3.00 Credits
Social Studies tends to be misinterpreted as fact-based history, rote memorization of state capitols, and balancing budgets. The reality is that social studies can be a valuable tool in encouraging children to become active participants in our society. According to the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS), the leading national organization for social studies education, "the purpose of social studies is to enable students to understand, participate in, and make infom1ed decisions about their world." With this in mind, this course is an undergraduate and graduate instructional methodology course designed to meet the needs of teacher candidates in undergraduate Secondary Education program and Secondary Education Masters program seeking certification in Grades 7-12 Social Studies. This course explores the theories, methods, strategies, materials, and assessment procedures for effective teaching and learning in a secondary social studies classroom and that align with the standards put forth by the NCSS. This course is designed to provide preservice teachers in social studies with the knowledge, skills, and dispositions necessary to powerfully teach social studies at the secondary level. While social studies content is embedded in our discussions of classroom instruction, this course is structured to provide students with opportunities to apply theory, resources, and methods to social studies teaching and learning in the middle and high schools through micro-teaching, planning and media analysis tasks. We explore a myriad of topics and issues related to social studies content, pedagogy, and assessment, and offer students specific opportunities to lead these conversations during the semester. Much of our work together highlights the competing goals of social studies education, the relationship among teaching, learning and assessment, and constructing classrooms that reflect democratic ideals. In addition, there will be a strong emphasis on practical aspects of classroom instruction, such as synthesizing content into unit and individual lesson plans, working with state and national standards, and using a wide variety of strategies to relay content.