SSED 430W Syllabus Fall14 PDS. 8.5.14
SSED 430W Syllabus Fall14 PDS. 8.5.14
SSED 430W Syllabus Fall14 PDS. 8.5.14
Gray (section 7): From September through December of 2014, regular class sessions for the
Gray cohort will meet each Tuesday from 11:30-2:30pm at Gray’s Woods Elementary (GW)
room 90.
Maroon (section 8): From September through December of 2014, regular class sessions for
the Maroon cohort will meet each Wednesday from 11:30-2:30pm at Gray’s Woods
Elementary (GW) room 90.
Instructors:
Stephanie Serriere (Gray) Christine McDonald (Gray)
Office: 165 Chambers Bldg. Office: TBA
Office Phone: (814) 863-2937 Cell phone: (814) 777- 7764
Email: [email protected] Email: [email protected]
Course Development
The PDS sections of SSED 430W are developed collaboratively by a planning team of
mentor teachers, curriculum support teachers, administrators, university faculty, and
doctoral candidates – all of them experienced K-6 educators. Great care is taken to
ensure each revision of the course reflects the best of what we know about how to
support your preparation and growth as teachers.
1
SSED 430W Syllabus Fall 2014
time in our schools. As a study of how people live and contribute to their communities,
social studies provides a lens of engaging with and living in the world.
Opinions abound as to what should constitute a good social studies program, and
experts continue to argue about the content, goals, and ways to teach social studies.
This lack of uniformity provides an opening for each social studies teacher to define
what social studies will mean in his/her classroom. As your instructors, we encourage
you throughout this class to create a developing image of how social studies will be
taught in your classroom.
Throughout this semester, interns should be developing a clearer sense of how they will
teach social studies. The following questions and prompts may help you as you go
through the application and interviewing process.
1. Think about your growth this semester in terms of your relationship with social studies
- sharing your past experiences as a social studies learner and providing logical goals
you have set for yourself in the future as a student of social studies.
2. What is social studies? Why is it important? How does it relate to other subjects in
school?
3. If an interested principal, parent, or fellow teacher wanted to observe your social studies
classroom, what would be seen? In other words, what resources and activities represent
your philosophy of education with regard to SSED? [This is NOT asking you how your
mentor(s) would answer this or how each mentor runs his/her classroom. Paint the picture
without assuming that it would need to be SCASD.]
5. Think about your growth as a teacher in terms of planning and facilitating dynamic
discussions, lessons, activities, and experiences around social studies.
2
SSED 430W Syllabus Fall 2014
Required Readings
Readings will be made available to you electronically during our first class.
You are to purchase a membership affiliation to the National Council for the Social Studies at
socialstudies.org. We recommend choosing Social Studies and the Young Learner or Middle Level
Learning as your publication that comes with your membership. This membership will grant
you access to all past issues of NCSS publications in their on-line archive.
3
SSED 430W Syllabus Fall 2014
*All Sunday due dates should be posted before 5pm (ET) or be subject to late deductions of 10% every 48hrs
past due date. Talk to your instructor/grader about any extenuating circumstances before the due dates to
avoid deductions.
Assignments/Grading:
Further assignment descriptions will be discussed in class and available via ANGEL.
Citizenship: As a class, we will co-construct what it means to be a good citizen in our class.
Contributing to and respecting these ideals are important to being a member of our learning
community. Each class, you are to demonstrate that you have read and processed the assigned
readings. Thoughtful responses, intriguing questions, and comments that build upon the
existing discussion are all traits of good dialogue. It is important that you seek to make quality
contributions to our classroom dialogue and demonstrate a willingness to engage in social
studies activities. You will get the most out of this class if you approach it with enthusiasm and
inquisitiveness in your role as a future educator.
Reading Responses: This assignment requires you to reflect, in a written form, your
understanding and reactions to the assigned readings. You are to summarize and analyze the
week’s reading by completing 10 reading responses during the semester. You will be assessed
on thoroughness and the extent to which you briefly summarize the readings; analyze them,
and make connections between the reading and your growing experiences in education and as
an educator. Your instructor may give you specific reflection prompts or questions. This
summary-analysis-connections reflection is to be approximately 2-3 paragraphs in length
posted on Angel, each Sunday by 5pm.
Methods Block Integrated Assignment: What I Bring to the Methods Block: My Story as
a Learner. DUE: 8/15 [A7,D3]: Carl Jung tells us that, “The most personal is the most
universal.” As a teacher education candidate you bring a unique set of experiences, values, and
understandings to the profession. Although your own experiences should serve as the
foundation for your decision-making, you may move beyond these in some ways to consider
powerful ways of teaching and learning. A good place to begin on the path to understanding
how to teach social studies is to reflect on your own experiences as a learner of all subject areas.
This assignment encourages you to consider your personal experiences. This assignment
urges you to analyze the impact of individuals and learning environments on your own
learning. See assignment description for details.
My Future As a Social Studies Teacher. DUE 12/7:At the start of the semester, you wrote
your “story as a learner.” Now, we look to your future as teacher. Imagine yourself five years
from now—and, you are about to become a mentor teacher for the first time. Write a letter to
that future version of yourself. In your letter, remind yourself of the ideas that you want to
take from the experiences of this semester, particularly in social studies. What you say might
remind, inspire, encourage or challenge that future version of you. Cite course discussions and
course readings (at least three) that inspired you to ground your vision and beliefs about social
studies teaching and learning. Your letter should be one page to three pages and single-spaced,
a model of professional writing.
In order to facilitate learning within the social sciences, the course will conduct discipline
specific research and utilize the tools/modes of inquiry that are fundamental to social
scientists. You will become familiar with both the state and national standards and learn
how to teach these standards in ways that reinforce a working knowledge of the disciplines.
School & Community Inquiry. DUE 10/5 [A3, A6]: We begin the semester with an inquiry
into the context of your students’ lives and the curriculum that they are taught. As a class, we
will gather data about SCASD’s (economic, cultural, testing, curricular) context. In groups
based on the school you are placed, you are to consider the district level data and how it relates
to your context. Some analysis questions include: How are my students reflected in these data or
not? What does that mean for my teaching? You are to take a community walk around the area of
your school, interview people, take photos and any other data collection technique that will
enhance your analysis. The final product may be completed in any sort of digital technology.
An emphasis is placed on your professionalism in the final produce, your analysis (rather than
just presenting facts). See assignment description for details.
Read: Aloud: Powerful Social Studies Integration through Children’s Literature. DUE
11/16: Social studies is often integrated into other subjects, especially reading and writing but
often in a “stealthy” not healthy way. It is important to learn and practice how to integrate in
healthy ways that put social studies concepts at the forefront, rather than an add-on. You will
have an opportunity through this assignment to plan, assess, and teach quality social studies.
You will choose an exemplary tradebook as a read-aloud and social studies concepts that you
will teach through and during this read aloud. You will conduct a pre-, formative and
summative assessment on a small group of students and write a complete lesson plan in CI 495
B long format that you teach to your entire class. You are highly encouraged to video record
yourself teaching the lesson to facilitate the written reflection that accompanies this lesson plan
format.
Social Studies in My Classroom. DUE 10/19: Observe and reflect upon social studies
teaching and learning in your classroom. Consider curricular materials, student work, and
pedagogy in action to describe social studies in your placement classroom. See assignment
description for details.
Optional:
Professional Learning Activities. DUE 12/3 [PLAs] are activities that will allow you to
further your own professional development as a teacher of elementary school social studies.
These are optional activities that are designed to allow you to pursue topics that are most
interesting and relevant to you. To earn an A in this course, you will complete two PLAs. See
assignment description for details.
........................................
GRADING
5
SSED 430W Syllabus Fall 2014
When you submit an assignment, your instructor will review your work and provide you with
written feedback and indicate if your work is satisfactory. If it is not satisfactory, you will be
asked to revise and resubmit your work. You will have one week to resubmit an assignment.
A "C" or better in SSED430W is required in the CEAED program. The following chart outlines
how final course grades will be determined:
* Based on your instructor’s assessment of citizenship, + and – grades will be applied. For
example, even if you satisfactorily complete all required course components and two PLAs,
your grade for the course may be an A- based on the quality of your class contributions.
6
SSED 430W Syllabus Fall 2014
7
SSED 430W Syllabus Fall 2014
oriented o Kids Consortium (2011). Kids as Due: Sept. 21th
How can I civics Planners: A Guide to Strengthening
inspire my pedagogy Students, Schools & Communities
students to make ü Guests: Through Service-Learning. Ch. 1,
a difference Donnan pp-1-16.
with a call to Stoicovy and o Serriere, S., McGarry, Fuentes, D. &
action? Park Forest Mitra, D. (2012). How service-
Elementary learning can ignite thinking. Social
teachers Studies and the Young Learner,
24(4), 6-10.
8
SSED 430W Syllabus Fall 2014
small-world approach. Social
Studies and the Young Learner,
20(2), 15-18.
Reading
Response #7
9
SSED 430W Syllabus Fall 2014
11
SSED 430W Syllabus Fall 2014
Students will be afforded many opportunities to practice writing throughout the semester, with
emphasis given to writing as a process that develops through several iterations and drafts.
Opportunities for students to receive written feedback from the instructor and to apply the
instructor's feedback to their future writing will be built into the course. Likewise, students will
also frequently take on the role as peer-editors, responsible for giving substantive feedback to
improve upon the clarity and overall quality of one’s work. The instructor will clearly identify
and explain the type of writing required throughout the course and will provide guidance as
needed (e.g. negotiating how best to convey ideas to a given audience) to both authors and peer-
editors.
Your writing will be evaluated by the instructors, and writing quality will be a factor in
determining each student's final grade. Before students begin writing, the instructor will
communicate to students the criteria by which their writing will be evaluated. Sound criteria for
assessing writing quality include, but are not limited to, the writer's (demonstrated) ability to
direct the material to an intended audience, the employment of organizational strategies, the
development of both content and reasoning, adherence to conventions of a particular discipline,
accuracy of the information presented, citation and integration of sources, style, grammar,
syntax, spelling, and voice. The details of this policy are available at
http://www.senate.psu.edu/curriculum_resources/guide/sec1.html#Writing
12
SSED 430W Syllabus Fall 2014
Penn State welcomes students with disabilities into the University's educational programs. If you
have a disability-related need for reasonable academic adjustments, contact the Office for
Disability Services (ODS) at 814-863-1807 (V/TTY). For further information regarding ODS,
please visit the Office for Disability Services website at http://equity.psu.edu/ods/. In order to
receive consideration for course accommodations, you must contact ODS and provide
documentation (see the documentation guidelines at
http://equity.psu.edu/ods/guidelines/documentation-guidelines). If the documentation supports
the need for academic adjustments, ODS will provide a letter identifying appropriate academic
adjustments. Please share this letter and discuss the adjustments with your instructor as early in
the course as possible. You must contact ODS and request academic adjustment letters at the
beginning of each semester.
Academic Integrity
This class, as well as all of your classes in the PDS, operates under the guidelines for academic
integrity defined by the statement at the following WEB site:
http://www.ed.psu.edu/edservices/certification/academic_integ.htm. Please consult this statement
if you have any questions about the definition and ramifications for infraction of PSU's academic
integrity policy. In particular, it is inappropriate to turn work in for one course that also counts as
credit for another course without the express approval of each instructor. It is also inappropriate
to borrow someone else’s ideas or words, and claim credit for them as your own. Be a good
scholar. Give intellectual credit when and where it is due. Cite your sources.
13