Contextualized in the critical pedagogies of universal design for learning (UDL) and social justice education, our study aimed to equip teacher candidates (TCs) to provide students with equitable access to learning social studies content knowledge, skills, and processes as a way to equally empower all students to be civically engaged, and thus to…

The National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) curriculum standards offer a set of principles for creating good social studies lessons, units of study, and curriculums. This article presents excerpts from "National Curriculum Standards for Social Studies: A Framework for Teaching, Learning, and Assessment." The revised standards (published in…

In this qualitative study, researchers inquired about preservice teachers' (PST) experience in becoming culturally responsive in a graduate teacher-licensure social studies methods class (N = 20). Researchers examined PST lesson plans and reflections, and rated them based on Geneva Gay's (2002) framework for preparing culturally responsive…

Integrating the visual and performing arts is one clear and concrete strategy to engage students in learning social studies content and concepts while making them interactive and relevant to their daily lives. In this article, the authors offer a rationale for teaching integrated arts with social studies, provide a framework for planning, and…

Despite the growing number of books designed to radically reconsider the educational value of video games as powerful learning tools, there are very few practical guidelines conveniently available for prospective history and social studies teachers who actually want to use these teaching and learning tools in their classes. As the games and…

Math experts developed Formative Assessment Lessons that teachers can incorporate throughout the year's curriculum. Both tools target the "instructional core." A study by Research for Action (RFA) examining the first year of piloting the Literacy Design Collaborative (LDC) and Math Design Collaborative (MDC) tools (2010-11) found…

This module for development of proficiency in identification of key social studies concepts and in teaching these concepts in an efficient and meaningful manner introduces the teacher-trainee to background information on concept formation and methods for planning and teaching social studies concepts. A sequence of activities is designed to develop…

To develop geography curricula, elementary and secondary school classroom teachers must understand curriculum theory as well as geography subject matter content. Awareness of these two areas helps teachers decide what students should learn, how they can learn the selected material, and how student achievement can be evaluated. Teachers will…

To focus classroom learning experiences on the freedoms and privileges enjoyed by consumers in the U.S. free market economy is the goal of these guidelines. Students learn how the U.S. Constitution relates to the free market system through a variety of teaching strategies. The guidelines can easily be adapted for use in a variety of classroom…

Guidelines are provided in this handbook for secondary level teachers on how to develop and use case studies in their social studies and economics classes. Among the contents are the following: (1) a description of the case study method and its educational goals; (2) the act of case discussion; (3) questioning techniques to use and sample…

This bulletin has been prepared to assist teachers and persons serving on curriculum committees in improving the quality of unit teaching and planning for elementary schools. The suggestions and illustrations grow out of a study made by the author of over 500 social studies units which were published during the last few years. They also result…

This instructor's guide outlines a model program designed to provide middle school students with an opportunity to participate in exploratory activities regarding the world of work and to understand the relationships between education and work. Described in the first part of the manual are the following futures week activities: a job interviewing…