Meaningful Integration in Social Studies

Positive Features of Integration

• Enhances meaningfulness of what is taught; students make more connections

• Saves teachers’ time• Teaches knowledge and skills

simultaneously• Restores an emphasis on social

studies in climate of standardized tests

Accountability

• On the knowledge (ex. Content of a letter written to representative about legislation)

• On the skills (ex. Descriptive writing piece about a trip to the White House)

• On both (ex. In Language arts studying narratives and in Social Studies studying the American Revolution—writing biographies on key revolutionary figures)

Desirable Integration

• Topics that naturally draw content from more than one subject.– Ex. Maps—geography and mathematics– Ex. Needs and wants—economics and

mathematics

Desirable Integration

• Skills learned in one subject are used to process or apply knowledge learned in another subject area.– Ex. Pretend you are a Native American on the

Trail of Tears journey, write a series of diary entries describing your feelings, attitudes, and future expectations.

– Ex. In a unit on the Middle East, identify biases and points of view in newspaper articles.

Desirable Integration

• Enrichment activities that help to personalize content, make it more concrete, enhance learner curiosity, or add an affective perspective.– Ex. Using literature (Unit on wants and

needs-read King Midas, Cinderella)– Ex. Integrating art or music

Undesirable Integration

• Activities that lack social education goals– Ex. ABC order of state capitals, making

vocabulary words into plurals.– Ex. Write a research paper on coal.

Undesirable Integration

• Cost-Effectiveness Problems: Perhaps the focus is on other subject area goal rather than social education goal. Is there enough time or other resources?– Ex. Constructing houses from tropical regions– Ex. Create family members using paper plates– Ex. Role Play-participate in a parade to show

how families celebrate– Ex. Collage and scrapbooking

Undesirable Integration

• Distorts Content• Difficult or Impossible tasks• Feasibility

Back

In Your Unit…

• You must have objectives and standards in at least one content area other than social studies

• You must have a plan to assess the objectives in the integrated subject areas.