Elementary school teachers receive the least training in history content and instructional methods specific to social studies.Experienced teachers may also have difficulty in social studies instruction and generally teach the way they were taught history…instead of developing a student centered classroomReading, math and science have eclipsed social studies because of the emphasis on testing.

ELEMENTARY SOCIAL STUDIES TEACHERS

TRAINING ISSUES

TEXTBOOK DEPENDENCY: Teachers compensate for their lack of training in social studies instruction by depending on the textbook.

• Textbooks present complex social studies content with thin discussion

• Students have little experience with the complex terms found in social studies textbooks (government, immigrants, interdependence, economy, constitution, federal, division of labor, political party)

• Vocabulary/concept development lessons should come before the development of a content focusSome teachers are aware of these problems, but may not know how to overcome them.

• HARD TO GET THEM TOGETHER• THEY LIKE THE MAKE AND TAKE• ENGAGING THEM IN HIGHER LEVEL DISCUSSIONS• THEY NEED HARD EVIDENCE TO GET THEM TO BUY

INTO THE FACT THAT THEY NEED THE TRAINING

Focus On The Development Of A Deeper Knowledge Of History Content Develop Grade Level Training Resources Directed At Specific Grade Level Curricula Include Group Presentations To Share Their Work.

DO THEY KNOW HISTORY?

DIFFERENT LEVELS OF DEVELOPMENT Developmental Gaps Between Grade Levels New Teachers - Old Teachers

LONG AGO AND FAR AWAY Time and distance

• Use graphic tools to assist students in sensing the time span of the history being studied.

TIMELINES: Major Inventions Battlefield Technology Achievements Compare the Chronological Relationship of Events Have Students Create a School Year/Personal Timeline

The Internet is loaded with many timeline activities, including interactive timelines.

Teaching Geography

2001 NAEP Assessment: 74% of students scored in the below proficient category in geography in grade four.

Recent National Geographic–Roper country survey of ages 18 through 24, Americans ranked second to last.

Only 13 percent of young adults aged 18 through 24 in the United States were able to correctly identify Iraq on a map of Asia and the Middle East.

A MAJOR CONTRIBUTING FACTOR TO THIS PROBLEM?

LACK OF TRAINING AND CONSISTENCY IN ELEMENTARY GEOGRAPHY INSTRUCTION

Map reading and mapmaking constitute one of the broadest skill applications in the elementary school curriculum.

SPATIAL UNDERSTANDING: Mapping skills derive from the ability to imagine relationships between and among places.

The development of Spatial Understanding in children helps them to: Answer the question, Where?

Visualize viewpoints

Locate places

Find their way

Represent directions (horizontal and vertical) and spaces

Whenever using a map for instruction start with the world, then move “in” to the location that is being studied by pointing out major features, including continents and oceans. Once you have focused on a particular area back “out” of the map to the big picture of the world, constantly reinforcing the major continents and features of the map.

INSTRUCTIONS TO TEACHERS Make sure that maps are in good working order

and that you use them frequently in relation to the development of the curriculum.

Have students draw maps from memory.

(1) they are administered individually;

(2) they involve active manipulation; (3) they have game-like qualities; (4) they elicit a verbal explanation from the children; and (5) teachers try to talk the students out of a correct explanation to determine if the explanation is fixed or random.

Key characteristics of geography tasks:

ADDITIONAL STRATEGIES IN GEOGRAPHY INSTRUCTION

They should note the relative location of a place ("Where is it in relation to . . . ? How far is it from . . . ? How long would it take to get there from here?").

Teachers should use textbook maps, wall maps, and globes to locate places emphasized in reading assignments.

Students should be asked additional questions about latitude, longitude, elevation, and climate. This information should then be related to the local setting so that the students have a concrete referent for comparison.

READING SOCIAL STUDIESGetting the Main Idea

Infuse Non-fiction Into Reading Instruction

Model Reading Strategies:

Tell students why they are reading the textbook and what they should gain from it. Specify facts for students to locate, record, or remember.

Main ideas and key words should be stressed, and students should locate important passages and be able to interpret, in their own words, what the textbook says.

Double Entry Diaries Drawing Inferences Text to Self Connections Text to Text Connections

THIS AFTERNOON’S SESSION

TURNKEY DISSEMINATION