A school day compartmentalized into separate content areas does not reflect life in our society (National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, Speech Communication Association & Council for Elementary Science International, 1996 as cited in Plummer & Kuhlman, 2008, p. 96). The world in which our students live is integrated and cross-disciplinary (Jones & Thomas, 2006, p. 64). A child’s brain searches for patterns and connections in order to build meaning and “an integrated, balanced curriculum promotes this type of brain growth and development through an enriched environment” (Diamond and Hopson as cited in Cuthrell & Yates, 2007, p. 23). The National Association of State Boards of Education agrees with this statement according to their report that “the balanced, integrated curriculum is based on best knowledge of how children develop and learn” (Cuthrell & Yates, 2007, p. 23). All of these factors call for an interdisciplinary approach to education that fully integrates social studies, science, and literacy.
Student interest is an important consideration in planning instruction if the goal is ensuring maximum learning potential (Plummer & Kuhlman, 2008, p. 98). Science is a subject that naturally piques children’s curiosity and as a result provides opportunities for the development of literacy in reading, writing and communication (Plummer & Kuhlman, 2008, p.98). Teaching children to write does not need to revolve around a specific topic or idea, but an understanding of the process of writing is key to student success. In order to write effectively students must draw on their prior knowledge, organize it around several corresponding main ideas, develop it through elaboration, and then tie it together into a coherent whole (Jone...
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Unfortunately many students have limited their academic achievements because frequently literacy sponsors keep low learning standards. In Rose’s narrative he
The concept of best practices in teaching is not a new one, and the discussion of how to implement the most effective strategies in social studies education is ongoing. By definition, social studies is a curriculum design focused on the relationships among multiple disciplines such as history, geography, philosophy, and the humanities, and its purpose is to help students develop the ability to make informed decisions with a world perspective. However, due to the ever increasing pressure from high-stakes testing, teachers feel the need to focus instead on memorization of names, dates, and other facts as the primary method for teaching social studies concepts (Au, 2011). For social studies instruction to be powerful, it must be meaningful, integrative, challenging, and active (NCSS, 1993), and as teachers begin to implement the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) into their classroom instruction, they will need to weave in strategies that promote critical thinking, a skill that is inherently challenging for many adolescents.
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Children in grades 3 through 5 are moving from "learning to read" to "reading to learn" and from "learning to write" to "writing to communicate". Students learn to work independently. They learn to read words and make mental pictures. Third through fifth graders also learn to write paragraphs, short essays and stories that make a point. The curriculum becomes more integrated. "Reading to learn" helps third through fifth graders better understand the scientific method and how to test hypotheses about the physical world. Additionally, "reading to learn" aids students in graphing and calculating scientific observations and then writing up their conclusions. Third grade science class will open new worlds of wonder and invite curious mind to explore (Williams, 2012).
When starting this course, I was introduced to the main questions surrounding the field of Social Studies Education: What is Social Studies? Why and How should we teach it? From this class I have been able to understand each of these questions and how they interplay with one another, in order formulate my own thoughts on each. This combination of these questions ultimately defines why I feel I would be a good candidate to teach Social Studies. When coming to a conclusion regarding what the topic of social studies is, I realized that ultimately, it’s about people. The way people interact, alter their landscape, build systems of government, and shape the current society from past events. Each of these different human actions, it defines a specific