Georganna's Blog

This essay by Stephanie King is a phenomenal source for those looking to challenge and test their students learning without adhering to traditional means, i.e. pencil and paper tests that often bore students and leave them uninterested in the topic at hand. The article articulates how we can determine what we want our assessments to tell us about our students and ourselves and what questions we need to answer in order to determine the best type of assessment for the material currently being covered. The article goes on to detail an assessment model created by the author, specifically for a social studies classroom, with moving parts you can customize to your own class. Each of the “ moving parts ” are suggestions for types of assessments like tasks you have to do (reading, writing, art, verbal and nonverbal), as well as vocational tasks (pretend to be a museum curator, criminologist, etc.). Then the author dives into one of her favorite assessments: having students create ninetee...

When I was in middle school, I despised having to go to any social studies classes I was taking, yet now I want to be a social studies teacher. I have had many people ask why I would want to teach such a boring subject and at first, I didn ’ t know how to respond. At this point in my life, I don ’ t find many aspects of social studies boring, but I do think that the way public schools often teach it can make the material seem lackluster and unnecessary, largely because students just don ’ t like reading textbooks. To this day I find myself not reading my textbook … in my History for History Teachers class. This chapter gave me some helpful ideas on how to combat this issue in a subject that is very heavily based on textbooks, ideas that have the potential to not only get students to absorb the material, but also to get excited about learning it. While many activities suggested were not considered “ fun ” in a traditional sense, each offered ways to allow for personal expression on ...

This weeks resource highlight is  Teaching Tolerance  ! This site is a great source for all teachers, however, I think it is most suited to social studies teachers because some of the subjects we have to teach can be very complicated and sensitive. Please ignore the eye rolls - I very much need to work on the faces I make when I'm thinking!

In Social Studies I feel like it is often assumed that students have prior knowledge of some of the seemingly small details that actually are critical to the students understanding of the topic at hand. For instance, we might assume that when we are talking about the government, culture, and landscapes of Italy or Germany or Latin America for example, that our students will have some prior knowledge of some aspect of those places. But if they have never seen the Latin American languages, never eaten Latin foods, have never had any exposure to any Latin cultures, then they might not be able to compare and contrast those countries as well with Europe as some other students may be able to, putting them behind according to the GA Standards. Subjects Matter ch. 11 helped me to understand ways to combat this, starting with a culture of trust and honesty. If my students don't trust me or feel comfortable with me, they will be less likely to ask questions when they don't understand ...