Learning About Current Events And Having Students Become Active Members Of Their Communities

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).

In The Death of History is Bunk, Patrick Watson argues that the decrease of historical content in the curriculum does not indicate that history, as a subject, is declining. While many complain about the decreasing prominence of history classes in Canadian schools, the content of those classes is excessively dull as it consists of memorizing lists of facts. Despite this, there are still protests that knowledge of “defining events” is required to contribute to “the National Conversation”. However, history is not so simple as a list of events—it is the sum of the small happenings in society around the events. A whole variety of factors influence history, which is created by the common people. Unlike Americans, who turn to their constitution for

Over the course of years, society has reached a point where violence is considered a typical manifestation. Year after year, we witness many lives end due to useless reasons. Many strategists have pondered over different strategies of overcoming this battle, but yet, none has come to succeed. It’s time that our future generation of young, bright minds step up to their role in society and become more engaged in their civic duties to promote the cohesion and tranquility of their environment. As young people’s civic and political participation continues to decline, communities around the globe are taking many initiatives to reverse this devastating issue by promoting many opportunities to engage young people through a variety of methods that allow the youth to actually participate in their community. Such tactics are policy development and taking action on local issues. The effectiveness of such notions might take many years to show realization.

Civics is a Grade 10 course where students learn about our political system, how public decisions are made, and the entitled rights and responsibility for a citizen who legally belongs to a country. In a course like civics, students critically investigate local, national, and worldwide issues with a political perspective. One aspect of the curriculum is personal action on civic issues, by which means students are to analyze a civic issue and develop an action plan to address it. Through this, our class worked with an organization named DILA (A Day of Information for a Lifetime of Action), an organization that aims towards engaging youth in Ottawa by encouraging hands-on engagement in their communities, addressing civic issues that individuals are passionate towards, and to increase the importance of the democratic decision-making process. A DILA project main objective is to simply empower the young millennials, by giving them a chance to let their ideas, imagination, and voice shine.

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.

Social Studies is a very complex subject for educators to teach and for the students to be interested in learning, this is because it includes so many different disciplines. Not to mention, society is rapidly changing socially and technologically which affects what social studies content is being taught to our students( Passe,J 2002). In past years students were forced to learn at a relatively low cognitive levels, it lack the full meaning social studies that could be transferred into real life situations. It is because of this

This video is about a 5th-grade social studies teacher named Miss Kelsey’s personal experience with the method of inquiry and her reason on why the inquiry method was a great way to help her students learn Canadian history. In the video, Miss Kelsey demonstrates the positive effects of historical inquiry in her 5th-grade class by describing how it not only sparked the interests of her students, but also herself and not only that but both her and her students learned something. Not mention the fact that Miss Kelsey had also helped spark the interests of her students even more by creating a scenario where they had to present the information that each of her students found in their assigned important figures to her where she will decide which

The subject matter that I got to observe was the initial two “I can” statements of their social studies curriculum. Students’ “I can” statements included that “I can help create and follow our class and school rules” and “I can stand and say the Pledge of Allegiance”. I was also able to observe the principle discussing the values of respect, compassion, responsibility, honesty and self-discipline in the classroom, hallway, lunchroom, bathrooms, and riding on the bus. This subject matter is essential for both teaching and learning. The teacher needs to “plan and deliver an integrated, thoughtful, and organized” expectations/rules plan at the beginning of the year that will be effective and efficient throughout the year (Concordia, 2015, p.10). An ineffective plan could bring on a huge negative impact to the classroom and student learning. These rules and skills utilized in the classroom can also help the students’ learn by being able to reflect and understand civic values and identities which will be discussed in future lessons. This understanding can help

The ugly truth about my education was that I was not being taught the whole history of the United States. In my classes, historic tales were being told. Beginning with Once upon a time on the Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria came the settlers along with their servants indentured and otherwise to Jamestown, and ending with Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights movement left gaps, no, canyons, that needed to be filled. To get a glimpse of what I had been missing in History class for the past twelve years was overwhelming, especially since it often required me to alter my thinking about my world; the events and people in it.

However, my junior humanities class taught me how history can put perspective on problems in today's society. For example I remember vividly discussing how the debate between Trump and Hillary Clinton parallels to the election of 1828 between Andrew Jackson and John Quincy Adams. The election questioned political integrity by using the candidates own personal backgrounds to attack their morals. More extreme than the accusation of exposing confidential documents in the current election, Adams went to the extent of labeling Jackson a murderer while serving in the military. This insight puts new perspective the current generation, making an election that seems so radical more plausible. Thanks to your lessons I received the opportunity to study how events in American history such as elections can lead to the divide or unity of the country. When Lincoln won the election of 1860 by receiving only 40 percent of the popular vote, the country's built tensions finally exploded in the form of a Civil War. With this valuable knowledge the study of the current election becomes less arduous, and young people like myself have greater opportunity to form an opinion not biased by today's news, but built upon my own

In addition, Ms. Preston-Grimes, discusses how the integration of social studies should be “to create children who will be able to use the disciplines to advance democratic thought and life.” The author goes on to explain that is about creating different ways of thinking and not just focusing on bits of information. In addition, social studies should not simply be about learning small pieces during a reading lesson. Ms. Preston-Grimes stresses that true integration of social studies allows students develop thought process which are applicable outside the classroom. It allows students to develop inquiry skills which lend themselves to excelling in other areas and real-world experiences. The disciplines, the author writes about, help students understand their world and investigating ways of solving problems. The term stealthy integration is mentioned in the article and defined in a way that is remarkably similar to what is often happening in the classroom. This stealthy approach sends the message that social studies is secondary to reading or writing and carries less value. Additionally, this stealthy approach is not effective and not healthy. Healthy integration involves the students gaining greater insight and developing an understanding of the world around. This type of integration involves primary and secondary sources, connections, reading and writing as part of the inquiry. Finally, the article reiterates the point that all areas of study are important and teachers must find a way of teaching social studies without fracturing the subject

This book covers the history of teaching social studies in the information age and the changes that have occurred since the implementation of technology in the classroom. The authors use well documented sources and studies to outline the progression of teaching in the information age. the source will be used to support arguments for the loss of communications between generation due to

To look at the typical life of a high school history teacher, one would think it slow, stressful, or dull, much like the subject they teach. History is often cited as the least interesting high school subject, associated with endless memorization and droning lectures about seemingly unimportant and long deceased men in starchy wigs. However, when it comes to Lincoln Gravatt, the AP European and US History teacher at Booker T. Washington Magnet High School, such a generalization could not be less accurate. Gravatt, as he is known to his students (though he answers to devilspawn as well), has a unique ability for bringing history to life, and engaging all but the most apathetic of students.

John F. Kennedy, our nation’s 35th President once said, “My fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” I, an American, firmly believe in this quote. I believe that in order for any government to be effective, it must require active participation of its citizens. I also believe that by attending Virginia Girls State, I would be able to fulfill my ambitions of exercising leadership and citizenship. Not only would I receive those benefits, but I would also gain experience of living with similar individuals as self-governing citizens with the duties of American citizenship. I am truly interested to learn about the creation of city, country and state governments and to get the opportunity to

The aim of Social Studies is the promotion of civic competence the knowledge, intellectual processes, and democratic dispositions required of students to be active and engaged participants in public life. Proverbs 19:2 (ESV) states," Desire without knowledge is not good, and whoever makes haste with his feet misses his way."For example it is essential for there to be commonalities across the grade levels so that there is a scaffolding of concepts to build from one grade level to the next.