K-2 GPS Social Studies Training
H OW D O W E K N OW W H AT T H E Y
K N OW ?
DAY S 3 & 4
Our Agenda
Day Three (Probably)
Day Four (Probably)
 Redelivery Concerns
 Planning for Instruction
 Geography Content
 Daily Lessons Within Units
Seminar
 Georgia History Content
Seminar
 Teaching Unit One
 Looking at Units – What
Do We Already Do?
 Infusing Social Studies Into
Other Content Tasks &
Activities
Contact Information
Sarah Brown
Social Studies Teacher on Assignment
1754 Twin Towers East
Atlanta, GA 30334
Office: 404-651-7859
Email: sbrown@doe.k12.ga.us
Housekeeping
 We will let you eat lunch. We promise.
 If you must answer personal phone calls,
please do so out of the training room.
 Generally, we will take a break during
group activities to maximize our time
together.
 ASK QUESTIONS! ASK QUESTIONS!
ASK QUESTIONS!
REDELIVERY UPDATE
 How is it going?
 What are your needs as you get closer to fully
implementing the GPS in all subject areas?
 What do you need from the DOE?
At your tables, discuss these three
questions. Try to think of at least
one positive story, question, or idea
that has come from your redelivery
experience(s).
Geography for
Primary Kids
It’s more than landforms & map skills!
Thanks to Lisa Keys-Mathews, Department of Geography, University of North Alabama
for allowing us to share her work with you.
Why do we care about geography?
• Keep in mind that:
where we live matters
Why is SSKG1 listed under
Geographic Understandings? It
doesn’t have anything to do
with maps!
SSKGI: The student will describe American
culture by explaining diverse community & family
celebrations and customs.
Five Themes of Geography
•
•
•
•
•
Movement
Region
Human-Environmental interaction
Location
Place
Movement
• What moves in our world besides people?
Region
• Formal (United States/France/Manitoba)
• Functional (school district, pizza delivery area)
• Vernacular (the South, the Middle East)
Are people from Maryland from “the South”?
Is Pakistan part of “the Middle East”?
What happens when you move one house outside of
your county’s most desirable school district?
Human-Environmental Interaction
“Environment is not just trees,
spotted owls, & rain forests.
Environment is a feeling.”
~Lisa Keys-Mathews
http://www.loc.gov/wiseguide/apr04/grounds.html
Location
• Where are we?
– Absolute location
• Latitude & Longitude
• Street address
– Relative location
• landmarks, time, direction, or distance
Place
• Human Characteristics (what people do
to change a place)
• Physical Characteristics (what would be
in a place even if people were not
present)
• It is also a PERCEPTION.
Incorporating Literature
• Books about maps
• Books with maps
• Books you can map!
Geography & Map Skills a
few minutes at a time
•
•
•
•
Inflatable Globe activity (see handout)
Songs! (any ideas?)
Label game (can be graphed)
Standing on the map
Online Resources
These are just
•
suggestions!
There are many
online resources
•
available from
professional
organizations,
•
universities, school
systems, etc. As
always, be a wise •
consumer of
information. 
Georgia Geographic Alliance:
http://www.kennesaw.edu/gga/index.htm
Geography Educators’ Network of Indiana:
www.iupui.edu/geni
University of Alabama’s Department of Geography:
http://www2.una.edu/geography/statedepted/themes.html
University of Hawaii – Geography Matters:
http://www.hawaii.edu/hga/GeoMatters/geomatters.html
What about the standards?
• SS1G1: The student will describe the cultural
and geographic systems associated with the
historical figures in SS1H1a.
• SS2G2: The student will describe the cultural
and geographic systems associated with the
historical figures in SS2H1 and Georgia’s
Creeks and Cherokees.
What in the
world does that
mean?
The 2nd grade elements
add specificity!
• Significant locations to the life & times of each figure
• How physical & human characteristics impacted the
figure
• How the figure adapted to & was influenced by
his/her environment
• Travel of the figure & his/her ideas across time
• How the region where s/he lived affected life
• Compare that person’s region to the student’s region
What in the
world does that
mean?
If you were born in Grady County (as
Jackie Robinson was), your life would
be very different from someone born in
Lumpkin County.
Jackie Robinson’s life was affected by
where he was born in the state. His
parents were sharecroppers, and
when his father left the family, his
mother had few options to support
herself and her children. She moved
her family to Pasadena, California, to
live with a relative when Jackie was
very young. How might things have
been different if she had lived
elsewhere in the state?
Georgia History
There’s more to our state than the large-mouthed
bass, the right whale, and the live oak.
Establishing Our Prior Knowledge:
What do we
know?
What do we
wonder about?
What have we
learned?
What do we still
wonder about?
Establishing Our Prior Knowledge
• What do we know
about Georgia’s first
people?
• Describe their culture
as it was when
Oglethorpe & other
English settlers arrived
in Georgia.
• How do Native
Americans maintain
their culture & heritage
today?
Creek Community Life
• Confederation – “tribal
towns” were individual
units within it
• Covered entirety of
Southeastern US at time
of contact
• Removed in 1830s via
“treaty” to lands in
present-day Oklahoma
• 50,000-60,000 claim
membership today
Where the Creek lived in Georgia
• You see that many
different treaties
and cessions took
the land of the
Creek over time.
• The very first
cession, right along
the Savannah River
was to whom?
Cherokee Community Life
New Echota
• Division of
labor between
men & women
• Active trading
culture
• Settled, farming
communities
• Removed to
Oklahoma in 1838 –
the Trail of Tears
Cherokee Courthouse - Oklahoma
Cherokee holdings in 1830
~map from Carl Vinson Institute, UGA
Where the Cherokee Lived in Georgia
Whose name is this?
• Sequoyah was born in
Tennessee, and lived
throughout the Southeast
• He visited fellow Cherokees
in Georgia (where the
Cherokee capital of New
Echota was located)
• He was a fervent believer
in preserving Cherokee
culture and traditions
• He worked to establish a
system of writing known as
a syllabary
{New Georgia Encyclopedia}
• Creek leader –
eventually created his
own nation
• Served as
Oglethorpe’s envoy
to Native Americans,
assisting with treatymaking
• Had met previous
English settlers in the
Carolinas
• Traveled to England
with Oglethorpe to
meet with investors in
the colony
• Honored with a full
military funeral, and
recognized for his
contributions to the
founding of the
colony
Mary Musgrove
•1733 - Founded
Georgia colony
•Envisioned
Georgia as a
haven for debtors
•Established the
colony with no
lawyers, slavery,
rum, or Catholics
•Lived here for a
decade, and
supported the
colony with
personal funds
Tomochichi
James Oglethorpe
Colonial Georgians:
• Creek mother, English
father
• Along with her
husband, ran a
successful trading
post, continued it
following his death
• Served as an
interpreter for
Oglethorpe &
Tomochichi
• Received a grant of
land near Savannah
from Tomochichi;
received several
islands from a later
chief, but England
refused to
acknowledge her
ownership of them
Pictures: New Georgia Encyclopedia
Jackie Robinson
Myths
• First African-American
to play baseball
• Famous for his calm
manner
• Only civil rights action
was being a baseball
player when no other
people of color were
playing
Realities
• First African-American to
play in the modern
Major Leagues
• Stoicism in the face of hate
was part of his contract
(and not a part of his
character when younger)
• Was court-martialed for
refusing to give up his seat
on a segregated Army bus,
and worked for Civil Rights
till his death
Facts About President Carter
• Born in Plains
• Lived in Archery,
on his family’s
farm
• Served in the Navy
• Returned to Plains
• Active in local & state
government before
becoming President
• Began Carter Center & won
Nobel Peace Prize for its work
Using Primary Sources to Learn About
Our President from Georgia
• What can these
pictures tell us about
President Carter’s life
when he was young?
• How does his life seem
similar to ours?
• How does it seem
different?
Establishing Our Prior Knowledge:
What do we
know?
What do we
wonder about?
What have we
learned?
What do we still
wonder about?
Teaching Unit One
PUTTING ENDURING
UNDERSTANDINGS TO WORK
RIGHT AWAY
Goals for Unit One
 Provide students with the schema they will need
to understand later content
 Provide students with a common language & set
of experiences regarding upcoming material
 Provide students with an organizing structure for
everything they will learn throughout the year.
If I’m not teaching content, what am I teaching?
The Enduring Understandings you’ll use during
the year – explicitly – by:
Making the EUs relevant to students
 Helping students see the relationship of EUs to their own lives
 Having students give examples
 Personal experience
 Historical events
 Current events

Teaching Time, Change, & Continuity
Activity #1:
EU: The student will understand that while change occurs
over time, there is continuity to the basic structure of that
society.
Kid-Friendly EU: While some things change over time, other
things stay the same.
1) In your group, brainstorm ways that you could
introduce this EU to your students at your
grade level.
2) Keep in mind the following possibilities:



What questions would you ask (to help spur discussion)?
What books might you read?
What beginning-of-the year activities could incorporate this EU?
Using a Concept Wall
CULTURE
INDIVIDUALS,
GROUPS, &
INSTITUTIONS
LOCATION SCARCITY
TIME,
CHANGE, &
CONTINUITY
 How would you incorporate a
Let’s Discuss
Think about using a
Concept Wall (or a
similar sort of visual
organization for your
Enduring Understandings)
in your classroom next
year.
Also think about where
(physically) in the
classroom this will fit.
concept wall into your
classroom?
 How do you think it would help
your students’ understanding?
 What potential issues can you
foresee in using a Concept
Wall?
 What will you do to make the
Concept Wall accessible to ALL
students?
Bringing It Home – Reading Aloud
Activity #2:
What better way to give the entire class a touchstone to
refer when thinking about an Enduring Understanding?
What books can you think of that would automatically
connect these ideas to a common classroom experience?
Take the EU chart on p. 28 of your guide,
and travel the room. Find someone who can
think of a different book than your suggestion
for at least THREE of your grade level’s EUs.
Notes on Teaching Unit One
 It is not meant to last for weeks!
 Plan ahead, and decide how much time you think you will
need to introduce each concept to your students – some
might take longer than others.
 This can be a great time to establish beginning-of-theyear procedures, while still introducing students to
information related to their standards.
 Teaching Unit One allows you to begin the year on an
integrated note – literature and language can be a part
of social studies from the very first day!
LOOKING AT CURRICULUM MAPS
(Part One)
 Look at the map for your grade level. Remember
that these are suggestions, and you will need to
tweak them to align with the needs of your system,
as well as with the resources available to you.
 What do you already do in your classroom that
would work with one of these units? Think beyond
social studies!
 How does having your year mapped out ahead of
time enhance your instruction? How does it help
your students?
Developing Demonstrations
of Understanding
The Process of Instructional Planning
Traditional Practice
Select a topic from the curriculum
Design instructional activities
Design and give an assessment
Give grade or feedback
Move onto new topic
Standards-based Practice
Select standards from among those
students need to know
Design an assessment through which
students will have an opportunity to
demonstrate the standards
Decide what learning opportunities
students will need to learn those
things and plan appropriate
instruction to assure that each
student has adequate opportunities
to learn
Use data from assessment to give
feedback, reteach or move to next
level
Purpose of Tasks/Activities
Do students know? Are they able to complete processes
and demonstrate skills? Do they understand?
2. How well do students know? How well are they able to
complete processes and demonstrate skills? How well do
they understand?
3. What do students not know? What are they not yet able
to do? What don’t they understand?
4. What do I need to re-teach? What is my next step in
planning instruction?
1.
What has to happen?
Small group discussion
Activity #3
Aliens have landed and taken over your school building. Interestingly,
they have given you complete control over your classroom instruction! In this
dream world, what would you do to assess your primary students’ mastery of
social studies concepts? What techniques would you employ? (Note:
techniques must be from the planet Earth as we know it today.)
If you know what a student must understand,
how do you check to see if that student
understands?
2. What evidence will you use to evaluate the level
of understanding?
3. Create a list of answers for both questions to
report to the whole group.
1.
Developing
Demonstrations of Knowledge
 Helps focus student learning
 Tasks or assessments should be used
regularly throughout unit, not just at the
end as a wrap-up activity.
 Assessment should be varied
Formal and informal
Formative and summative
Things to Think About
 What type of evidence is required to assess the
standard? (e.g., recall of knowledge, understanding of
content, ability to demonstrate process, thinking, reasoning,
or communication skills)
 What assessment method will provide the type of
evidence needed?
 Will the assessment method provide enough evidence to
determine whether students have met the standard?
 Is the task developmentally appropriate?
 Will the assessments provide students with various
options for showing what they know?
What am I already doing?
 Do I already have an assessment in place that uses
information from given standard(s)/elements?
 Can I incorporate some evaluation of the student’s
social studies understanding into a pre-existing
activity or task from another content area?
 Keep differentiation in mind. In the primary
grades, students arrive with radically different
literacy abilities. How will you address these
differences?
50 minds are better than 1…
Activity #4:
What methods have you used in the past to assess
social studies understandings?
1) In the time allotted by the facilitator, jot down
as many ways as you can.
2) When given the signal, move around the room
to find at least five DIFFERENT methods of
assessment. Do not limit yourself to your own
grade level. You can always alter the
assessment method to meet the needs of your
students!
3) Keep your list close – you’ll use it in just a
moment!
THINGS TO KEEP IN MIND WHILE
DESIGNING ACTIVITIES & TASKS
 Look at the verbs in the
elements: are students
supposed to “IDENTIFY” or
“EXPLAIN” or “DESCRIBE”?
 If the element asks students to
“read about,” then make sure
that is incorporated at some
point during the unit!
 Some elements mention a skill
the student must demonstrate:
“locate” or “compare and
contrast.”
 Include the skills matrices!
 EXAMPLES:




SS1H1 & SS2H1 both require
students to read about and
describe the lives of historical
figures.
SSKH2 requires students to
identify important American
symbols AND explain their
meaning.
SSKG3 asks students to state
their address, city, etc.
SS1G3 & SS2G1 both ask
students to locate specific
features on maps & globes
CURRICULUM INTEGRATION
W H AT D O E S I T R E A L LY M E A N ?
HOW DOES IT HELP OUR STUDENTS?
H O W D O E S I T A F F E C T O U R P R AC T I C E ?
Why don’t we want to teach all of our subjects
separately?
Why is it difficult to determine
what students understand?
 How many assessments do you
think it would have taken to
compile grades in this many
subjects?
 Is it possible that students
could “know” a lot in each of
these areas, but still have
limited understanding?
 Further, how do we know what
they can apply in authentic
settings?
Why do we want to integrate our content?
What do you know from
experience?
What does Hinde say?
Similarities
Differences
Differences
Is it really integrated?
Activity #487:
Your group will be given a folder. Look at the materials &
activity directions inside. Decide whether or not the
activity is an example of quality integration. Keep these
questions in mind while you complete your response sheet.
(key points from Hinde, 2005)
1) Is there opportunity for understanding and/or skill
development for all content areas?
2) Does the activity address actual conceptual
understandings, standards-based content, both, or
neither?
3) Is any of the content (in any subject area) trivialized or
made inaccurate in order to make the integration “work”?
4) Is the activity developmentally appropriate?
5) Are involved skills authentically applied?
An Economics Resource for Integrated Lessons
This website allows you to
select an economics
concept, view a simple
explanation of that
concept, and then select
from a list of children’s
books related to that
concept, complete with an
associated lesson plan.
Most of the “plans” list
comprehension questions
only; however, these can
be converted into activities,
assessments, & more!
An Economics Resource for Integrated Lessons
Click for lesson questions specifically related
to this text!
Bringing the Rain to Kapiti Plain
Social Studies Goals
Reading/ELA Goals
A Geography Resource for Integrated Instruction
arched
corrasion
constructive
attrition
destructive
spit
muddy
deposition
ridged
erosion
rocky
hydraulic action
sandy
longshore drift
stony
tidal
undercut
This is a pictorial interactive dictionary but there ar no pictures.
Your task is to find pictures [photographs or diagrams] to go with
the meanings . Which word would you put this picture with?
long
Thanks to Paul Hunt from St.Peter's High School, Essex. Made available through www.sln.org.uk/geography
solution
swash/backward
trasnportation
A Geography Resource for Integrated Instruction
REGIONS OF GEORGIA
LANDFORMS
PRESENT
• MOUNTAINS
•LAKES
•RIVERS
•OCEAN/COAST
•PLATEAUS
•VALLEYS
•HILLS
•PLAINS
SORT THE IMAGES
Take the additional
sheet of images of
different physical
features. Label the
type of
landform/physical
feature in the image,
and then place it in
the appropriate place
on this map of our
state.
An Historical Resource for Integrated Instruction
Writing Biopoems about Historical Figures
Line-by-Line Directions
 Line 1: Person’s first name
 Line 2: Four words that describe






your character (adjectives!)
Line 3: Loves ...(three ideas or
people) (know your students!)
Line 4: Who needs...(three ideas)
Line 5: Who gives...(three ideas)
Line 6: Who fears...(three ideas)
Line 7: Resident of
Line 8: His or her last name (if
applicable)
Tomochichi Sample
Tomochichi
Brave, understanding, strong, fair
Loves his land, his people, and trade
Who needs food, water, & shelter
Who gives advice & support
Who fears being cheated, not
understanding, & losing his people
Resident of the Georgia colony
A Government Resource for Integrated Instruction
Obviously, not
every linked site
is relevant to our
standards.
However, some
of it provides
great resources
for research &
background
information.
Some of the
linked sites are
interactive, and
great for
classroom use!
SURVEY
We want to know what you would like to see
during Days 5 & 6 of training.
Please complete this survey to give us your
opinions.
If there is anything you think would be helpful that
you don’t see on the survey, please tell us!
Also, if ideas come to you later, feel free to send
an email letting us know.
THANK YOU!
Combining EQs:
Social Studies (Economics)
 Why do people have to
make choices?
(SS1E2)
 Why do some companies
make lots of different
goods?
(SS1E1)
Math
 How do tables and
graphs help me organize
my thinking? (M1D1a,b)
 What information does
______ picture graph tell
me?
(M1D1a,b)
Combining EQs:
Social Studies (History)
 What do the stories of
Johnny Appleseed and
Paul Bunyan say about
our country? (SS1H2)
 How did the location of
Cherokee villages affect
the way they lived?
(SS2H2a)
English/Language Arts
 What do the characters
of Johnny Appleseed and
Paul Bunyan have in
common? (ELA1R6a,l)
 How do you write to
convince your reader?
(ELA2W1g)
Think About It:
At your table, answer these questions in a quick group
discussion. Then, choose the most SURPRISING answer to
share with the whole group. Be ready to explain why it
surprised you.
 Why is it valuable to align EQs from more than one
content area?
 How is this best practice?
 How can it help your students?
EUs & Essential Questions
 As we begin writing our units this afternoon, think about the
kid-friendly EUs we wrote in our last training. Tweak them,
and use them in your units!
 As you write EQs, remember to write broader questions that
will work for your entire unit (or perhaps even the entire
year) that get to the heart of the Enduring Understanding.
 How you write your specific questions will depend on whether
you write a lesson-by-lesson plan, or an overall plan for your
unit.
WHAT IS YOUR GOAL FOR
THE UNIT? KEEP IT IN MIND!
LOOKING AT CURRICULUM MAPS
(Part Two)
 Look at the maps going across all subject areas.
 What natural connections do you see? What difficulties




do you see?
Are there places where integration seems natural?
Are there places where integration seems impossible?
Are there places where it is just plain easier to teach things
by themselves?
TEACHING FOR UNDERSTANDING IS OUR GOAL. IF WE
CREATE UNREALISTIC, MEANINGLESS ACTIVITIES,
STUDENTS WILL NOT UNDERSTAND THE CONTENT!
Putting It Together…
Activity #952:
Pick a unit, either one you have worked with during
training; one you currently teach in social studies and
will continue to teach with GPS; or an existing unit
from another content area you can integrate with social
studies standards.
1) Think about what you would do during the course of
the unit to determine students’ understanding of
content and/or skills, and what learning activities you
would need to include to make sure they achieve the
necessary level of understanding.
2) Create a plan for developing and determining this
understanding during the course of the unit.
3) Integrate! Use what you have already created! Jump
out of the proverbial box!
What to do next:
 Redeliver Days 3 & 4.
 Continue working to develop lessons – don’t forget to
check www.georgiastandards.org for our posted
curriculum maps & frameworks!
 Begin using the Social Studies GPS in your classroom
next year – start with Unit One to build schema for the
Enduring Understandings.
 Link every lesson to an Enduring Understanding.
 THANK YOU VERY MUCH!
Math & ELA TALKs
 Talking About Learning & Kids – via Elluminate online
meeting program
 Scheduled in the afternoon throughout Winter &
Spring 2008
 Grade-level & content-specific – open to all
teachers in all systems & schools
 You need only a computer, speakers, & Internet
access to participate
 http://www.georgiastandards.org/training.aspx for
dates, times, & login instructions
Contact Information
 Dr. Bill Cranshaw
Social Studies Program Manager
 wcransha@doe.k12.ga.us
 404-651-7271
 Marlo Mong
 Program Specialist (K-5 Focus)
 mmong@doe.k12.ga.us
 404-463-5024
 Sarah Brown
 Teacher on Assignment (K-2 Focus)
 sbrown@doe.k12.ga.us
 404-651-7859
 Chris Cannon
 Teacher on Assignment (6-12 Focus)
 chcannon@doe.k12.ga.us
 404-657-0313
