John Zachary
10/4/11
Tech Expert Module: PBS Teachers—Social Studies
Link: http://www.pbs.org/teachers/socialstudies/
Overview of the Resource:
PBS Teachers Social Studies page is a central resource designed to help social studies teachers incorporate a variety of different perspectives and lesson-types into their teaching and lesson planning. The site initially divides links in three ways. One group is a link to resources broken out by grade level. The second provides a link to an overview of social studies resources for more specific course types (like AP U.S. History for example). Finally the third grouping is linked to “Activity Packs” which cover a broad variety of explorative social studies topics.
The site is extremely useful in helping social studies teachers to find creative lesson plans, develop lessons in social studies that allow students to explore a topic, or to help find great videos and interactive online tools which can illustrate something being taught in a lesson. The site can provide ideas for a lesson plan, access to resources to supplement a lesson plan, or access to resources which have a lesson already planned out.
This module will show how to access and use each of the three types of links.
Getting Started with PBS Teachers Social Studies:
After going to the homepage of the PBS Teachers Social Studies site (linked above) you have the option of exploring one of the three areas of links.
Let’s begin with the first section of links, which give access to social studies resources by grade level. To provide an example, let’s start with 9-12 Social Studies. Clicking on the link to 9-12 Social Studies, you will be directed to a page that has lists of resources. The site provides over 2500 different resources for Social Studies teachers. Thus, it is helpful to use the tabs provided by the site to sort out what you need. In the screen shot below you can see the tabs that allow you to filter resources by “Topic”, “Media Type” and “PBS Programs”. The topics allow you to narrow down by subject area—for example, you might want to search for resources only related to “Geography”. Media Type breaks down the resource in terms of things such as “audio/video”, “lesson plan”, or “interactive”. The PBS programs tab links to specific PBS programs, which is helpful in pairing a lesson with a particular PBS television show or series.
Now let’s take, as an example, the “Political Illustration” link that is listed at the bottom at the bottom of the above screen shot. The “Political Illustration” is a lesson plan type resource. Below is a screen shot of the link that “Political Illustration” takes you to. It is a website that gives an entire lesson plan, including a short video, about political illustration. Further down on the page, underneath the overview, are specific activity based lesson plans related to the overall topic. This provides just one example of the type of resource you may be directed to via PBS Teachers first group of links. Again, there are over 2500 resources linked, so it is possible to find very specific resources.
The second type of links on the page are those which link to resources about overall topics and provide just a small group of the most broad reaching sites which may be useful for a specific subject area. For example, one of the topics is “Global Studies”. Clicking on the link to Global Studies will take you to a PDF which has an overview of the most salient global studies resources identified by the site. Again, these are broken down by grade level so as to guide the process of the teacher. A screen shot of the PDF is found below. This can be helpful in pulling out important general resources about a topic, but can be limited in that it does not have as many subject areas and doesn’t have great focus.
Section Three of the Initial Page is perhaps the trickiest of PBS Teachers Social Studies resources to access. These are the links to “Activity Packs”. These Activity Packs provide a series of focused resources on a specific topic students may choose to explore. As an example of how to use this, we’ll click on the Activity Pack on “Studying Genocide”.
Once you have done this, it will direct you to the page below: You can follow the step by step directions to gain access to the activity pack, either by accessing it via a social media site, or by making it part of your own class website. I’m going to demonstrate how to add it to a social media site (Facebook) as this might be a way to have student incorporate social media into their learning as they explore a topic.
If you are already signed into Facebook on your Internet Browser (which I recommend doing before beginning this in order to smoothen the process), you will see the following screen pop up as a new window:
This screen is asking you to add an application called “My Stuff” to your Facebook page. The Activity Pack (and any subsequent Activity Packs) can be found within this application, so you’ll need to click “allow”. Once you have done this, you’ll enter your “My Stuff” homepage, where the activity pack will be. Once you have done this, you can start exploring the different resources available within the activity pack to learn more about genocide.
You’re now ready to start exploring the resources offered by PBS Teachers!!
Classroom Examples:
Example 1:
This example provides a specific lesson plan about an activity called a “Popcorn Party”. The lesson is designed to teach students about the inequalities in food consumption across the globe by introducing them to the problems of world hunger. Students are divided up into groups and given amounts/types of popcorn that correspond with their position as First World or Fourth/Fifth World. Students are asked to consider how to divide their resources, which is a struggle for the Fourth/Fifth world groups, but is easy for the First World students. The lesson is designed to give students an opportunity to consider the problems of overconsumption and global hunger. This lesson is great for a class such as World Geography, since it gives students a chance to begin thinking with a global perspective. This lesson plan uses a PBS Teachers video, specifically the program entitled “Affluenza”. It gives specific directions on what times in the program to begin and stop play.
The lesson plan is linked here: http://www.pbs.org/kcts/affluenza/treat/tguide/tguide7.html
Example 2:
This example provides a lesson on The Role of Government and the New Deal. It’s designed to teach students to understand the different positions of the federal government in the 1930’s as well as analyze the reasoning behind FDR’s New Deal. The lesson takes place over several days, culminating in a “Senate” debate about the New Deal. The lesson uses articles and videos provided by PBS resources, with links to the articles. This lesson directly relates to any high school U.S. history curriculum, and is a fantastic use of the resource to provide students not only with a way to access knowledge about the New Deal with various multimedia, but it also gives them a chance to demonstrate this knowledge via a “Senate” debate, which ensures they are analyzing and understanding.
The lesson plan is linked here: http://www.pbs.org/teachers/connect/resources/7376/preview/
Example 3:
This lesson plan focuses on teaching students about the social, political, or economic changes that come from technological advances by focusing on the impact of China’s Three Gorges Dam and the PBS Film Up the Yangtze. The lesson is directly relatable to World Geography curriculum, in that it teaches students about other cultures, the need to control the physical environment, and the impact that interaction with the physical environment can have on the society. The lesson facilitates discussion, and provides video clips and segments to be used at specific points throughout the discussion to highlight the key aspects from Up the Yangtze. This is great in that it saves students from needing to watch the whole film in order to learn from and benefit from it.
The lesson plan can be found here: http://www.pbs.org/teachers/connect/resources/6680/preview/
Example 4:
This lesson plan is about the struggle of African-Americans to be able to fight for their country during the Civil War. It fits in perfectly to a U.S. history curriculum, particularly around study of the Emancipation Proclamation. The lesson plan incorporates clips from PBS documentaries about the African American experience during the Civil War, as well as provides resources from a variety of outside sites which will help students learn to work with primary source documents. The videos are used to contextualize the situation for African-Americans and give appropriate background knowledge so that students can analyze the primary source documents and fully understand the African-American struggle to fight as well as the African-American point of view.
The lesson plan can be found here: http://www.pbs.org/teachers/connect/resources/6023/preview/
Assessing for the Classroom:
Pros: PBS Teachers Social Studies page has an enormous amount of pros associated with its use in the classroom. As we saw in the “How To” above, it provides access to a wide variety of resources (over 2500 just for grades 9-12) in Social Studies. This allows teachers to find very specific ideas for lessons. Additionally, PBS breaks down their resources into multiple categories, allowing teachers to search for appropriate multimedia, a complete lesson plan, or simply an interactive online tool, among others. Moreover, the lesson plans range over an extremely wide array of topics within social studies—and are tailored to grade level. This means that teachers can find age and content specific information with relative ease. Additionally, PBS teachers is free to sign up for (though it is not necessary to sign up to use its resources) and it is easy to use and get started with. Within a few clicks and with simple exploration, anyone can access the materials necessary to provide a great multimedia lesson for their classroom.
Cons: PBS Teachers has three major drawbacks to it which can hinder its effectiveness. First, it is great that the site has so many resources available, and narrowing your search is easy. However, sometimes narrowing a search still leaves hundreds of potential lesson plans or resources to go through in order to find what you’re looking for. Second, the specificity of the lesson plans is fantastic; however, some of the lessons are ones which are realistically not likely to be able to be easily related to a curriculum. Third, the site occasionally offers lessons/resources that require owning or having access to a PBS program. Thus, some of the best lesson plans or ideas may not be able to be used due to simply not having access.
Consideration for Teachers:
PBS Teachers Social Studies page offers some amazing ideas for teachers and these are few helpful suggestions to help guide your use of the site:
1. Know what you’re looking for. This may sound obvious, but have a very specific goal in mind when you begin to look for a resource. Know the outcomes you expect for your students, how much time you plan to spend on the topic, etc. This will help you focus your search and eliminate extraneous results (of which there can be many). If you can, use multiple tabs to narrow down your search—so look for a Geography AND Interactive resource, rather than just one or another—this will help a lot in minimizing your time spent searching.
2. Don’t feel like you need to do the lesson plan’s exactly how PBS teachers suggests. You may find a very specific lesson plan that includes a video that would be perfect for helping your students understand a topic, but that does not mean you must do the PBS lesson as it is recommended in order to use that video. Adapting the lesson plans to your individual classroom is absolutely vital in using the site correctly. PBS provides really specific and great ideas, however, they were not designed with your class in mind, so keep that in your mind as you plan on how to use the resources in your classroom!
3. Don’t be afraid to give students the opportunity to explore the site. Specifically, using the “Activity Packs” will give students a great opportunity to explore a topic on their own! By using the “Activity Packs”, you’ll know students have access to good, credible resources, and because they can be downloaded to familiar social media, students will be able to easily go back and access the resources on their own if they are interested (One caveat here though is that many schools block social media sites, so it may be prudent to have a classroom website where you can post the Activity Pack).