Missouri Council of the Social Studies Annual Conference

With a strong emphasis on ethnic studies classes and resources, educators often find it challenging to find materials that truly engage their students. Students are eager for lessons that bring value and impact to their lives. I invite you to join me and learn about resources that are ready to use in your classroom and have the potential to make a significant impact on your students.

Chronology - placement of historical events - is a challenge for students whose awareness of the world may be only a decade. Understanding chronology begins by identifying events in their own lives. This can be expanded if students visualize and personalize the passage of time with these three elements: draw a timeline, the math number line's social studies counterpart, to create a graphic organizer; designate it as a visual story line; and personalize the content with the first-person experiences of individuals in the students' lives. This presentation will demonstrate the strategy and engage participants in developing their own timelines.

For many teachers, primary sources serve as a new frontier. Primary sources sit at the frontier of content because they offer insights into stories of the past that might be unknown. Primary sources also sit at the frontier of pedagogy because teaching with primary sources such as documents, oral histories, cartoons, photographs, and paintings, requires innovative strategies to promote higher order thinking with these different source types. In this session, teachers will learn how to locate primary sources that uncover stories of the past while also learning engaging new strategies for teaching with them.

Attendees will get access to a package of free online geography games that can help them and their students learn names and countries of the world.