiate for my students while still keeping the ultimate goal in mind. I also was able to identify the further learning aims within the curriculum (Posner, 2004). By identifying this aim I was able to see how the curriculum I was teaching tied into the curriculum that the students would experience in subsequent grades. By reflecting on the further learning aims I was able to see how my teaching was a valuable piece of a bigger puzzle

There are a great number of things that can create problems for students in regards to their academics. One such issue is misunderstandings. There are some that are more common than others and will be identified in order to recognize potential problem areas and solutions. In addition, there are some misconceptions that are associated with particular content areas. One content area that will be under scrutiny will be the Social Studies classroom. These potentially problematic instances will be identified and methods will be devised using the “Backward Design” (Wiggins, & McTighe, 2005) approach in an attempt to reduce issues the teacher may face.

According to the National Education Association (2017) The common core state standards benefit all students because it provides equal access to the same curriculum as other students across the nation. The standards focus specifically on English Language Arts and Mathematics. The Common Core is designed to encompass a clear set of broad standards to prepare students for post-secondary opportunities. The standards were meant to be more challenging than current set of standards in each state and to provide clarity and consistency about what was expected of students at each grade level.

The evaluation of the program set by educators is a key purpose of standardized testing. Educators develop a guideline for the amount of work that should be covered in each area of a curriculum. The standardized test scores, in return, allow the educators to establish where a school fits and where it stands in reference to other schools.

Maps often contain a scale to indicate to the reader how far a given distance on a map is in the real world.

Teachers in Tennessee are given a set of standards to teach young children. The standards are a crucial aspect of curriculum because they drive what students must know. Therefore, it is important that all teacher candidates have a clear understanding of the standards before going out into the field. The standards were created in a particular fashion for each grade level and subject area.

When it comes to classroom resources in social science and history classrooms, we are kind of limited. I think it is pretty clear that most courses

The students have some instruction in prerequisite skills. They can identify the type of stimulus and read the information presented by the graphs, charts, and maps. They can list what they see in images. Students also have a broad recollection of historical events and key figures from their 8th grade US History class and 9th grade World History class.

order to change the message. The map shows a message of how literacy is shaping people’s lives

Knowing what to teach is extremely important you don’t want to teach what children know already it causes them to lose interest but you don’t want to overwhelm them its all about balance. You have to know what your class is interested in and how to adapt to what each child likes. We also have standards so that we have an idea of what we should be teaching our students. We need to make sure we prepare our lesson in advance so we know it and are not stumbling over our words and having to keep looking away from our students. Standards have benefits and disadvantages if we have too many it beomes overwhelming for our student but with too little there isn’t enough material to keep them interested. We should make sure our standards are appropriate and that the make sense in the way we are presenting them. Standards help us present our information to our students in a way that makes sense to them and us. Every program we teach has challenges but if address them with grace and ease it will help our students accept them better. We also need to know how to teach our students to address their

The preservice teachers’ perceptions of the social studies lesson changed and evolved through repeated practice of the lesson. Berliner (1985) stated “We must provide our novice teachers

The revised national standards for Social Studies, Geography, Civics and Government, History, Economics, and Language Arts documents must be a basis for the curriculum standards. These standards will be used as a framework for teachers, schools, districts, states, and other nations as a tool for curriculum alignment and development. Jeremiah 29:11 ESV) states, For I know the plans I have for you,