A Well Planned Lesson

As a sophomore in high school, I was enrolled in a world civilizations class. Every day, we began with a Taekwondo exercise. Lessons were always interactive, challenging and multisensory. We never sat and took notes in class or worked on worksheets. The instructor brought pictures of his trips to many places to class and we begged to go back with him. We put Marie Antoinette on trial, and immersed ourselves in other historical events.

In contrast, I took American History during my junior year of high school. During that school year, we spent the majority of our time reading the textbook out loud during class. Although I have learned that our country has a very rich and exciting history through experiences that I have had later in life, I still have to remind myself that the design of the lessons in each of my high school history classes had a larger effect on my perception of the subject matter than the actual material that we covered.

Although I will be teaching elementary school, I hope that I will remember the difference between learning by involvement with material and learning simply by reading or being told about social studies. A meaningful, well planned social studies lesson should allow students to make connections to their lives, to other subject matters and to their peers and families.

When I am learning about something, even as an adult I have trouble imagining people, places and things without ways to imagine how they are similar and different to my own life. When I visit a place, so much that I read makes a lot of sense.
It is not always possible to visit every place that is studied in school, but teacher can give students hands on experiences that help to connect material to their everyday lives. This includes using literature, having students talk about their own backgrounds, and bringing in artifacts, music and other multisensory objects that make learning more tangible. Experience by peers and family that relate to course content are also valuable learning experiences for students.
Lessons should also connect to other subject matters. This is helpful in time management, but it also makes social studies material more accessible to students. So much in the realm of social studies can be compared using numbers, related to literature, and studied through the lens of science. I hope that I can make social studies come alive in my classroom by relating my lessons to as many parts of my students’ lives as possible.