Social Studies
The Purpose of Social Studies
The purpose of social studies is to promote the knowledge, skills, intellectual processes, and dispositions require dof people to be actively engaged in fulfilling their responsibility of civic participation. As members of a culturally diverse, democratic society in an interdependent world, young people need to learn how to make informed and reasoned decisions for the public good. Social studies fosters a renewed and reinvigorated commitment to the ideal, "government of the people, by the people, and for the people," as expressed by President Lincoln in his Gettysburg Address.
The Instructional Shifts of Inquiry Based Learning in Social Studies
The C3 Framework represents a substantial shift in the way that social studies was most commonly taught in the past. To meet the changing needs of students in the Information Age, and to prepare them for the challenges of a dynamic world environment, the following instructional shifts are necessary:
Inquiry should be a primary form of instruction in all social studies classes.
Students (and teachers) should craft investigative questions that matter.
Teachers should establish a collaborative context to support student inquiry.
Teachers should integrate content and skills meaningfully and in a rigorous manner.
Teachers should help students articulate disciplinary literacy practices and outcomes (thinking, reading, writing, speaking like a historian, like a geographer, like an economist, etc.).
Teachers should provide, and help students develop, tangible opportunities to take informed action.
Inquiry can be a powerful tool for teaching the content outlined in Michigan’s Grade Level Content Expectations. As humans, we are naturally prone to questioning as we try to make sense of the world around us. While the C3 Framework is not assessed on state-level assessments, such as the M-STEP, it provides guidance for teachers and students on how to practice structured inquiry at the classroom level. It is set up around an instructional arc outlined below, with more information available by downloading the full document from the National Council for the Social Studies. A full copy of the C3 Framework can be found online.
Social Studies Contact
Dave Johnson
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