I find it quite amazing that during our whole elementary, middle, and high school "career" that we were taught fact-based instruction. For people that were taught social studies until the past few years were taught the wrong way. There has been a "paradigm shift" when it comes to the instruction of social studies. No longer are the facts the largest part of the learning process rather the concepts that are presented from the facts. As was explained in class facts make up topics and topics make up concepts.
I see the importance of concept-based rather than fact-based. It is so hard for me now to remember things that I learned in social studies from the past because I was not able to make a connection with it. From this revelation of how appropriate instruction should be in the classroom while teaching social studies I went on the hunt for strategies to help develop concepts. Luckily, I found " Social Studies Strategies: How To Develop Concepts", this pdf provided the what, how, why, and when in developing concepts within the classroom. This resource provided two teaching strategies which are direct instruction and inductive reasoning. Direct instruction is of course done by the teacher when he/she presents the concept that will be learned and the second is inductive reasoning which allows the students to evaluate the facts and develop the concept.
When evaluating this new information gained this week I find that standard four of the North Carolina Professional Teaching Standards aligns perfectly. In standard four," Teachers Facilitate Learning for Their Students", by changing the instructional method from fact-based to concept-based this assesses the need for children to have a deeper understanding of the material being taught.
"Social Studies Strategies:How To Develop Concepts"
http://www.saisd.net/admin/curric/sstudies/gopdf/howto_conceptdev.pdf
I feel the exact same way. I don't remember anything I learned in social studies in elementary school because I was taught to memorize the facts for the tests and that was all, I never was able to form a connection. I think it is a great thing that there has been a paradigm shift to concept based learning, but I think it's hard for us as future teachers to make that shift smoothly when we were taught differently. How do we really know if we are teaching the correct way when we were never taught the correct way?
ReplyDeleteTaylor,
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading your post. Thank you for clarity in this post. When you think back to your own experience in school, it is interesting to reflect on the methods your teachers used. Hopefully, throughout the course, we can all obtain a deeper understanding on CBI and learn how it can help students learn (and understand) on a deeper level. I think your connection to standard IV of the NCTCS is spot on!
Taylor,
ReplyDeleteI really liked your blog post. I felt the same way when I was growing up. I had no idea that we were being taught the wrong way. Today I could not tell you half of the facts that I had to remember growing up. I think it is great that there has been a shift. This will allow us as future educators to make sure that students make meaningful connections. I love that you connected one of the NCTCS standards. Great post Taylor!
Taylor,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading your post and I learned something new from reading it. Thank you for sharing the source that you found, as this will be a helpful source to look back on as future teachers. I couldn't agree more with the statement you made that we do not remember facts learned in school because we could not relate to these facts and connect with the real-world. This is essential in teaching meaningful social studies instruction that is not fact-based but concept-based. I like that you related back to the NCTCS standard as well. Great ideas and thoughts!
I appreciate the resource you shared! Seeing all this new information that I have gained from my classmates is very encouraging that there is plenty of information out there to help us before we start teaching our students.
ReplyDeleteConcept based instruction has definitely been my favorite piece of knowledge we've learned while in this class and it looks like you as well as the rest of our classmates agree. I can't wait to see more of a way to implement this and use the pdf you shared.