EQ: How do we design instruction that sticks?

Finally, the time has come where we can finally post ideas and strategies on how to teach
social studies. Dont get me wrong, it was great learning about the purpose of social studies and
what teachers need to know in order to teach it, but we are finally at the point in the class were
we can discuss how to teach social studies effectively. I still absolutely love attending St. Ursula
Academy for my field experience. My teacher continues to really impress me with her creativity
and the students are still a great group of girls to work with. Since my first week at SUA, I have
been dying to share creative techniques used by my teacher to explain different strategies that
teachers can use to teach social studies to a class. As we all know, most students believe that
social studies is a pretty boring subject. While this might be true in some cases, it is definitely
not the case in my 8th grade classroom at SUA. Since we were given so much time to think about
this essential question, I have spent most of my time in the classroom gathering different
instructional strategies my supervising teacher has used in order to get the information to stick
with the students. While my experience at SUA is coming to a close, I have thought of two
supporting questions that will give me great insight in the future. These questions are as follows:
Does incorporating music into the classroom improve the amount of information students obtain?
Does the class time duration effect student learning?
Does incorporating music into the classroom improve the amount of information students
obtain?
For the past couple of weeks, we have been learning creative strategies in order to catch
the students attention in the classroom. For social studies, it is hard teaching the students about
all the dates, people, places, and all the information that follows while making sure they are
maintaining all of this information. One technique that my supervising teacher and other
teachers at SUA use is songs. They form the information they are teaching their students into
songs so that the students can memorize the lyrics and be able to understand and know the
information better. While this might not work for high school students especially juniors and
seniors, it is still a great tactic to try out. I mean you dont see students forgetting lyrics of songs
so why not create a song they are listening to outside of school and change up the lyrics and
relate it to the subject they are learning. During my experience at SUA, I have noticed that this
is a very useful technique. The 8th grade students still recall a song my supervising teacher
showed them in 6th grade to help them memorize all of the states. It is a pretty simple way to
make instruction stick especially in a social studies classroom when the students are supposed to
learn a lot of different dates and people before they graduate. From the article, Five Standards
of Authentic Instruction, by Fred Newmann and Gary Wehlage, the authors make it clear that
one of the standards to authentic teaching is Connectedness to the World. The authors state that,
A lesson gains in authenticity the more there is a connection to the larger social context within
which students live (Newmann & Wehlage, 1993). So, according to this study, it is important to
connect to social context within the students lives which could be as simple as a song every
student knows. Giving this option to the students will help spice up student learning with in the
classroom and will give the students a different way of studying and memorizing all the

information thrown at them in a short period of time. This can be done simply through relating
to the type of music the students enjoy.
Does the class time duration effect student learning?
During my experience at SUA, I learned that SUA has a completely different class
schedule than most schools, especially the school that I went to growing up. During my high
school experience I had 8 different class periods with a 30 minute lunch break. SUA is
completely different. They only have four, eighty minute, class periods a day with a 70 minute
lunch. This shocked me because in high school, I was used to taking 8 classes every year while
at SUA the students only had four different classes and are run by semesters. Although this was
very different for me at first, I have come to realize that this form of class schedules is very
useful. The students are able to focus on classes they enjoy and are able to put in more time to
studying for specific classes. At first, I thought that the girls were going to get really bored
sitting in an eighty minute social studies class but I was very wrong. All of this extra time given
to the teachers allows them to get more creative with their instruction. They are able to do more
interactive activities and get the students more involved in the classroom. I know my teacher
loves to hold little plays or skits that represent the time period the students are learning. Giving
the students time to stand up and interact with each other to learn information is also a great way
for teachers to get the information to stick. When I went to high school, I was used to 45 minute
classes so there wasnt usually enough time for activities and projects. But, I have noticed that
SUAs class schedule has had many great advantages in student learning. Like I mentioned
before, many students do not enjoy the social studies classroom because they think it is boring.
The article, , Why Students Dont Like Social Studies, by Mark Schug, a Senior in high school
mentions, it got boring when you are memorizing date after date, name after name, president
after president (1984, p. 386). Giving the teachers more time to teach the content gives them
the ability to find different techniques to make the social studies classroom more interesting
which in turn will help the students learn the information and remember it for an extended period
of time.

References
Newmann, F.M., & Wehlage, G.G. (1993). Five standards of authentic instruction. Educational
Leadership, 50 (7), 8-12.
Schug, M., Todd, R., & Beery. R. (1984). Why kids don't like social studies. Social Education,
48(5), 382-387.