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Deepening the presence of social studies in the elementary classroom.

I have to admit, I was a little intimidated by the blog topic for this week. To be honest, I have never thought about how to deepen the presence of Social Studies in the classroom, and I didn't know where to begin when it came to reflecting on the topic. So, whenever I feel like I don't fully understand a topic, I read about it! Here is what I found.

Unfortunately, Social Studies does not receive nearly as much support as English Language Arts and Math. Due to the requirements of state testing, those two other content areas receive more attention from school districts, particularly with teacher evaluations and professional learning (Diliberti, 2023). So, it is important for school districts to begin placing as much emphasis on Social Studies as they do other content areas. This may be one of the most critical ways Social Studies education can have a strong presence in the classroom (this really goes beyond the responsibility of the classroom teacher, and lands on the shoulders of local and state educational officials).

Just like the other topic we discussed this week, integration of Social Studies with other content areas is key for student learning. While the planning and development phase can take time and resources, once properly developed, this kind of curriculum can be incredibly effective at enhancing student learning, and ultimately save on time and resources. The units should be standards-driven, meaningful, and incorporate inquiry-based learning (Miller, 2024). Social Studies can be easily integrated with Arts, English Language Arts, Math, and even Science. Again, as long as the units are standards-driven, the opportunity for learning is limitless.

A final way to deepen the presence of social studies is simply to allow students to make personal connections to what they are learning. Showing students why reading a map is an important skill to their life, or explaining why it's important to understand how laws are formed will give students the "why" for learning. Better yet, ask them why these topics matter so they can come to form these conclusions on their own. Asking meaningful questions is one of the biggest lessons I have taken from this course so far, and I hope to keep applying these inquiry-based practices in the weeks, months, and years to come.

-Hattie

Diliberti, M. K. (2023, March 7). The Missing Infrastructure for Elementary (K–5) Social Studies Instruction: Findings from the 2022 American Instructional Resources Survey. RAND. https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA134-17.html

Miller, A. (2024, February 1). Integrating social studies in elementary school lessons. Edutopia. https://www.edutopia.org/article/prioritizing-social-studies-elementary-school/



Comments

  1. Hannah JacobsFebruary 24, 2024 at 9:54 AM

    Hattie,
    I like how you said "explaining why it's important". There are too many times when teaching that students complain it's "useless information". Teachers need to relate the information to the students to deepen their connection to the curriculum and understand why they need to learn this information.

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousFebruary 25, 2024 at 12:17 PM

    Hi Hattie,
    I love the idea of explaining the importance of units and topics, as Hannah mentioned. When students bring their thoughts/beliefs into topics by explaining an importance, they make personal connections with the content which in turn helps them learn the content better. Also, asking students to answer the questions helps them to learn the content better as well. Studies show students learn better when they are “teaching” another. By having students come up with their own conclusions or answers, then explaining them to the class, they are teaching the class!
    I also agree that social studies can easily be integrated into other content areas. How would you integrate social studies into science though? I have some ideas but am not sure if I am clear enough on how to do this, so I wonder if you have any ideas on this too!
    - Kaleigh

    ReplyDelete
  3. MaryFebruary 25, 2024 at 1:55 PM

    Hattie,
    I think you made a great point that meaningful questions help learning advance to the higher Bloom's levels. Many students will quickly grow tired of tasks that they do not think are important or interesting. While we can't determine a student's interests, I agree that by asking a student to come up with their own reasons why they are learning about a particular topic, we can help students form genuine connections to the content.

    ReplyDelete

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