This book, resulting from a collaboration among an educational psychologist, a social studies educator, and a primary teacher, describes in rich detail and illustrates with excerpts from recorded lessons how primary teachers can engage their students in social studies lessons and activites that are structured around powerful ideas and have applications to their lives outside of school.

@contents: Selected Contents
Introduction
Need for Improving Primary Social Studies
Our Partnership
Searching for a Feasible Method
Barbara Joins the Team
Negotiating Understandings and Inducing Principles
Focus of the Book
Prior Research on Primary Social Studies
The Need for a Powerful Content Base In Early Social Studies
The Expanding Communities Sequence
Cultural Universals as Unit Topics
Teaching Cultural Universals for Understanding, Appreciation, and Life Application
Topical Organization of Curriculum
Teaching for Conceptual Change
Addressing Prior Knowledge and Misconceptions
NCSS Standards
Other Research
Generic Aspects of our Instructional Units
Our Approach Compared to Alternatives
Developing the Unit Plans
Sequencing the Lessons
Pilot Testing and Revisions
Key Characteristics of the Units
Example Unit Outline: Shelter
Incorporating the Units Within the Larger Curriculum
Using Narrative to Build a Content Base
The Special Challenges of Teaching Young Children
Narrative Structures as Teaching Tools
Barbara's Use of Narrative
Clothing in the Past
The Story of Bananas
Concluding Observations
Structuring the Curriculum Around Big Ideas
Focus on Powerful Ideas
Three Layers of Powerful Ideas for Teaching
Barbara's Focus on Big Ideas
Maintaining Focus on Big Ideas without Getting Sidetracked
Techniques for Focusing Students' Attention on Big Ideas
Cultural Universals
Food
Clothing
Transportation
Communication
Developing Big Ideas About History
Teaching History for Understanding, Appreciation, and Life Application
Barbara's History Teaching
Countering Presentism
Co-constructing Timelines
An Example
Adapting Timelines to the Content
Developing Big Ideas: Geography
The Five Fundamental Themes of Geography
NCSS Standards Relating to Geography
Teaching Geography for Understanding, Appreciation, and Life Application
Barbara's Geography Teaching
A Map Lesson
Incorporating Geographic Context Into Other Lessons
Developing Big Ideas: The Social Sciences
Anthropology (Cultural Studies)Barbara's Teaching About Culture
Economic Development
Cultural Differences
Economics
Barbara's Teaching About Economics
Political Science (Civics and Government)Barbara's Teaching About Civics and Government
Using Instructional Resources
Teaching with Visuals
Books
Photos and Illustrations
Video and Other Technology
Constructed Learning Resources
Charts
Lists
An Example
Word Webs
Graphs
Barbara's Nine Principles
Making Connections and Avoiding Undesired Content
Making Connections
Foreshadowing
Tie-backs
Integrating Across Subjects
Controlling Students' Exposure to Anomalies and Misconceptions
Anomalies
Misconceptions
Controlling Students' Exposure to Undesired Content
Economic Disparities
Taboo Topics
Negative Emotions
Magic Words
Developing Big Ideas
Introducing New Knowledge Bases
Adapting and Elaborating Lesson Plans
Choosing Physical Settings
Choosing Instructional Resources
Developing Skills
Starting by Eliciting Wonders
Establishing the Initial Knowledge Base
Starting with the Prototypical
Building on Prior Knowledge
An Example
Alternative Topic Introductions
Building on Previous Lessons
Starting with a Question
Addressing Strong Interests First
Purposeful Sets of Examples
Introducing and Controlling Vocabulary
Deciding Which Terms and Distinctions to Teach
Tailoring Definitions to Instructional Goals
Enriching Understandings
Planned Redundancy
Other Vocabulary Teaching Techniques
Dropping in Definitions and Explanations on the Fly
Developing Knowledge Bases Through Structured Discourse
Supporting Learning Through Focused Content and Planned Redundancy
Sustaining Lesson Flow via Elaborations
Graduated Questioning
Scaffolding Learning and Retention
Establishing Prototype Images to Anchor Networks of Content
Reviewing Earlier Lessons to Set Up Today's Lesson
Reviewing to Consolidate Before Moving Forward
Modeling of Interio
Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.

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