• This is the implementation year for our new social studies TEKS (K-12)
• Elementary – continue implementation of integrated ELA/Social Studies curriculum
• Secondary – new scope & sequence, biographies, and academic vocabulary

• Implementation of STAAR and EOC
• How are we doing?
– World Geo: average raw score = 46 (48 for
70%)
– US History: average raw score = 40 (48 for
70%)
• Test banks
– More rigorous questions

• Learning objective and/or guiding questions are evident
• Content is TEKS-based and appropriate to course & grade level
• Lessons connect to concepts, big ideas, and guiding questions
• Introductory task engages student interest and connects to background knowledge
• Wide variety of visuals focus on inquiry, analysis, and interpretation
• Interactive lectures include spiraling questions that lead to higher order thinking
• Students engage in on-task conversations with partners or cooperative groups
• Students synthesize information from a variety of sources, including primary source documents
• Students can explain their reasoning, both verbally and in writing, and support it with evidence
• Teacher monitors student learning with on-going informal assessments through class discussions, questioning strategies, and observations
• Teacher uses student work to guide instruction (formative) and assessment data analysis to understand student progress (summative).
• Teacher provides scoring rubrics that outline proficiency levels for major assignments

Professional Development
Professional development from TEA
– Social Studies K-12 Overview
– Grade 8 Social Studies Academy
– U.S. History Since 1877 EOC Success
– World History EOC Success
– World Geography EOC Success
NISD
– District PLC meetings (K-12)
– Social Studies and Technology
– Using DBQs and Primary Sources in the classroom
– Active Learning Strategies

Instruction
Curriculum
Assessment

• USH 2b – identify the major eras in U.S. history from 1877 to the present and describe their defining characteristics
• USH 4c – identify the causes of World
War I and reasons for U.S. entry

• Study defining characteristics of World War I era
• Review the causes of World War I (from previous course---World History)
• Study reasons for U.S. entry into World War I
• Student quiz would include an item on why the
U.S. entered World War I
Facts Topics

• Content Standards: (bundle another SE with these to add depth)
• USH 2b – identify the major eras in U.S. history from 1877 to the present and describe their defining characteristics
• USH 4c – identify the causes of World War I and reasons for U.S. entry
• USH 15d – describe the economic effects of international military conflicts, including World
War I

• So, we add depth by adding additional
Student Expectations (SEs) that require students to use higher level cognitive skills.
• Using cause/effect analysis , students are asked to study the connection between military conflicts and economics.
• Guiding questions help students process information and take them to a deeper level of understanding.
Facts Topics

• To what extent can you maintain a position of neutrality between opposing forces when it affects you economically?
• How did the U.S. move from a position of neutrality to involvement in World War I?
• How do economic factors influence a country’s decision to go to war?

• We add complexity by asking students to investigate connections between economics and conflicts.
• Students answer guiding questions to understand reasons for U.S. involvement in
WW I and are asked to summarize their understanding in a “Big Idea.”
• Students, now, walk out of our classrooms with knowledge, skills, and understanding about the transferable big idea:
Economic issues can be a driving force that leads to military conflicts.
Facts Topics Concepts Generalization Principle
Level of Complexity
Theory
Adapted from ILT to ILD, Moving Texas Forward 2002

So we ask our students to apply these ideas in a new context.
What economic issues helped lead to the outbreak of (insert war/conflict here)?
Facts Topics Concepts Generalization Principle
Level of Complexity
Theory
Adapted from ILT to ILD, Moving Texas Forward 2002

• From 1914 to 1916, as World War I raged in
Europe, Americans were not able to remain neutral in thought as well as action mainly because
• A. United States membership in military alliances required the nation to fight
• B. United States newspapers encouraged a policy of imperialist expansion
• C. the warring powers interfered with the United
States right to freedom of the seas
• D. President Woodrow Wilson supported the war aims of Germany and Austria-Hungary

The people of the United States are drawn from many nations, and chiefly from the nations now at war. It is natural and inevitable that there should be the utmost variety of sympathy and desire among them with regard to the issues and circumstances of the conflict. Some will wish one nation, others another, to succeed in the momentous struggle. It will be easy to excite passion and difficult to allay it. Those responsible for exciting it will assume a heavy responsibility, responsibility for no less a thing than that the people of the United States, whose love of their country and whose loyalty to its government should unite them as Americans all, bound in honor and affection to think first of her and her interests, may be divided in camps of hostile opinion, hot against each other, involved in the war itself in impulse and opinion if not in action.
----------------------------------------Woodrow Wilson, Declaration of Neutrality August 19, 1914

• From 1914 to 1916, as World War I raged in Europe,
Americans were not able to remain neutral in thought as well as action mainly because
A. The United States system of alliances eventually pulled the nation into the fight
• B. United States newspapers encouraged a policy of imperialist expansion through economic alliances
• C. the warring powers interfered with the United States right to trade with combatants and its right to freedom of the seas
• D. Americans had close ties to hostile countries and supported the involvement of the United States in the conflict