Teaching Elementary Social Studies: Strategies, Standards, and Internet Resources

Written for the elementary social studies methods course, this interactive program combines features of a textbook and a workbook, with thorough integration between the print text and a dynamic web site. Increasingly, majors in elementary education (if not the population at large) are more attuned to reading interactive material with relatively brief narrative, bulleted items, text boxes, and targeted messages (like web pages) rather than traditional, denser text. To accommodate these preferences, the layout of the print text features a larger-than-usual font, an 8 x 11 trim size, and spiral binding, and the content includes an abundance of bulleted lists, shaded text boxes, and contemporary graphics. The program's interactive approach and flexibility allow the professor to model the kinds of teaching principles and practices that students will want to use in their own elementary school classrooms. These principles and practices are integrated throughout the text and include a focus on active-learning strategies, application of constructivist principles, focus on Big Ideas and thinking skills, use of the Internet, and modeling of Best Practices and Performance-based assessments (based on INTASC and NCATE standard). Thus, the book will serve as a springboard for classroom activities, web site explorations, and/or instructor-led activities.