Effective Teaching

Strategies in Social
Studies
EDUC 636
Tiffany Jones
Liberty University
 Why is Social Studies important in Elementary Schools?

According to Russel, Waters, and Turner (2017), the purpose of social studies is to
develop good citizens for the democratic society in which we live (p.1). Students should
evolve the desire and the ability to be economically independent. Scholars should learn
to be free from prejudice and fair-minded, to believe in a system of justice and law, and
strive to be leaders among their peers. With our ever changing society, teaching social
studies has become even more of a challenge for educators at all levels. Teachers must
construct new and different approaches to teaching and engaging students in the social
studies lesson. Objectives must be clear and concise for students to read and
comprehend to the point of them realizing their objective within their lessons. Social
Studies can be integrated into different subjects like reading and writing. Students can
also practice ELA during a social Studies lesson by simply reading a sentence about a
historical event and fixing all the grammatical errors.
 Trend 1
Exemplary Teaching
In one article titled “Influences of Exemplary Teaching,” (McCall, 2006) states “To support
exceptional Social Studies teaching, one must know the factors that help teachers achieve levels
of powerful of teaching and learning. Educators must be ambitious with their teachings.
Organization also plays an important factor. When teachers are well prepared to teach their
lessons with rigor, fidelity, and diversity students can and will be more receptive the lesson.
Political stands is another factor that influences teachers teachings. Educators should be clear
about the environment in which the students live and how it is impacted as well as how it effects
them financially, educationally and physically. According McCall (2010) “the National Council
for the Social Studies (NCSS 1994) document Expectations of Excellence: Curriculum Standards
fro Social Studies identifies the components of a powerful teaching approach.” These
components consist of meaningful, active, value-based, challenging, integrative teachings.
 Trend 2
Strategy 1 : Problem Based Learning/Inquiry
Computers & Education Volume 81, (2015) quotes Oliver (2008), that “Inquiry based learning can be
in the form of a problem solving or task for triggering student engagement and participation.” With
this strategy teachers should create exciting inquiry learning into the classroom through guiding or
compiling questions to guide the thought process or teaching your students to ask activating
questions. Questions seem to be the fuel in which their engines drive, active reflections during and
after inquiry. Allowing students to communicate their findings that validates the inquiry.
Educational games are regarded as an effective instructional approach for promoting the learning
motivation and problem-solving skills of students (Moreno-Ger et al., 2008, Prensky, 2003).
Educational games allow student to explore their imagination and build on prior knowledge in order
to problem solve and also promotes higher order thinking. Enhancing students abilities to engage in
lessons within their abilities and learning style.
 Trend 3
Strategy 2: Visuals/ Graphic Organizers
Research has shown that using graphic organizers to analyze texts that are organized in terms of rhetorical
structures such as compare-and-contrast, sequence, and cause-and-effect improve memory and
comprehension of the associated content (Cook and Mayer 1988). Visuals can be used to break down
lectures in smaller chunks as well as help with a visual learners processing skills. Visuals can include but are
not limited to pictures, real objects, manipulatives, videos and graphic organizers. K-W-L charts can be used
at all levels. It empowers the scholar to use words or pictures to take notes. Within the 3 columns students
will write what they know (K), what they want to know (W), and learned (L) about a specific topic. This
type of GO allows students to engage, explore and problem solve. According to Craig and Amernic (2006),
“the results reported in scholarly journal articles indicate that students like to be taught using PowerPoint
(perhaps because of its novelty and the availability of printed handouts of PowerPoint slides) and think that
PowerPoint presentations are entertaining, enhance clarity, and aid recall of subject matter.” PowerPoint
presentations are great engagers for younger students especially those that are interactive.
 Strategy 3: Think-Pair-Share
Cooperative Learning can not only make students more active as spoken by Isjoni (2007, p.
13) “Cooperative Learning can help student for understanding the concept, developing the
critical thinking skill, the team work, and helping the others.” According to Hasan’s statement
(in Komalasari, 2013, p. 62) describes that Cooperative Learning is cooperation of small
group (2-5) in learning that enables the student work together to maximize their learning and
learn the other board members in a group. Each student is asked to think about a topic or
question for a certain amount of time. During this time students are prompted to brainstorm
and collaborate with their peers to exchange ideas. When time has expired each group will
present the information that they have constructed to the class. This strategy can spark ideas
in other learners and students are allowed to bounce ideas off of each other.
 Strategy 5: Jigsaw
Jigsaw-based cooperative learning is an effective cooperative learning strategy, and has been
shown to have good effects when applied to a board range of academic subjects such as social
studies, literature, and science (Slavin, 1995; Aronson & Patnoe, 1997). In the article about
cooperative learning Yueh-Min, Yi-Wen, Shu-Hsien, & Hsin-Chin states “This instructional
method has the following positive effects: (1) enabling students to effectively learn the
instructional material; (2) enhancing their listening abilities and levels of engagement and
empathy; and (3) raising the interdependence of students and joint learning.” With this
strategy, each student in the "home" group holds a piece of the topic's puzzle and work
together to create the whole jigsaw. The strategy is often used in other instructional situations
for the purpose of team building or quickly managing a large task in a short time.
 Trend 4
Strategy 6: Enhanced Word Wall
Word walls are interactive, ongoing displays of words, or parts of words, used to
help young children learn spelling, reading, and writing strategies, letter–sound
correspondence, and more (Narkon, Wells, & Segal 2011). According to Henrichs
and Jackson (2012), there are four common elements of effective vocabulary
instruction: they are rich and varied language experiences; they teach well-
selected words; they teach word-learning strategies; and they foster word
consciousness. Organization of the word wall is also a very important factor with
displaying a word wall. Jackson's (2018) research emphasizes the benefits of
visually organizing vocabulary in a logical way, as opposed to just alphabetically.
 Trend 5
Strategy 7: Content Integration
In this an interesting article by integrating Social Studies with other content areas, there is potential for
enhancing the meaning of what is taught, saving teachers time by reducing the need to make as many
preparations, reducing the need to rush to try to get everything covered and making it possible to teach
knowledge and skills simultaneously (Alleman & Brophy, 1993, p. 287). An important skill for both
reading and Social Studies is the synthesis of information through the use of text-based evidence, often
from first-person text in Social Studies. This then frees up some time in our actual Social Studies block
where we can either look more deeply into a certain area or do an activity that goes along with it…Then,
they get to apply [what they’ve read] during the Social Studies block. By integrating Social Studies
content in a weakly framed curricular structure with students serving as apprentices rather than receivers
of knowledge, they learn to make connections and develop a deeper and stronger knowledge base with
more complex schema. Integration mitigates the rigor and content of social studies instruction (Brophy,
Alleman, & Knighton, 2009; Parker & Jarolimek, 1997; Thornton & Houser, 1996)
 Strategy 8: Music and Songs
In another article by Adam F. Rosenbloom states “Music and social studies have
many natural connections that teachers can use to enhance learning in both
subjects.(p.1)” The use of rap for instructional purposes is rooted in the belief
that “elements of hip-hop culture—rap, turntablism, break dancing, graffiti
culture, fashion, and language—can be used within classrooms to improve
student motivation, teach critical media literacy, foster critical consciousness,
and transmit disciplinary knowledge” (Hill, 2009, p. 2). Therefore, scholars have
aligned the use of rap for instructional purposes with a variety of theoretical
constructs (Petchauer, 2009, 2015).