Social Studies Lessons

What are the attributes of meaningful, well-planned social studies lessons?

When I think of what it takes for social studies lessons to be meaningful, my mind goes to the end result. Since we learned about Backward Design in class last week, I think this is pretty important for social studies because we are being intentional in what we do and present to students. One of our textbooks described it this way: 

"Backward design may be thought of, in other words, as purposeful task analysis: Given a worthy task to be accomplished, how do we best get everyone equipped?" (Wiggins and McTighe, 2005, p.19).

By knowing where we want students to end up, lessons and assessments can be better planned to help them get there. Planning in this way is another attribute to meaningful social studies lessons because teachers are not losing sight of the objectives. Learning experiences have to be authentic and intentional enough to meet the end results, yet captivate student interest. Interdisciplinary instruction is an attribute of social studies lessons because this is a subject that plays well with others. In social studies, there are opportunities to incorporate ELA, math, and even science. Since the school day is already busy enough, integration is the best way to insure students are getting the social studies (and arts) instruction they need.