Social Studies/History
Explore and share tips, strategies, and resources for helping students develop in the social sciences.
Warming Up Cold Calling by Writing Ideas Down First
When students can respond to questions on mini-whiteboards prior to being called on, they feel more prepared—and everyone participates in thinking through the answers.Your content has been saved!
Go to My Saved Content.An Effective Strategy for Teaching With Videos
Rather than showing long videos, teachers should design lessons that use clips as resources to spur class discussion.Your content has been saved!
Go to My Saved Content.Writing Notes by Hand for Better Processing
When teachers regularly pause during lectures so students can synthesize their thoughts with handwritten notes, content is more likely to stick.Keeping Research Skills Relevant in the Age of AI
By focusing on research separately from writing, this assignment guides students to find quality primary and secondary sources.2.3kYour content has been saved!
Go to My Saved Content.Increasing Participation With Individual Whiteboards
When an entire class uses mini whiteboards to make thinking visible, teachers can be confident everyone is focused on the task at hand.46.7kYour content has been saved!
Go to My Saved Content.A Project to Combat End-of-Year Disengagement in Social Studies
A low-stakes assignment culminating in an investigative paper has worked wonders in this teacher’s AP World History classroom.1.5kYour content has been saved!
Go to My Saved Content.Evaluating Primary Sources Through a See, Think, Wonder
By taking the time to observe, make inferences, and ask great questions about historical artifacts and images, students learn to avoid jumping to conclusions.60-Second Strategy: Quick Sorts
In this formative assessment game, table groups compete against each other to categorize key terms and concepts from the previous night’s assignment.A Star Wars Day Activity That Lasts All Week
This May the Fourth activity has students create their own ‘Star Wars’ character based on their research about real-world cultures.3.7kYour content has been saved!
Go to My Saved Content.Inquiry-Based Tasks in Social Studies
Assignments that are bigger than a lesson and smaller than a unit are a good way to experiment with inquiry-based learning.207.4kYour content has been saved!
Go to My Saved Content.AI Tool Demo: Canva’s Text-to-Image Generator
Assistant editor Daniel Leonard shows how teachers are using Canva’s AI image generator to create fun writing prompts and engaging history-oriented images.Talking Politics: Valuing Different Perspectives
Students learn how to share and listen to opposing beliefs with empathy.206.4kYour content has been saved!
Go to My Saved Content.6 Free Online Resources for Primary Source Documents
The Common Core Learning Standards describe the importance of teaching students how to comprehend informational text. Primary source documents are artifacts created by individuals during a particular period in history. This could be a letter, speech, photograph or journal entry. If you're looking to integrate social studies into your literacy block, try out one of these resources for primary source documents.299.5kYour content has been saved!
Go to My Saved Content.AI Tool Demo: Creative Uses for ChatGPT in History and ELA
Assistant editor Daniel Leonard shares a few interesting applications of ChatGPT that teachers have adopted to drive critical thinking and deeper analysis.Teaching History as a Skills-Based Discipline
Students may associate history class with memorizing dates, but they should be learning the skills of evidence collection and analysis.4.4kYour content has been saved!
Go to My Saved Content.
