1. GACE Social Studies Review Session
Presented By: Joe E. Hart

2. Overview What is Social Studies? Goal of Social Studies Curriculum
Ten Themes of Social Studies
Social Studies and Social Sciences
Community as Source of Data
Typical Scope and Sequence

3. Overview Instructional Strategies Bloom’s Taxonomy Learning Concepts
Citizenship
Maps and Spatial Sense
Multicultural Education
Assessment

4. What is Social Studies? The social studies are:
selected information and modes of investigation from the social sciences
selected information from any area that relates directly to an understanding of individuals, groups, and societies
applications of the selected information to citizenship education.
Social Studies for Elementary School Classrooms (Martorella and Beal, 2002)

5. Goal of the Social Studies Curriculum
NCSS states the following view:
“The primary purpose of social studies is to help young people develop the ability to make informal and reasoned decisions for the public good as citizens of a culturally diverse, democratic society in an interdependent world.”
Social Studies for Elementary School Classrooms (Martorella and Beal, 2002)

6. Ten Themes of Social Studies
The National Council for Social studies (NCSS) has created ten themes that form the framework of the social studies standards <title>socialstudies.org | Curriculum Standards for Social Studies: Executive Summary

7. Ten Themes of Social Studies
Culture
Time, Continuity, and Change
People, Places, and Environments
Individual Identity and Development
Individuals, Groups, and Institutions

8. Ten Themes of Social Studies
Power, Authority, and Governance
Production, Distribution, and Consumption
Science, Technology, and Society
Global Connections
Civic Ideals and Practices

9. Social Studies and Social Sciences
Geography
Organized according to five central themes
location- describing positions of people and places on Earth
place- detailing the human or physical characteristics of places on Earth
relationships within places- cultural and physical relationships between humans
movement- relationships between and among places
regions- the ways areas are identified

10. Social Studies and Social Sciences
History
A selective representation of reality with selective interpretation of events
Cause-effect relationships
History websites
Click on Explore
Click on US History Timeline
Economics
relationships among people that are formed to satisfy material needs
cost, supply and demand, labor, standard of living, etc.

11. Social Studies and Social Sciences
Political Science
analysis of power and processes by which individuals control and manage one another
Anthropology
study of humankind
Sociology
study of human interactions within groups
Psychology
understanding individual mental processes and behaviors

12. Community as a Source of Data
Garbarino’s Four Spheres of Influence
home, peers, community, and school
Community is a great resource
Resource people
Field trips
Oral histories
Surveys and interviews
Community service projects

13. Typical Scope and Sequence
“Expanding Communities Pattern” (Hanna)
Students are introduced each school year to an increasingly expanding world, starting with self and family to the world at large
Start with child as center and move out

14. Typical Scope and Sequence
K-1: Self, Family, School
2: Neighborhoods
3: Communities
4: State history, geographic regions
5: United States history, culture, and geography
6: World Cultures

15. Instructional Strategies
Activating prior knowledge
Constructing knowledge
Metacognition
Coaching
Modeling
Informal Reasoning
Demonstration
Cooperative Learning

16. Instructional Strategies
Guided oral and silent work
Graphic organizers
Inquiry method
Role-playing
Simulations
Small-group work (social skills)
Jigsaw

17. Bloom’s Taxonomy Levels of questioning
Ordering questions in sequence to stimulate the development of students’ higher-order thinking skills
Bloom's Taxonomy

18. Learning Concepts
Concepts: categories into which we group information within our experience
Identify misconceptions and stereotypes in students’ understandings of concepts
Analyze concepts according to examples and non-examples
Assess concept learning
Transportation vs. Not Transportation

19. Citizenship
Skills needed to function effectively in our complex society
Social skills
Conflict resolution skills
Participation in democratic process

20. Maps and Spatial Skills
Maps furnish 8 basic types of information
land and water forms
relief features
direction and distance
social data
economic information
political information
scientific information
human factors

21. Maps and Spatial Skills
Introducing maps and globes
Body maps
Start with “me” and expand out
Students must understand:
maps represent a place
maps use symbols
maps show a perspective from above
maps reduce the size of an actual place

22. Multicultural Education
America is a multicultural nation because of so many cultural and ethnic groups that are represented
Addressing perspectives is crucial to multicultural understanding

23. Multicultural Education
Multicultural education will help students:
learn how and where to obtain accurate information about a cultural group
identify and examine positive accounts of diverse cultural groups
encounter positive experiences with diverse cultural groups
develop empathic behavior
practice using perspectives
improve self-esteem of all students
identify and analyze cultural stereotypes
identify cases of discrimination and prejudice
teach social studies multiculturally all year

24. Assessment Observation Oral Reports Portfolios Performance samples
Tests