Social Studies Planning Team
Curriculum Year One
Goals: Aligning the Social Studies curriculum to the CCSS
Increase the indepth study of topics or content in each social studies discipline and decrease cursory coverage of a lock step curriculum. Deeper understandings help student learn, retain, and apply skills and knowledge. Select the most important content and concepts, the most representative case studies, the most precedent-setting events that students must know and apply to their lives outside of school.
Increase activities that engage students in inquiry and problem solving about significant human issues.
Increase student decision making and participation opportunities in school and in wider social, political, and economic affairs. Students need opportunities to practice participation skills to carry on our democratic republican form of government.
Integrate social studies disciplines within the field as well as with other areas of the curriculum.
Help high school students build on their prior knowledge from their experiences, television and the internet by providing content moving beyond the traditional curriculum.
Increase knowledge and awareness of global issues, ethnic groups and religious groups to help students understand the environment that surrounds them locally, nationally and internationally.
Using multiple kinds of measures to assess student understandings and skills should happen throughout instruction. The spotlight is now on "what the student has learned" not on "what the teacher has taught."
Targeted Skills: Just a start...
- Identifying, analyzing, and evaluating connections between the present and the past.
- Comparing and contrasting differing sets of ideas while considering multiple perspectives and biases.
- Evaluating the role of the individual, and the group, in influencing the course of social event
The Plan
1. Volunteers for The Social Studies Planning Team
2. 6 ED Hours this summer:- Find a common date to curate resources and set goals for revision
3. 15-16 school year: PD time focused on collaboration, creation of materials, and lesson planning to meet goals.
=Homegrown meaningful PD