Where’s the time for inquiry? You may have your students do Inquiry Design Model inquiries throughout the year or you may do one a semester. If you are just entering the inquiry world, you may not have done any before! In Kentucky, my home state, new social studies standards have been adopted that support inquiry […]
The Balancing Act: IDM and State Standards
The Inquiry Design Model – Conceptual Principles: Inquiry Topics and Outcomes are grounded in the New York State Social Studies Framework Lately, I have been talking to teachers, friends and colleagues, about how they decide on the curriculum to use in their social studies courses. We had interesting discussions of what factors they consider, as […]
Using the C3 Framework in Connecticut to Create a State Framework Document
By Steve Armstrong July 24, 2014 Connecticut educators have worked for nearly a year to create social studies framework documents in social studies. We have had a dedicated team of elementary, middle, and high school educators, as well as university faculty on our framework team. We have used the C3 as our ‘foundational’ document throughout […]
CT and C3: Connecticut’s Transition Using the C3 Frameworks
September 1, 2014 By David Bosso While many of the blogs presented herein focus on classroom implications of the C3 Frameworks, as they rightly should, there is also a need to provide insight into related policy issues and broader curricular repercussions of the instructional, logistical, and value-laden shifts connected to an inquiry approach. To these […]
A Multigenerational Approach
By Tony Roy November 3, 2014 Over the past year Connecticut social studies teachers have worked to revise the state curriculum framework to meet the expectations of the College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) national framework. This is particularly important because for at least the past decade, our state has not had an officially-approved framework […]
Keep ‘Em Busy, but NO BUSY WORK
C3 Instructional Shifts – Shift 3: Integrate Content and Skills Purposefully There are few ways a student can insult a teacher’s assignment more than by calling it “busy work.” If someone refers to my assignment as “too hard,” “too easy,” or “too boring,” etc., I take little offense. But if a student dares refer to it as […]
Designing Lessons for Relevance, Authenticity, and Enduring Understandings
“Why do we need to learn this?” “Will this be on the test?” “Is this for a grade?” Most teachers are familiar with these student refrains. Such questions reveal a larger challenge that teachers face on a frequent basis: how to create compelling, meaningful, evocative lessons that resonate with students and their fundamental needs to […]
Replacing Group Work with Group Learning
By Carly Muetterties March 2, 2015 C3 Instructional Shifts – Shift 2: Cultivate and Nurture Collaborative Civic Spaces When I was a student, there were few things that inspired as much anxiety in me than two little words: “group work.” These words are pretty regularly used in just about any classroom, my own included. […]