Learning Social Studies Through Service

I am really excited about the service learning lesson I planned. Entitled, "Preserving Primary Sources (An Interview with a Person Born Prior to 1940) A Burbank Service-Learning Project," the National Service-Learning Clearinghouse describes it thus: "Students interview someone over the age of 65 about what their life was like when they were the same age as the students. The students write a paper comparing the life of the person they interviewed and themselves. The students compile and submit their documents, as a booklet, to the Burbank Historical Society or a Senior Citizen Center."

I think I could list the benefits of this lesson forever; it covers every benefit we have listed on the Inquiry in Social Studies concept map. This exercise requires students to think like historians by having them research a time period and then interview someone who lived during that time. This prior knowledge allows students to ask interview questions that reflect critical thinking. The students truly take ownership of their work as they compare the life of a local senior to their own. One of the most important benefits of this lesson plan is that the students' work is compiled and given to a local museum or senior center. This allows students to relate history to their lives and creates more meaning in their learning.

This lesson plan sets out a clear method that guides the students in their inquiry:
1. The students analyze the differences between primary and secondary sources.
2. The students visit a local museum and study the time period during which their interviewees lived.
3. In pairs, the students practice their interview skills before interviewing their senior.
4. The students interview a local senior, gather information about their life as a teenager, and compare what they learned with their own lives.
5. In small groups, students share their reflections and consider what they learned during this process.
6. The students' work is displayed at school, given to the local museum, and/or given a local senior center.
The method outlined here is a good structure to guide them through the process. It provides ample preparation and allows time for students to celebrate and recognize their accomplishment.

This Primary Sources lesson plan exemplifies many of the best practices listed on the concept map. It makes the content relevant to the students' lives and allows students to work together throughout certain parts of the process. Overall, this inquiry learning promotes hands-on involvement in the content and enables students to create their own meaningful learning.

The creator of this lesson did an excellent job at predicting and mitigating potential challenges. Prior to conducting their interview, students have opportunities to research, generate interview questions, and practice their interview with other students, all under the guidance and supervision of the teacher. In this way the teacher does everything he or she can to prevent the students' feelings of disequilibrium during their inquiry. Some of the learning here is dependent upon the student, but given the structure of the lesson plan, I wouldn't think too many students would be too overwhelmed. I think most kids would be really interested to talk to a senior citizen about their life experiences, especially knowing that their work will be a contribution to the community's primary document resources.

As a history major, this lesson really interests me. I would love to do something like this with my students someday. Who knows, maybe they will be inspired to record their family history, or investigate some other aspect of their community's history. I also think it would be neat to have students write their own biographies and keep them in the classroom. If you teach for a while, you could have students 10 years down the road read about your former students' lives. Preserving history in your own classroom!!

Social Studies Inquiry + Technology

Considering all the resources available because of today's technologies, it is only natural that inquiry learning would take advantage of them. The article, "Web based-inquiry learning: facilitating thoughtful literacy with WebQuests," explains the benefits of utilizing the internet to encourage meaningful inquiry learning. As Zahra wrote in the article summary, "WebQuests are designed to create an environment where students' new knowledge must be applied to solve real-world problems." A well-made WebQuest, according to the article, promotes "participation in meaningful activities, explanations, reflections, and strengthening of critical thinking skills." With so many websites devoted to historical people, events, places, and topics, WebQuests are an appropriate way to integrate technology into the inquisitive social studies environment.


Speaking from personal experience I know that creating a well-done WebQuest can be challenging so I would probably consult online resources to find those already made and tested by teachers. I found the Never Again!- Again? WebQuest at WebQuest.org and it is one of the best examples that I found. This WebQuest examines the issue of genocide and would be appropriate for a high school world history class. Genocide has been a recurring historical issue that is still relevant today. If I was teaching a world history class this WebQuest would be well incorporated towards the end of the year as a good activity to connect many of the topics covered throughout the year.


I love that this WebQuest includes resources like video and newspaper articles. In the process of completing the inquiry activity students draw on their prior knowledge, learn about the different stages of genocide, research the history of various incidences of genocide, and discuss their research with their classmates in a blog. The most compelling part of this WebQuest is the final activity in which students submit persuasive letters to the government and media and submit petitions to government officials. Over the course of this WebQuest students increase their media literacy, learn about genocide, and become activists for a humanitarian cause. This WebQuest would take several days to complete and with it's real-world applications, would motivate students to learn about genocide and create a quality final assignment. I also think this project would be really interesting from the teacher's perspective- I know I would be excited to see what my students learned from completing this WebQuest.


As the previously mentioned article said, WebQuests are meant to combine learning with problem solving. An advantage of the WebQuest format is that inquiry takes place within a fairly structured environment, but leaves room for further questioning and creativity from the students. On the other hand, poorly made WebQuests can leave students feeling overwhelmed and confused.


How do you think WebQuests compare to other forms of technology based inquiry learning?



Article Reference:
Ikpeze, C. and Boyd, F. (2007). Web-based inquiry learning: facilitating thoughtful literacy with WebQuests. The Reading Teacher, (60)7, 644-654.

Wordle = Awesome

In all of our searching for different technological tools to use in the social studies classroom, I have come across Wordle several times on Twitter and in teachers' blogs. Wordle creates an image out of the words from the text you enter into it. The size of each word is based on its word count in the text (the more a word is used, the larger it will be). You can also control the number of words that show up in the image. A lot of teachers have used this with famous speeches, like the Gettysburg Address, and some have applied it to more recent events, like Obama's September 8th speech to students. If you check out the gallery you will see that the possibilities are endless. This tool is really neat because it can give students, or anyone, a visual representation of the important points in a text, speech, song, whatever. The Wordle creation you see here comes from the philosphy of teaching statement I wrote for Dr. Washington's class. It's really cool to see my own words and ideas represented this way. In the process of making this I also learned how to take a screenshot, which I had never done before. This was so easy to do and I think it is just the coolest thing ever.
Give it a try!! www.wordle.net

President Obama Addresses America's Students

I have started taking this technology business to heart and I have found some really interesting things because of it. Following a link posted by one of the teachers I am following on Twitter, I eventually found the transcript of the speech President Obama will be giving to America's students tomorrow afternoon. I was curious as to why the speech was posted a day in advance and did a little extra Google searching. The White House released it a day early so that parents and schools could pre-screen it and decide whether or not to show it during the school day.Apparently this speech has caused some controversy, as you can see in this article. Just do a Google search for "Obama addresses students September 8" and you can find lengthy debates taking place on several blogs. Some people have taken issue with the "Classroom Engagement Resources" supplied by the White House, which you can find here.


I don't really have any problem with President Obama addressing the students- I don't remember ever hearing a president talk directly to me as a student and I think it is a nice gesture to reach out to America's young people. He sets high expectations, expecting the best effort from every student- I hope all teachers already planned on doing the same thing. However, I do wish that he had addressed his plans for the future of education in America. From his speech we know what he expects from the students, that they take responsibility for their education and that they put forth their best effort, but we really don't know what to expect from him or the government. It will be interesting to read about parent, teacher, and student reactions to the speech after it is given tomorrow afternoon.


The above links are short reads and if anyone has time to look at them, I would be really interested to hear what you think about both the speech and the ensuing debate about it.

If kids can do this, I can do it, too!

Find and share an example of a social studies blog, podcast, and wiki not identified in the reading. If possible, find examples actually created by students. Explain why you chose those examples and how they support meaningful learning.

This week's search for blogs, podcasts, and wikis was both interesting and challenging. Many teachers utilize these technologies for their classes, but it took me a long time to find authentic student work. After much searching I successfully found examples of students using technology to enhance their educational experiences.

I hit the jackpot and found a school that had archived some of its social networking resources, including notable student blogs. (Click here to see this page.) The blog I have decided to share is from a student named Ashley. As I perused her various posts I was very impressed. She created the blog for her social studies class and many of her posts were social studies related. However, she also posted about a lot of non-social studies topics, which revealed things about her interests and personality. It is very clear that Ashley was engaged in meaningful learning through her blogging project. However, I think that the most valuable things she learned had nothing to do with actual social studies content. I took the following quote from one of Ashley's posts: “Since blogging, I have felt more comfortable talking in front of people and speaking clearly. It now makes talking to my small class easier because I know that I’ve talked to alot more people world-wide! I also developed a better vocabulary and I can spea[k] more fluently without saying “um” or “like” as often as I used to.” Wow. I never even considered that blogging would affect a person's public speaking abilities. Ashley was learning about more than social studies while she interacted with other student bloggers. Visit Ashley's blog to see what her experience was like.

I found some cool podcasts from Mr. Brewer's APHG classes at Brunswick High School. Small groups of students shared information on various supranational organizations, like OPEC and NAFTA. Some of the groups made their podcasts in a conversational style, which was informative, but more entertaining than a straight forward report. These students not only needed to learn about their specific organization, but had to know what makes an audio report interesting and informative to the audience outside their classroom (people like me!). By making a podcast they were taking ownership of the social studies content. Because they shared their work with a world wide audience, I think this was a more meaningful learning experiencing than just giving a report in front of the class.

Wiki pages have nearly endless potential for classroom application. The wiki I would like to share was created by "Enhanced Learning students," aged 10-12. They did a class research project on pirates and presented it as a wiki, found here. Each student was responsible for researching a specific topic and they were all combined to create the final product. A similar project would be also be appropriate for middle and high school students. Within any given social studies unit or theme, teachers could have students create wikis to present their work. This is not only for the benefit of the students, but allows others to access their research, as well. Imagine being a student and knowing that people from around the world might read your research to learn more about a given topic! Even after the student completes that course, they can still look back at what they did and be proud of it. I can't think of many more ways to make learning more meaningful than that.

In my searching through blogs, podcasts, and wikis for this week's post I was very impressed with the quality of the student work I found. I couldn't believe that the blogs I read were written by 14 year old students. Maybe using technology in the classroom encourages a greater sense of maturity as students demonstrate their learning via a more sophisticated medium than paper reports. If they can do it, I can do it, too!