Social Studies Weekly
Year 5 Volume 9~ October 30, 2017
A special shout out to Alexis Callender, who developed and designed the digital breakout box for American History 1 on Reforms. It is complete and ready to use. There was a little hiccup with one site being blocked but Tech is working to unblock it.
Thanks Alexis for all your hard work.
Kudos to Civics for moving out of the RED! This is wonderful and is a testament of your hard work.
Something to think about: If middle school scores continue to increase, what do we in high school need to think about with regards to student readiness and assignment rigor?
Teacher scores should be available sometime this week. If you want help looking at and examining information from your EVASS, please let Melissa know. You will need to have access to EVASS, which you need to get from your administration.
Social Studies NCFinal Specifications
A Word About Using Simulations in the Classroom
AM 1 and AM 2 Saturday Collaboration Session
The AM1/AM2 Saturday Collaboration session is this November 4th. It will be held at Panera on Cloverdale from 9:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m. Attend for an hour or all three hours, it is up to you. And, you will get CEUs for attending!
World History
Industrialization is about to make the world a little smaller and dirtier. Remember, there is a Breakout Box created for this topic.
Please keep in mind that between 32%-50% of the NCFinal is based on the standards beginning with this second half of this unit (Standard 7 and 8).
The U7 M/C bank questions are not up yet. They should be ready Thursday.
Civics and Economics
It is time for Economics! But first, a Public Service Announcement:
SS DPI has created four sets of Clusters to help with teaching Civics/Economics. These clusters, designed by teachers with SS DPI, have great resources to use within the course. They are not necessarily units but provide connections between the concepts to be taught within the course and content to be used to teach the concepts. There are some great examples of integration of Civics/Economics/PFL within a topic, like discussing a personal budget when discussing the job of budgeting at the government level.
In a meeting with DPI on Monday, I asked if they had seen better results when teachers taught the three major content areas as an integrated curriculum rather than each area on its own. They did not have hard data but in District 4, where this is an idea that has been utilized by many teachers, student understanding of content was better. This is something for WSFCS to think about.
Thinking ahead to PFL, remember, EVERFI, is a great resource to use to support the PFL standards. Like any resource, it is only as good as the teacher implementation of the resource. EVERFI should not be used as the sole method of teaching PFL.
American 1
For African American infusion, this site, "I will be heard!", offers a variety of information on the abolitionist movement, including slave narratives, black resistance, and abolitionist strategies.
American 2
As part of African American infusion, look at Executive Order 9981 to discuss how the views on freedom and equality contributed to American political development. This video may be helpful.
Message from Melissa
When your EVASS data comes out, please look at it with a growth mindset. Look at areas you were successful and areas you could improve. Keep in mind, SS data is about growth and not proficiency.
Growth of students is, in my opinion, a better gauge of how well we are doing with the students we have in our classroom. It is not about taking a student that is in the 25th percentile and getting them to the 60th percentile. Instead, it is about helping the student move from the 25th percentile to something a little higher, maybe 30th percentile. Or, at the very least, not having the student fall below the 25th percentile.
Growth is key to moving non-proficient students towards proficiency and keeping those that are proficient at their same levels (or higher) of proficiency.
If you have any questions or want to discuss your EVASS data, please let me know.
Have a great week!
Email: mmmcgready@wsfcs.k12.nc.us
Website: http://wsfcs.k12.nc.us/Domain/54
Phone: 813-388-3999