Although many adults perceive young "digital natives" as savvy about our new media landscape, youth are regularly fooled by inaccurate stories and online scams. Furthermore, beyond the threat of outright false information, young people encounter confusing half-truths, misleading arguments, and disguised efforts to collect their personal…

The sequenced levels of thinking articulated in Bloom's original taxonomy (or in the multitude of subsequent variations) is the most widely known list in education. In addition to enduring popularity, it is arguably one of the most destructive theories in education. In this article, the author explains what makes it so damaging and how…

Planning a world history course presents a nearly impossible task. One cannot complete a world history course, or even a European history course, without casting a huge amount of historical information onto the curriculum planning scrapheap. An emphasis on the twentieth century means leaving out significant information from earlier times. "But how…

A notable feature of the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts is the attention given to the teaching of reading and writing in history/social studies, science and technical subjects. The Standards for Reading Informational Text that are included in the Common Core State Standards require students to read texts in depth, understand…

Recent research on civic learning shows that students' civic identity--the sense of who they are in relation to the nation--is shaped by their lived experiences. Yet, efforts to integrate civic learning into the social studies curriculum do not generally build on this notion. A high school U.S. history course was developed to test this very idea.…

National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) first published national curriculum standards in 1994. Since then, the social studies standards have been widely and successfully used as a framework for teachers, schools, districts, states, and other nations as a tool for curriculum alignment and development. However, much has changed in the world…

In this article, the author addresses classroom teachers, department heads, and supervisors who have direct contact with students and what they learn. They need to tell students, parents, policymakers, and everyone else that social studies is critical and that the NCSS mission statement is not just a nice set of words, but absolutely crucial to…

In this article, the author discusses how it is more important than ever for today's students to excel in social studies. This excellence can occur when every student in grades K-12 has equal access to deep, engaging, thoughtful social studies instruction on a daily basis. With social studies excellence, teachers broaden their students' horizons,…

The Goals 2000 Educate America Act of 1994 included economics among the nine core subject areas that were targeted for the development of content standards. A new set of voluntary national content standards in economics, published in 1997, helped to guide administrators, teachers, and policy makers as they considered various educational objectives…

The last decade of the twentieth century and the first decade of the twenty-first have seen a marginalization of social studies curriculum, instruction, and assessment at all grade levels. In many state houses, in departments of education, and in school districts across this great nation, education for citizenship has taken a back seat to…

Since 2001, classroom and pre-service teachers, along with high school and university students from Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Germany, Lithuania, Ukraine and the United States, have participated in an international workshop that focuses on preparing students and teachers for life in an increasingly interconnected world. These intercultural…

This monograph suggests that social studies will be improved if classroom teachers concentrate on mastering concepts rather than facts. It explains how teachers can help students understand events and trends in American history by investigating general concepts such as capitalist institutional development, the interaction of historical…

Presents objectives of an ideal social studies program in these areas--knowledge, abilities, valuing, and social participation. Also offers guidelines to help teachers set standards for social studies programs. (DB)

Presents a needs assessment instrument to help teachers determine how their social studies programs relate to curriculum guidelines developed by the National Council for the Social Studies. The instrument deals with relationship of the program to the maturity and concerns of students, the real social world, knowledge about culture and beliefs,…

Questions appropriateness of controversial issues such as birth control, euthanasia, moral and religious questions, values, and venereal disease in social studies curricula at the junior high and high school levels. (DB)