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1. Using the Revised NCSS Social Studies Standards to Achieve 21st Century Skills, Improve Literacy, and Meet State StandardsNSSSA ConferenceNovember 11, 2010Colorado Convention Center Presented by

2. Using the Revised NCSS Social Studies Standards toAchieve 21st Century Skills The Partnership for 21st Century Skills states that 21st century curriculum should: • Teach 21st century skills discretely in the context of core subjects and 21st century interdisciplinary themes • Focus on providing opportunities for applying 21st century skills across content areas and for a competency-based approach to learning • Enable innovative learning methods that integrate the use of supportive technologies, inquiry- and problem-based approaches and higher order thinking skills • Encourage the integration of community resources beyond school walls (Partnership for 21st Century Skills, 2009)

3. Using the Revised NCSS Social Studies Standards toAchieve 21st Century Skills Building a Framework for Learning • A vision for learning • The core ideas, skills, understandings and questions central to the disciplines and 21st century learning • Tools for assessments that provide opportunities for application and the integration of community resources

4. Using the Revised NCSS Social Studies Standards toAchieve 21st Century Skills The Partnership for 21st Century skills outlines their process for building a 21st century curriculum: • Develop curricula for understanding. • Unpack the standards to articulate essential concepts and skills. • Build widespread consensus around the big ideas and essential questions. • Use curriculum-embedded, performance-based, assessments • Commit to continuous improvement in 21st century curriculum design processes. • Collaborate (Partnership for 21st Century Skills, 2009 )

5. Using the Revised NCSS Social Studies Standards toAchieve 21st Century Skills Development Process: • Identify core ideas and skills • Create Understandings and questions • Create frameworks for assessments • Work with an Innovative Instructional framework

6. Using the Revised NCSS Social Studies Standards toAchieve 21st Century Skills • Learning: How can we ensure all students have access to high quality, rigorous learning experiences that prepare them for college, careers and citizenship? • Student engagement and success: How can we promote the engagement and success of all of our students, including those from at-risk populations? How can we ensure that all students learn the essential concepts and skills needed to be engaged citizens? • Assessments: How can we develop and deliver high-quality assessments of the essential concepts and skills? • Teaching: How can we ensure the professional growth of teachers and administrators and improve the effectiveness of their teaching/leading?

7. Using the Revised NCSS Social Studies Standards toImprove Literacy • The updated NCSS Standards are directed toward meaningful units and engaging lessons, using primary sources, literature, and writing activities. • They set guiding questions and provide strategies and “Snapshots of Practice” which can be used to combine extensive use of reading and writing content with suggestions for the activities young people need to become thinking, involved members of society. • You use them side by side with your content standards, such as those that your district provides or your state mandates.

8. Using the Revised NCSS Social Studies Standards toMeet State Standards The National Council for the Social Studies defines social studies as: …the integrated study of the social sciences and humanities to promote civic competence. Within the school program, social studies provides coordinated, systematic study drawing upon such disciplines as anthropology, archaeology, economics, geography, history, law, philosophy, political science, psychology, religion, and sociology, as well as appropriate content from the humanities, mathematics, and natural sciences. The primary purpose of social studies is to help young people make informed and reasoned decisions for the public good as citizens of a culturally diverse, democratic society in an interdependent world. Got Standards? We’re here to help!

9. Using the Revised NCSS Social Studies Standards toMeet State Standards Utilize the Ten Themes to Frame Your Discussion: Step One: Why Teach Social Studies?

10. Using the Revised NCSS Social Studies Standards toMeet State Standards Step Two: Align Learning Expectations, Instruction and Assessment

11. Using the Revised NCSS Social Studies Standards toMeet State Standards Step Three: Unpack your State Standards to identify the “Big Ideas” or “Enduring Understandings” for each course of study.

12. Using the Revised NCSS Social Studies Standards toMeet State Standards Step Four: Adopt the NCSS National Curriculum Standards for Social Studies: A Framework for Teaching, Learning and Assessment as a resource for designing instruction and assessment.

13. Using the Revised NCSS Social Studies Standards toMeet State Standards Step Five: Align your state standards, instruction and assessment with the questions, knowledge, processes and products suggested by the NCSS Standards.

14. Using the Revised NCSS Social Studies Standards toMeet State Standards Step Six: Reflect, Revisit, Revise

15. Using the Revised NCSS Social Studies Standards toMeet State Standards We invite you to reach back into your own past to recapture the reason you were drawn to the social studies as your life endeavor. Take some time to explore this new resource to discover for yourself, the purposes worth caring about, the processes worth engaging in, and the knowledge worth learning. Once you do, your passion for the social studies will help you lead your students to a place where they too, will develop the moral imperative to be contributors to the world we live in and stewards of democracy to uphold and protect the rights of others.