NYS Social Studies Conference: Teaching a Little, Learning a Lot

Last Thursday, Dulcinea Media CEO Mark Moran and I gave a presentation on improving Internet research skills at the New York State Council for the Social Studies (NYCSS) conference in Rye, New York. We were delighted with the response from the attendees. Our presentation is now available online; it includes the results of our survey of online research and best practices for using Facebook, Twitter, Diigo, and Skype in the classroom.

Even though we were invited to the conference to teach what we know, we came away learning a lot more than we taught. Because we weren't exhibitors at this conference, I attended many of the other presentations. It was almost impossible to choose between them, as there were usually 12 panels happening at once, but I lucked out when I chose Bill Reilly’s.

Reilly is a 6th grade teacher at the Bethlehem Central Middle School in Delmar, NY, and founder of the Global Coalition Project. In 2006, he won the Disney Teacher of the Year award for bringing “real world learning” experiences to his students. In the last few years, he developed the Global Coalition Project, a network of students in 20 different countries that share letters, life stories, and artwork, and hold discussions over Skype. The Global Coalition Project even has its own international news program, showcasing news reports from student reporters around the world. To learn more about Reilly and his work, visit findingEducation's “Educators that Rock” page later this week.

In another presentation I attended, “If You Can Say it You Can Write It,” the presenters (Jeannette Balantic of Garden City Public Schools and Maria Carnesi from Plainview Old Bethpage Schools) explained how teachers could “optimize instruction time” by having students write shorter assignments, while increasing their frequency. Brilliant! They likened the process to coaching a basketball game: “coaches give feedback the whole time kids are playing from the sidelines. When they realize kids are in trouble, they call a time-out.”

Because students rarely read and absorb the comments written on long essays, grading a full sample essay every week is not a good use of time and effort. For example, A.P. U.S. History teachers can help students practice writing the DBQs for their exams by having them write just the introductory paragraph for five weeks until they’ve mastered it, then move on to body paragraphs. This practical approach lets you root out problems and intervene early.

After a night of carousing with Benjamin Franklin, Benedict Arnold and other re-enactors at a historic tavern, I attended a few more presentations on Friday.

That day’s highlight for me was Tom Daccord’s presentation on effective online history research. Online research is a major part of my job, and while I thought I knew most of the secrets, there’s always something more to learn. Daccord, a former teacher, now co-founder of EdTechTeacher and author of two books, explained that “the heart of effective search is keyword search."

For example, if you ask students to find primary sources for movies in the 1920s, those that don't type "primary sources for movies in the 1920s" will search “movies” and "1920s." But students need to stop, think, and reflect. Daccords asked his audience, "What might be some contextually, historically appropriate terms?” The term “movies” was not widely used in the 1920s. So in this case, “films” or “pictures” may be more relevant. Next, students should consider what kinds of resources they hope to find. They could add other keywords such as “newspapers,” “posters,” “articles,” and “interviews.”  In addition to his demonstration of Google’s WonderWheel and Timeline features, this nugget about keyword search was a terrific take-away.

I gained so much practical wisdom from NYSCSS, and left feeling inspired by the teachers and educators I met.  I'm now really looking forward to the next conference!

Thank you to everyone who participated, presented and shared their insights with me.

Shannon Firth

Senior Writer and Audience Development Coordinator

Comments

[christoper]

Time Spent Teaching Social Studies

In order to cover that many benchmarks, teachers would need 15,464 hours of solid instructional time. In a typical 180-day school year, teachers have approximately 9,042 hours of actual time spent teaching (Maranon, 2003). Of those hours, primary grades emphasize reading instruction over all other content areas because administrators and teachers feel pressured to devote their time and energy to those areas that are tested. In a study conducted by the Council for Basic Education (2004), elementary principals reported a decrease in instructional time for social studies in grades K-5 since the year 2000 (Hind, 2005). It seems that the current trend is for students to have little exposure to social studies in the primary grades.
social studies