Social Studies

It seems that modern education has been guided by discipline-based curricula, with each subject separate and divided. This is probably a reflection of specialization and the division of labor of the culture. But why? Can't we have some math and science in an english class? or history class? This is pretty exciting stuff, but also pretty controversial.

This BBC website gives tons of interactive history games in categories of ancient history, archaeology, British history, and world wars.

This website provides resources to turn to organized by unit

I'm posting this site for a number of reasons. The first being that it relates directly to the Takaki chapter we read this week. Angel Island was a sort of "Ellis Island" for west coast immigration, and this is their historical website. I wanted to find images of picture brides, and this site came up as having a lot of images from that period of japanese immigration. So this website could be very useful for those teachers who want to incorporate images as primary sources in teaching this part of American history. Additionally, my friend's mother had recently been to Italy and came back with a number of ancestral records she has asked me to translate. This led me to question what sources Asian Americans can use to trace their own ancestry in this country - though unfortunately Angel Island does not offer resources similar to that of Ellis Island.

This is an awesome sight to use for ancient world studies. By clicking on the "new site" button, you can view a virtual tour of the La Grotte de Lascaux, in France....the site in in English and offers french and spanish as well. The tour is about 6 minutes or so. Anyway, I used this for my 7th grade class yesterday and they really got into it. They had all sorts of questions about the paintings, the lifestyle, etc.

The students were surprised to be able to see something that was written by humans nearly 17,000 years ago and 3000 miles away.

I will be teaching the Era of the Constitution this upcoming Wednesday. When I was in US history in high school we did a cool simulation where we played the roles of the convention's members and I thought this was a pretty good lesson plan for doing such an activity.

This site has lesson plans that are based on primary sources created by students.

This site gives you access to great articles on teaching in diverse classrooms.

When Arne Duncan presided over Chicago public schools, he closed failings schools. Recent studies show that this did not actually help the students at those schools.

Story Corps is an amazing nonprofit project - the goal is to record people's stories and copies are then placed in the Library of Congress. When I worked at the Phillips Collection, StoryCorps came and recorded stories that related to migration because of the Jacob Lawrence Migration Series Exhibition. The stories were very powerful and you could see they way younger generations really responded to hearing the stories of both their own families and strangers. It made the experiences seem so real and connected them to real people.

While I am not sure of the best way to highlight different pages of this website to suit the format of Diigo, I think this could be a really helpful website. The "Volumes" link takes the viewer to a section where you can go through the volumes page by page. These writings are a great primary source/document to bring into the classroom.... so much more exciting to read the real thing than just see a mention of it in a text book.

From the website: "The Virtual Jamestown Archive is a digital research, teaching and learning project that explores the legacies of the Jamestown settlement and "the Virginia experiment." As a work in progress, Virtual Jamestown aims to shape the national dialogue on the occasion of the four hundred-year anniversary observance in 2007 of the founding of the Jamestown colony."

Concept to Classroom is a website sponsored by the Educational Broadcasting Corporation. It is an interactive site desinged for educatotors and provides online workshops featuring a variety of teaching strategies such as cooperative learning, inquiry based learing and teaching to multiple intelligences. Other categories include workshops on constructivism, assessment, curriculum design, and using the internet in the classroom. Clicking on any of these categories, directs one to information about that topic. For example, the inquiry based learning filter will provide a description of the teaching method, benefits for using the method, criticisms of the method, and finally lesson plans using that particular method. In the multiple intelligences section, there is a series of five lesson plans on world religions I may adapt for a 7th grade class. Check it out…it is a great resource for ideas and lesson plans.

The Center for Civic Education is website designed to educate students in citizenry, the constitution and democratic constitutionalism. The Center offers a full curriculum at all three learning levels: elementary, middle school and high school. Their materials include full lesson plans and textbooks that support their program. The lesson plans include critical thinking exercises, vocabulary lists, problem solving activities and cooperative learning activities. The program is designed so that teachers can use it to supplement an existing curriculum or as the foundation of their curriculum. My cooperating teacher is going to use parts of the program to supplement her curriculum. The lessons focus on life in American, the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights, political traditions and institutions, different levels of government (local, state and federal), constitutionalism and the rights and responsibilities of citizens. The center also offers professional development seminars that are often free of charge to DC teachers. For example, on October 27th, there is a free seminar for DC teachers on "We the People Through Primary Sources and Documents" being held at the National Archives….they even provide a free lunch! Here is the direct link to the professional development page: http://www.civiced.org/index.php?page=state_programs&&p=101&&st=DC.

Haha, I love this site! I posted on it the week before last. I reeeeeeaally want to get a job working for them! :-)

Laura, that is funny....we seem to like the same sites. It is an awesome sight...and the program is awesome too. Do you have a set of the books? Good luck...I hope that works out for you!!

This website hosts a few free documentaries based on history.

This website gives a list of history subjects and related songs to use in teaching.

Because political cartoons are somewhat of special category of primary source images, I thought it would behoove us to find a particular strategy for analyzing and interpreting them - much along the same lines as the SOAPS method but one specifically designed for political cartoons. This lesson plan, and its "Cartoon Analysis Checklist" is a start.

Thanks for this add, I can use this for my lesson plan on Chinese immigration.

This link is a part of a school district website in the state of New York. I found it while searching for information on Socratic seminars. It is really great because it provides all the information one needs to learn about teaching the dialogue method. Informational filters include an overview, elements of a Socratic seminar, frequently asked questions by teachers and students, dialogue and behavior guidelines for using this dialogue method and suggestions for the types of readings or materials that work best with this method. If you like the idea of using the Socratic method in your classroom, you will want to visit this site.

FREE is a website pool of teaching and learning resources from various branches of the federal government. From the website: "More than 1,500 federally supported teaching and learning resources are included from dozens of federal agencies. New sites are added regularly. . . . FREE is maintained by Peter Kickbush and Kirk Winters, Office of Communications and Outreach, with support from the Development Services Team in the Office of the Chief Information Officer, U.S. Department of Education."

This site is amazing, I was just playing around with it and I am definitely using some of the resources for my unit. :)