Social Sciences and the Humanities 9-12

The Ontario social sciences curriculum includes expectations that incorporate media education
themes. The curriculum document: Social Sciences and Humanities (2013) includes a section
that demonstrates the complementary relationship between the critical thinking approach of
media education and social sciences:

Students use critical-thinking skills in social sciences and humanities when they assess, analyse,
and/or evaluate the impact of something and when they form an opinion about something and
support that opinion with a rationale. In order to think critically, students need to examine the
opinions and values of others, detect bias in their sources, determine why a source might express
a particular bias, look for implied meaning, and use the information gathered to form a personal
opinion or stance, or a personal plan of action with regard to making a difference.

Information and communications technologies (ICT) provide a range of tools that can
significantly extend and enrich teachers’ instructional strategies and support students’ learning.
ICT tools include multimedia resources, databases, websites, digital cameras, and word-
processing programs. Tools such as these can help students to collect, organize, and sort the data
they gather, and to write, edit, and present reports on their findings. ICT can also be used to
connect students to other schools, at home and abroad, and to bring the global community into
the local classroom.

Although the Internet is a powerful learning tool, there are potential risks attached to its use. All
students must be made aware of issues related to Internet privacy, safety, and responsible use, as
well as of the potential for abuse of this technology, particularly when it is used to promote
hatred.

On the sidebar you will find outcome charts containing media-related learning expectations from
the social sciences curriculum, with links to supporting resources on the MediaSmarts site. As
many of our lessons can be adapted to suit different grade levels and abilities, specific lessons
may be listed for more than one grade. Teachers should also note that individual lessons often
satisfy a number of expectations.

Teaching on the Content

Areas: Strategies and
Techniques

Facilitating Student Learning in the Content Areas

Students who have trouble understanding content may not have prerequisite knowl- edge and/or
may not have desired academic skills. Those students need to be taught the prerequisite content
and
either the necessary skills or how to learn the lesson without primary reliance on those skills.
Students with FII, learning challenges may also be due to their atten- tion-giving skills or
cognitive processing. However, problems with learning are rarely entirely due to a student's
cognitive
limitations.
Cultural and linguistic factors also influence how well students benefit from a les- son. There is
ample evidence that many children of color and/or from lower-income families, and/or who are
linguistically
diverse, receive a weaker education foundation beginning in early childhood, and lessons should
not only
be respectful of individual differences, but also address the act of learning in ways that are
helpful to
students. Teaching is never just the presentation of information. Teaching is the process of
helping students
to learn.

Effective Lecturing
Even though lecturing is more commonly used in the upper grades, elementary-school teachers
should not
skip this section thinking it does not pertain to them, as they occasionally use lecturing to teach
content-area material.
Students stay alert and motivated when they receive varied forms of instruction. Certain
principles of
effective lecturing can be applied to almost any teaching format. Among the principles teachers
should
know how to use are the following:
●Orient all learners to the lesson topics and goals
●Use effective presentation skills
●Engage learners in the learning process
●Check for understanding

Orienting
The very first step of lecturing, or any other form of teaching, is to get the students' attention so
that
you can "tell them what you are going to teach."
The second important quality of a grabber is that it provokes students to think about the topic in
ways you want them to. Now the students will know not only what they will be studying, but
also why:
having a purpose for learning, or a learning goal, helps students to focus on what they should get
from a
lesson. Finally, advanced organizers do not have to be limited to classroom lessons; they are
equally
beneficial when used with students in one-on-one instruction. Either as part of or following your
grabber
and advance organizer, provide students with some key questions.
Tips on posing effective questions include the following:
●Focus on essential content.
●Clearly relate the questions
●Relate lesson topics to larger unit topics.
●Explore conceptual relationships.
●Use questions that can help to monitor student progress (including student self-assessment).
●Motivate students.
●Let students generate some questions

Presenting Effectively
Once you orient students to the lesson, you must keep them engaged and teach in ways that
facilitate their access to the curriculum. There is more to teaching than being a persuasive
communicator;
nonetheless, a few public speaking tips can be useful.
●Provide clarity
●Visuals
●Cueing
●Pacing
●Students response rate
Checking for Understanding
By now you realize that checking for understanding is important for a successful lecture. It is
better to
find out whether your presentation is effective during the actual lecture than at the end of a unit.
●Check for understanding
●Informative feedback
Concluding the Lecture
Finally, although many of us use some form of advance organizers in our teaching, we often
neglect to
extend a similar courtesy to our students at the end of lectures or lessons
PASS and SCREAM
PASS and SCREAM can help you remember the whole process.
PASS
●P- Prioritize Objectives
●A- Adapt instruction, material, or the environment
●SS- Systematic Evaluation Procedure
SCREAM
●S- Structure
●C-Clarity
●R-Redundancy
●E-Enthusiasm
●A-Appropriate pase
●M-Maximized engagement
Helping Students Make Sense of Lesson Content
In any classroom, on any given day, there will be variation in how students learn- ing the same
content or skill come to understand it.
Because our materials and lessons are not always as clear as they could be, and our students vary
in
their preparedness to learn, teachers need to know how to:
●Relate current lessons to past and future lessons,
●Differentiate learning goals from learning activities,
●Guide students to engage actively in considering new concepts,
●Guide students to comprehend individual concepts,
●Guide students to form relationships among concepts, and
●Ask questions that prompt clarification and in-depth learning
Content Enhancement
As the name suggests, content enhancement is an approach for enhancing the presentation of
critical
content in a lesson.
Content enhancement incorporates the following four instructional conditions:
1. Both group and individual needs are valued and met.
2. The integrity of the content is maintained.
3. Critical features of the content are selected and transformed in a way that promotes learning
for all
students.
4. Instruction is carried out in a partnership with students (Lenz, Deshler, and Kis- sam 2004).
The Concept Mastery Routine.
The Concept Mastery Routine was developed by Bulgren, Schumaker, and Deshler (1993), three
of
the scholars who initially developed content enhancement. Instead of stopping the lesson to go
over a
difficult concept or relegating it to a weekly vocabulary word list and hoping more complex
learning ensues,
the class uses the Concept Mastery Routine to study the concept in relation to other content in
the lesson.
Strategy or a Routine
A strategy is a process that cues specific cognitive activities, such as the steps or procedures of
the
ISM strategy. Students can perform most strategies alone, but a small group or the whole class
could
perform a strategy collaboratively.
●Convey the concept
●Offer overall concept
●Note key words
●You sent
●Classify characteristics
●Practice new definition
●Tie down a definition
Student Skills Commonly Required for Content-Area Learning
A student's full participation and learning in a classroom takes a variety of skills. In one study
(Scanlon
2003), middle-school teachers from a variety of content-area and special education classrooms
collectively
identified the skills students need to be successful in content-area classes.
Reading
Reading is an essential academic skill for most content-area classes (Leko and Mundy 2012;
Vaughn
and Wanzek 2014; also see Fisher and Ivey 2005); reading is also the most common skill
difficulty for
students with HI, such as learning disabilities (Annie E. Casey Foundation Report 2010; Sanford,
Park, and
Baker 2013).
●Begin with Pre-Reading
We are generally more successful readers when we know something about what we are about to
read
●Use Partnered Reading
Round-robin reading, where students in a circle take turns adding paragraphs aloud, is generally
not an
effective approach for any member of the group
●Motivate the Reader
Students benefit from having a purpose for reading, and the best purpose is motivation to learn.
●Find an Alternative.
Students should learn to read and should be supported in reading as a part of your class.
●Select the Best Text
Whenever you have a choice among texts, select the one that has useful reading features.
Using the Reading Process to Integrate Reading Skill Development and Content Learning
There is more to reading than finishing a text in a timely manner and answering some recall
questions correctly. Good reading begins with pre-reading activities that orient readers toward
the topic,
providing a chance to think about the topic and prepare for what is ahead.
Accommodations
Students with disabilities should receive a different curriculum than other students. only when it
is
unrealistic for them to benefit from the general education curriculum IDEA 2004).
Defining Accommodations
The terms accommodations, adaptations, alterations, and modifications have been used
inconsistently,
leaving educators confused.
●Accommodation is a minor change in how content or material is presented to the student and/or
in how the student participates in the lesson.
●Modification is a significant change in how content or material is presented to a student and/or
in
how the student participates in the lesson.
Providing Accommodations
To provide accommodations, teachers need to do the following: Be familiar with the concepts of
"accommodation" and "modification."
●Understand the content being taught and the purpose of the instructional practice (s) being
used.
●Know a variety of possible accommodations
●Collaborate with other educators and the student to identify suitable accommodations.
●Adjust classroom instruction so that one or more students can participate via accommodations.
●Evaluate the effectiveness of accommodations, including the learning that results.
Considering all the possible ways a student with HI may need to be accommodated.
Accommodation
needs may be thought of as fall- Ing into one of the following four categories: Presentation
accommodations allow students to access information in ways that do not require them to read
standard
print visually. These alternate modes of access are auditory, multisensory, tactile, and visual.
Response
accommodations allow students to complete activities, assignments, and assessments in different
ways or
to solve or organize problems using some type of assistive device or organizer. Setting
accommodations
change the location in which a test or assignment is given or the conditions of the setting. Timing
and
scheduling accommodations increase the length of time allowed to complete an assessment or
assignment
and perhaps change the way the time is organized (Thompson et al. 2005).
Selecting Accommodations
In some cases, students have very few recommended accommodations. This may be because the
student cannot benefit from a great variety of accommodations although, as we noted above,
creative
thinking almost always results in devising more accommodations that are appropriate. More
often, you will
be able to select from a menu of appropriate accommodations, depending on the task and the
student's
needs in that particular situation
Evaluating Accommodations
Students and teachers both might have favorite accommodations, but these may not always be
the
ones that best fulfill the purposes of accommodations. Just as with any instructional practice or
student
performance, an accommodation should be evaluated to make certain it has its desired effects.

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