Page Comparison

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• Demo: European voyages of discovery framed with a driving question, via Google Earth. Kml file here. Whole-class, teacher-centered
• Original instructional materials assignment, product #1: Get into pairs/trios and share.

• Conceptual work: Tasks of social studies educators
  • Planning
    • Standards: Pennsylvania state (and even more states') standards; national standards.
    • Curricula / course plan. 
      • BASD social studies curricula page. 
      • It's worth pointing out Virginia's standards: note the amount of work put into developing not just the standards but also the curriculum framework and scope-and-sequence, assessment blueprint. Also: use of Backwards Design (Wiggins & McTighe) in curriculum framework. Pretty potent contrast with the line of thought that appears to guide the PDE standards (e.g., history--elementary [grades 3-8], secondary [grades 9-12]). 
    • Curriculum map / scope-and-sequence 
    • Unit plan 
    • Lesson plan
    • 'Activity' or 'method' (i.e., what you're putting in your toolbox)
  • Re-convene original instructional material groups: how does your 'activity' build your toolbox? Fit into standards / curricula / units / lessons?  
  • Looking at instructional planning documents
    • Curriculum map / scope-and-sequence -- see curriculum map template in CourseSite and online materials (e.g., 6th grade curriculum maps from Worth County, GA)
    • Unit plan -- see unit plan template in CourseSite; see also online materials (e.g., world history unit from Oakland, MI)
    • Lesson plan -- see lesson plan templates in CourseSite; see also online materials (e.g., lesson plans from GEM). 
    • Reminder about toolbox metaphor
  • Advice to social studies teachers
    • Being present in communities of practice 
      • H-Net.
      • NCSS.
      • AP Central.
      • World727 (global education) -- this page has info on the whole issue, scroll down to bottom for specific listserv info
    • Knowing, teaching, and learning the content
    • Knowing, teaching, and learning about young people
  • Discussion of instructional planning assignments, with particular attention to course planning:
    • Picking courses for your 'course plan' assignment: Course catalog at Freedom High School (look at pp. 13-17), course catalog at Liberty High School (look at pp. 25-31)
    • Finding relevant standards
      • PDE standards on economics (secondary). 
      • CEE standards. 
      • AP Macroeconomics course description.
    • Course plan -- see my sample. 
    • Curriculum map -- example from Hudsonville, MI = pretty much a straight run-through of the AP course description topics linked up with resources & assessments; note repetition in 'assessments for learning.' Would this approach fly with an urban, under-served population?
    • Unit plan -- here's something that's identified as a unit plan|www.trinkner.org/Fed_UnitPlan_2009.doc|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||\; is it? If nothing else, contrast with our assignment specifications
    • Lesson plan -- see CEE's Economics in action: 14 greatest hits for teaching high school economics (via Google Books). We'll be doing one of these lessons later in the semester. 
• Closure

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• Housekeeping
  • Conceptual flipping: Geography and civics
• Conceptual work
  • Re-visiting / closing off history ed (for now)
  • Opening up civic ed
    • Intersection between civics and history
    • What's so special about civics?
    • 'Doing' some civics
      • Bill of Rights bingo (adapted from [this lesson plan|http://www.uen.org/Lessonplan/preview.cgi?LPid=533])...what kind of civic ed is this?
      • Constitution Day, celebrated each year on September 17, MANDATED into school curriculum from 2005 onwards. Use thomas.loc.gov to figure out when & how this happened. 
    • Three views of civics ed
    • Demo lesson: Branches of the government via PowerPoint mark-up
    • What kind of citizen? Westheimer & Kahne...and the PDE standards. What kind of citizen do the PDE standards suggest?
    • Content area organization to know: Center for Civic Education.
    • Introduction to Project Citizen by Myron Yoder, ASD Social Studies Curriculum Supervisor. (See also: We the People project.)
    • Opportunity to volunteer with students doing Project Citizen: Susan Siegrist, Jefferson Elementary
• Closure: Micro-teaching: expectations, sign-ups

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• Housekeeping
• Conceptual work
  • Social studies, writing, and deliberation: Respecting the process.
    • First, a quick look at a research overview: Risinger, 1987. 
    • What about the war between coverage and depth? And what preparation do social studies teachers receive regarding how to structure writing? 
    • Examples: Wiki about the French Revolution, and two contemporary people to pay attention to: Whitney Blankenship and Diana Hess
    • Moving into dialog and looking for more detailed advice, structures
      • Student vs teacher talk time; student- vs. teacher-initiated questions
      • Wait time and other conventions
      • Types of questions
      • Dialoging with text: Example of dialectical notebook.
      • Dialoging with one another: Quick look at the work of Hilda Taba.
  • Social studies and gaming
    • Let's all consider a couple games together
      • Consider a drill game. A weird drill game. But clearly one about social studies!!
      • And FYI: You can fit about anything into a drill structure. For example: "Third Grade Map Test". 
      • And here's a classic strategy game...
      • DISCUSS: What might games be good for? What value might they add? By seeking to integrate games into social studies instruction, what are possible deadends / routes forward?
        • Taxonomy: "Edutainment" vs. Commercial-off-the-shelf; instructional hooks vs. "frictionless" (no opportunity for learning / designing instruction)
    • Then split up into groups
      • Group 1 heads to Oregon! Note: USE FIREFOX, not Chrome. You'll have to install a plug-in. Note that this is obviously an archaic version (Apple IIe!!) of the game, but use it to judge more contemporary ones.  Contrast with this (much shorter) game about Jamestown. 
      • Group 2: Geography games. Here is a visually clean, single-player game: Travel-IQ. Once you get the concept, try to match up against other players at [GeoSense.net|http://www.geosense.net/].
      • Group 3: Some items to consider: Sims modding, Muzzy Lane, WoW guilds, an online lab for democracy? 
      • Group 4: Find something, explore it, and report back to the class!
    • Then re-convene to discuss
• Closure: A methods student is a methods student forever.
• Evaluation: Feel free to add any additional anonymous feedback that you think of later.

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