Social Studies Curriculum

1. Social Studies Curriculum TCH 347 Social Studies in the Elementary School Department of Education Shippensburg University Han Liu, Ph. D.

2. Curriculum • Definition #1 • What a student should know and be able to do, which is defined by the state standards linked to high-stake tests.

3. Curriculum • Definition #2 • What a student should know and be able to do • Grade-level content expectations • Instructional methods • Any classroom learning materials

4. Curriculum for Social Studies • Curriculum Content • Curriculum Organization • Curriculum Delivery • Conceptual Structure • Curriculum Scope & Sequence • Social Studies Skills

5. Social Studies Content(Basic Disciplines) • Culture • History • Geography • Economics • Civics • Current Affaires • Sociology • Anthropology • Psychology • Philosophy

6. Social Studies Curriculum Organization • Interdisciplinary Approach is applied in Elementary and middle schools, such as family life, cultural diversity, improve the environment… • Separate Subject Approach is applied in high schools, such as U.S History, American Government, Economics… • Multidisciplinary Approach is applied in teaching units, such as U.S. state, Latin America, middle east… • Special topics, such as globalization, the Middle East, etc.

7. Approaches to Deliver Social Studies Curriculum • Conceptual Approach • Emphasizing the mastery of social studies concepts • Topical Approach • Focus on topics, such as WW II, civil rights movement, etc. • Inquiry Approach • Generating questions • Making Hypothesis to address the questions • Testing the hypothesis

8. Conceptual Structure for Social Studies • Facts • Vocabulary • Concepts • Concept Clusters • Themes • Generalizations • Descriptive Generalizations • Prescriptive Generalizations

9. Scope and Sequence • Scope:Sample. Textbook p.10, Figure 1.1 • Basic Contents defined by state standards • Comparative Studies & Global Perspective • Special Topics: Peace Studies, Environmental Issues… • Sequence: Sample. Textbook p.20, Units of Instruction in the K-8 Curriculum • Basic sequence defined by state standards based on knowledge acquisition theory and grade levels • School’s decisions • Teacher’s decisions

10. Skills for Social Studies • Thinking Skills • Language & Communication Skills • Vocabulary Building Skills • Research Skills • Data Processing Skills • Technology Skills

11. Thinking Skills • Inductive Thinking • Deductive Thinking • Critical Thinking • Creative Thinking • Analogical Thinking • Problem Solving • Decision-Making • Generalizing • Particularizing • Metacognition

12. Language and Communication Skills • Receptive Skills • Reading • Listening • Expressive Skills • Speaking • Writing • Presenting • Comprehensive Communication Skills • Debating

13. Vocabulary Building Skills • Semantic map (relationship between/among concept clusters) • Clusters • Pairs • Mnemonics

14. Research Skills • Problem Identifying • Predicting/Hypothesizing • Inquiry Method Selecting • Data processing • Analyzing • Synthesizing • Interpreting • Inferring • Evaluating/Appraising

15. Data Processing Skills • Data Source Identifying • Data collection • Data Tabulation • Data Organizing • Data Aggregation • Data Analysis • Data Presentation

16. Technology Skills • Searching • Classifying • Organizing • Tabulating • Communicating • Transmitting • Presenting • Graphing • Multimedia integrating • Teaching aids developing