Blog Post #5

EQ: What is social studies and why do we teach it?

Q1: Do students respond better when an active teaching method is used in social studies
classrooms?
Q2: How important is it that social studies are taught in schools?

Two questions that I expect to answer with my field observations and research are as
follows: Do students respond better when an active teaching method is used with social
studies? and How truly important is it that social studies are taught in schools?. I decided on
the first question because, as a freshman at Bowling Green I am fresh out of high school. As a
student I always performed better in a classroom and preferred an active learning environment. I
decided on the second question after watching the most recent presidential debate on the 26th of
September. During the entire debate I was asking myself how much of this information do the
common people actually understand? This theory help led to the formation of my question.
For my field experience placement, I was placed in Anthony Wayne Junior High School
in Whitehouse, Ohio. This school was pretty large in comparison with the schools I am used to. I
was placed in a 7th grade history class taught by Mr. Dan Keller. In the time that I am with him,
Mr. Keller has two planning periods in which I join another BGSU student in Mrs. Christine
Youngs classroom, who is also a 7th grade social studies teacher. The classroom size varied from
20 to 30 students. Both days that I was present in the classroom, both teachers were teaching
about ancient Greece. Both Mr. Keller and Mrs. Young were active and their students seemed to
enjoy being in the classroom. The two classrooms were filled with posters of historical figures,
historical sculptures and projects of the students. I specifically recall seeing the learning
standards actually hung up near Mrs. Youngs desk!

Do students respond better when an active teaching method is being used in social studies
classrooms?
In my freshman year of high school, the most memorable class was my World History
class. Everything that we did in the class was done online. All of the quizzes, homework, and
tests were completed using an online program, the same program where we would also access
our book. I walked into class every day, sat in the same seat I always did, put my headphones in,
and went to work. Staring at the computer screen all class put a strain on my eyes and honestly,
put me to sleep. The class was boring, with no interaction from my peers nor my teacher. I
couldnt believe that my teacher thought we were actually learning something, or that she
actually preferred this method with her students! As a student, I always preferred being in
classrooms in which the teacher would use fun learning methods to get the students active in the
class. Some of these methods would include class discussions where students could freely talk
about anything happening in the classroom, projects where students could form a group to learn

more about a topic, and lectures where the students and teacher can get involved in a discussion
about a certain topic in the class.
Many teachers fear creating an active classroom; it can be unorganized, loud, and
unorderly, but the benefits by far outweigh the negatives! According to an article found on the
Cornell University Center for Teaching Excellences website, Incorporating active learning
techniques once or twice during a 50-minute class (twice to or thrice for a 75-minute class) will
encourage student engagement, (CTE, 2016). Using active teaching methods in classrooms can
create an environment that is more likely to encourage student participation and can open the
students to new way of learning. This became obvious to me when everyone in our class got their
classroom personality test results back. The results showed that not everyone had the same
overall learning method that benefits them the most when it comes to learning. Instead, it showed
how a class of an average number of students, like mine, can have many different combinations
of learning methods to best suit an individual. Every student may learn different and use different
methods to learn. Some of these methods may or may not work with certain students. According
to the article Why Kids Dont Like Social Studies that we referenced in blog post 1, students
never really prefer social studies to the other subjects. They believe it to be unnecessary and
pointless; maybe they felt this way because they couldnt make a connection to the class, due to
the way it was taught! Maybe these students couldnt make a connection to the class because
they were used to reading a portion from a book, answering questions, and taking a quiz. They
got used to the teaching methods and became bored with how the class was taught, therefor they
lost interest in social studies. Maybe students dislike social studies because of the lack of
interaction between students and teachers! In my opinion, an active classroom is the best type of
classroom to have.

How important is it that social studies are taught in school?

While watching the presidential debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, I
began to question how much of the information coming out of their mouths was actually
something that the general public actually understood. Every person can remember learning
about how Columbus sailed the ocean blue in fourteen- hundred-ninety-two, but how many
people can name off the powers that the most powerful person in our nation, the president, holds
over the country? An article written by Valerie Strauss on The Washington Post titled Many
Americans know nothing about their government. Heres a bold way schools can fix that, uses a
study conducted by Annenberg Public Policy Center. This study states that only a quarter of
Americans in the nationally representative survey could name all three branches of government.
It also states that this is the lowest number in more than six years. This study alone can prove the
importance of teaching social studies in schools! In class, we talked about the standards created
by the NCSS and the ODE. Both groups believed that teaching students how to be functioning
citizens in society was the most important job of todays social studies teachers. It is the job of
the teachers to properly educate students on how to vote, how the government is run,

References
Active Learning. (n.d.). Retrieved September 27, 2016, from
https://www.cte.cornell.edu/teaching-ideas/engaging-students/active-learning.html
Schug, M., Todd, R., & Beery. R. (1984). Why kids don't like social studies. Social Education,
48(5), 382-387.
Strauss, V. (n.d.). Many Americans know nothing about their government. Heres a bold way
schools can fix that. Retrieved September 27, 2016, from
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2016/09/27/many-americans-knownothing-about-their-government-heres-a-bold-way-schools-can-fix-that/