Ed698 8 1

Download as pdf or txt
Download as pdf or txt
You are on page 1of 4

GULLEN MASTER’S PORTFOLIO 1

Content Knowledge: Social Studies


The teacher understands the central concepts, tools of inquiry, and structures of the
discipline(s) he or she teaches and creates learning experiences that make these aspects of
the discipline accessible and meaningful for learners to assure mastery of the content. The
teacher understands how to connect concepts and use differing perspectives to engage
learners in critical thinking, creativity, and collaborative problem solving related to
authentic local and global issues. Candidates demonstrate understandings, capabilities, and
practices associated with the central concepts and tools in Civics, Economics, Geography,
and History, within a framework of informed inquiry.
Along with classroom management, social studies is a topic that I find a lot of personal

interest in as it relates to education. Having studied psychology and economics as an

undergraduate, I think the social sciences are full of knowledge that students can find interesting,

but more importantly helpful, in their own lives. If the role of school is to create well rounded

future citizens, then a solid education in the social sciences is necessary. This sentiment dates

back to the beginnings of America, as Benjamin Franklin “was insistent that the Colonies form

universities to educate people and instill democratic principles” (Noble & Kniffin, 2021, p. 172).

Noble & Kniffin note that civic learning and democratic engagement (CLDE) is currently in a

time of flux, but that at least at the collegiate level, it is interconnected with our nation and

higher education. The difficulty in presenting civics in public schools is that it often seems at

odds with some of the dark tendencies it has been associated with, such as: “imperialism

(especially as it was manifested during the Vietnam War and the Cold War), repression, and

racism and sexism” (Ceaser & McGuinn, 1998). To me, this is not a reason to shy away from the

topic. As Benjamin Barber (1998) notes, “Public schools are not merely schools for the public,

but schools of publicness; institutions where we learn what it means to be a public and start

down the road toward common national and civic identity.... Without citizens, democracy is a

hollow shell. Without public schools, there can be no citizens” (Barber, 1998, as cited in Ceaser
GULLEN MASTER’S PORTFOLIO 2

& McGuinn, 1998). To me, this raising of future citizens is one of the primary jobs of school,

and one which happens regardless of the schools' intentions to create future citizens or not.

To me, one way of dealing with this is to teach the social sciences as using an inquiry

model, where all viewpoints are respected and the students are questioning the topic and pushing

the dialogue themselves. This open dialogue was something I did in my UAS ED618 course.

One of the lessons was on ancient Egypt, and I took the students on a virtual field trip to the

Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum. In the assignment, students toured the museum self-directed, and

with minimal input were allowed to explore another culture and learn about their culture. The

students seemed to really enjoy this, especially I believe because they had the opportunity to

direct their own learning. This self-directed inquiry model also has other benefits; some of the

major problems in history education for students is that they have learned there is often a

“correct” answer, issues are often dualistic to students (either/or), or the complexity of historical

reality itself does not facilitate a clear-cut answer to a question (Burkholder, 2020). Students

must develop higher order reasoning skills to transcend these issues. The inquiry model allows

students to ponder issues meaningfully, leading to relevant answers (Ruzaman & Rosli, 2020).

History is another fun topic that I have enjoyed teaching, and much like civics, has

important carryover to students in their future lives outside of school. Education is most effective

when it is relevant to our students' lives, and one of the lessons I taught had many connections to

the lives of my students. In it we learned about the creation of the Alaskan state flag, which was

done by an Alaskan boy named Benny Benson. We read about how he created the design, then

won a competition that made it the new state flag. My students took notes of things they found

interesting while we read, then got to design their own Alaskan state flag, taking inspiration from

their prior knowledge having lived here. This connection to prior knowledge is especially
GULLEN MASTER’S PORTFOLIO 3

important, as over the past decades “Almost all educational studies conducted during this time

acknowledge the importance of prior knowledge in learning” (Hailikari et al., 2007, p. 320). The

reasons are varied, but according to Hailikari one of which is that prior knowledge is used to

construct new knowledge (Hailikari et al., 2007), but also it is just more engaging to students.

We know that students who are more engaged learn better, regardless of if that material is used

to construct new knowledge or not. As a best practice then, social studies should be taught in an

inquiry model, with student driven learning, and should try to make as many connections to

students lives as possible, tying in as many of the social sciences (history, economics, civics,

etc.) as possible to ensure varied learning and connections.


GULLEN MASTER’S PORTFOLIO 4

References

Burkholder, P. (2020). History by the numbers: A quantitative approach to teaching the

importance of conflicting evidence. History Teacher, 54(1), 69–106. https://eds-s-

ebscohost-com.ezproxy.uas.alaska.edu/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=4&sid=36cc69b9-

62db-4ebc-9031-57158d311887%40redis

Ceaser, J., & McGuinn, P. (1998). Civic education reconsidered. Public Interest, 133, 84–103.

Hailikari, T., Nevgi, A., & Lindblom-Ylänne, S. (2007). Exploring alternative ways of assessing

prior knowledge, its components and their relation to student achievement: A

mathematics based case study. Studies in Educational Evaluation, 33(3-4), 320-337.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.stueduc.2007.07.007

Noble, D., & Kniffin, L. E. (2021). Building sustainable civic learning and democratic

engagement goals for the future. New Directions for Higher Education, 2021(195/196),

171–179. https://doi-org.ezproxy.uas.alaska.edu/10.1002/he.20421

Ruzaman, N., & Rosli, D. (2020). Inquiry-based education: Innovation in participatory inquiry

paradigm. International Journal of Emerging Technologies in Learning, 15(10), 4–15.

https://doi-org.ezproxy.uas.alaska.edu/10.3991/ijet.v15i10.11460

You might also like