The Social Studies standards ask if students can "demonstrate an understanding of the people, events, problems, ideas, and cultures that were significant in the history of our community, state, nation, and world."
Whoa - if you're thinking what I'm thinking, that's a huge statement. The standards do narrow this idea down a bit in a sub-benchmark that asks them to "discuss current events to better understand the world in which they live."
That's still a lot, isn't it? We watch the news everyday, and we cover a ton of topics. I don't think it's reasonable to ask students to know every fact from every news story that we talk about. The more I think about it, the standard isn't that they KNOW current events - it's that they DISCUSS current events.
That's one thing that we do quite often in our Social Studies classes - we discuss what's going on around state, country, and world. If I could, I would use our discussions as a way to assess how well students comprehend the news. Unfortunately, that's not entirely possible. Some students are skilled at classroom discussion, but quite a few aren't. Some kids are shy. Some don't have the same background knowledge to understand what's happening. And some kids talk too much and don't let everyone have a fair say ...
That's why I created this quiz over the CNN Student News podcast that we watch in class. Instead of asking students to recite facts about all of the events we watch and discuss, the quiz asks them to pick one topic of their choice. They'll then answer 8 - 10 questions on that particular current event. Some of the questions are
So - while this quiz isn't a discussion, it comes close. It's not used to grade kids, score kids, or label kids - really, it's just a way for me to see what each individual student knows about the news, and how well they understand how these events impact their lives. Which, really, is what a discussion does - it allows to people to share ideas and learn from each other.
Enough said ... Click here to take the quiz on Google Docs. (BLUE DAY)
Click here to take the WHITE day quiz on Google Docs. (WHITE DAY)
Whoa - if you're thinking what I'm thinking, that's a huge statement. The standards do narrow this idea down a bit in a sub-benchmark that asks them to "discuss current events to better understand the world in which they live."
That's still a lot, isn't it? We watch the news everyday, and we cover a ton of topics. I don't think it's reasonable to ask students to know every fact from every news story that we talk about. The more I think about it, the standard isn't that they KNOW current events - it's that they DISCUSS current events.
That's one thing that we do quite often in our Social Studies classes - we discuss what's going on around state, country, and world. If I could, I would use our discussions as a way to assess how well students comprehend the news. Unfortunately, that's not entirely possible. Some students are skilled at classroom discussion, but quite a few aren't. Some kids are shy. Some don't have the same background knowledge to understand what's happening. And some kids talk too much and don't let everyone have a fair say ...
That's why I created this quiz over the CNN Student News podcast that we watch in class. Instead of asking students to recite facts about all of the events we watch and discuss, the quiz asks them to pick one topic of their choice. They'll then answer 8 - 10 questions on that particular current event. Some of the questions are
- factual knowledge (where is this country?),
- some check to see if they understand the current event (why did this happen?),
- and some go deeper to ask if they understand how the events around the world may impact their life (why does this matter to us in Buffalo, WY?).
So - while this quiz isn't a discussion, it comes close. It's not used to grade kids, score kids, or label kids - really, it's just a way for me to see what each individual student knows about the news, and how well they understand how these events impact their lives. Which, really, is what a discussion does - it allows to people to share ideas and learn from each other.
Enough said ... Click here to take the quiz on Google Docs. (BLUE DAY)
Click here to take the WHITE day quiz on Google Docs. (WHITE DAY)
No comments:
Post a Comment