Professional Inquiry Project
Inquiry Question: What Are Strategies That Can be Used to Engage Students in Social Studies?
As a requirement of PSIII, I had the opportunity to choose something to study that interested me, and that I thought would improve the educational experiences of my students.
After meeting my students, and thinking about their needs, I decided to research the topic of engaging strategies to use in Social Studies class. My hope is that the activities and strategies listed below can be used and adapted for DIV I and DIV II students and subject materials. |
What are engaging strategies?
In education, student engagement refers to the degree of attention, curiosity, interest, optimism, and passion that students show when they are learning or being taught, which extends to the level of motivation they have to learn and progress in their education.
The goal of engaging strategies are to improve learning by creating situations where students are inquisitive, interested, or inspired.
Why engaging strategies in Social Studies?
My students expressed their dislike of Social Studies, so I asked them to share with me their reasons why. Many of them said that they were bored or did not really like what they were learning. I noticed that the students were not excited to learn in Social Studies class and I wanted to explore different things that I could include in my lessons to interest students in the subject.
Along with the Terms and Concepts outcomes of the Alberta Social Studies Program of Study there are also Benchmark Skills and Processes that students are expected to achieve throughout the year. Some of these goals include dimensions of thinking, working cooperatively with others and communicating information. Students can develop these in a variety of ways and this gave me the opportunity to try different strategies and activities for students to work on these skills.
My goal was to try and incorporate different activities and strategies to help the students learn and explore the concepts we were studying in different ways. I wanted the students curiosity to be sparked and for them to take initiative in their own learning. There was a range of student learning styles within our class and so by using a variety of activities to engage the students in the concepts, my hope was that each student would become more involved.
In education, student engagement refers to the degree of attention, curiosity, interest, optimism, and passion that students show when they are learning or being taught, which extends to the level of motivation they have to learn and progress in their education.
The goal of engaging strategies are to improve learning by creating situations where students are inquisitive, interested, or inspired.
Why engaging strategies in Social Studies?
My students expressed their dislike of Social Studies, so I asked them to share with me their reasons why. Many of them said that they were bored or did not really like what they were learning. I noticed that the students were not excited to learn in Social Studies class and I wanted to explore different things that I could include in my lessons to interest students in the subject.
Along with the Terms and Concepts outcomes of the Alberta Social Studies Program of Study there are also Benchmark Skills and Processes that students are expected to achieve throughout the year. Some of these goals include dimensions of thinking, working cooperatively with others and communicating information. Students can develop these in a variety of ways and this gave me the opportunity to try different strategies and activities for students to work on these skills.
My goal was to try and incorporate different activities and strategies to help the students learn and explore the concepts we were studying in different ways. I wanted the students curiosity to be sparked and for them to take initiative in their own learning. There was a range of student learning styles within our class and so by using a variety of activities to engage the students in the concepts, my hope was that each student would become more involved.
Activities and StrategiesClick below to peruse different engaging Social Studies related activities and strategies that are linked to Alberta Curriculum for DIV I and DIV II students.
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Classroom ResourcesClick below to find different videos, books, and websites/apps related to engaging strategies. Some of the resources are meant to inform the classroom teacher, while others are meant to be shared with students.
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RelfectionsClick below to read my reflections on my professional inquiry project of engaging strategies to use in Social Studies.
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