A Sure B+E+T

Dr. Sarah Cacciatore

Dr. Dale Truding

Mrs. Jill Unger

Article

A Sure B+E+T: A Balanced Middle School Social Studies Curriculum that Prepares Students for the Uncertainty of Today and Tomorrow

As leaders, we work toward creating a balanced approach to literacy and a balanced approach to math, but few districts have designed a balanced approach to social studies. One of the reasons is that Social Studies is not a content area measured on standardized tests. As a Teaching and Learning Department in Mundelein District 75, we are hopeful we have found a balanced approach in middle school Social Studies with the formula: A Sure

B+E+T

A: ASPIRE is our District’s Shared Vision Across the Mundelein Community

All learners in our community ASPIRE to be ready for today and prepared for tomorrow. We encourage students and support them to become Agile—adapting to any situation; Self-Assured— showing up, standing up, and/or speaking up; Proactive—making things happen; Information-Seeking—seeking, acquiring, and evaluating knowledge from multiple perspectives; Resilient— making the most of challenges and overcoming adversity; Empathetic—valuing the feelings of others by putting ourselves in their situation.

B: Social Studies Instruction Using a Basal as a Core Resource

Having a core resource available to students in both Spanish and English provides a common understanding of content, geography, and people/culture, within an accurate historical timeline for history to make sense across both languages. The basal provides this background information, along with supplemental materials for students with different learning styles. Students should have the opportunity, regardless of language, to grapple with big questions and big ideas, based on facts.

For many students, formulating their own questions and drawing conclusions is a very challenging task. Figuring out thousands of years of history, much of which may seem irrelevant to students’ current lives, is critical to the continuation of democracy. All students are a part of history which evolves each and every day. This current group of students is especially unique as history is evolving at a faster pace than ever before. Not only is change happening rapidly, but the reporting of information occurs within hours, if not minutes, of an event taking place. A basal can ground students in a frozen moment in time and allow them to understand that throughout dark periods in history, people found ways to survive and make things better. This approach is developmentally appropriate for adolescents. See our sample of Essential Questions & Supporting Questions Template below.

TRIMESTER 1 UNIT 1: LAUNCH - Length of Unit: 5 Weeks ESSENTIAL QUESTION: What are the lenses and tools that are most needed to understand history, geography, civics and economics?

Supporting Question 1

Who am I? What influences how I view the world? How do we view events through different lenses?

Formative Performance Task

" Identity Chart " Bio Poem

Featured Sources

" Bio Poem lesson " Identity Lesson Supporting Question 2

Formative Performance Task

" Students take an “event” (For example,

Field Day) and write it from 2 different points of view " Celebration: Students share and figure out the lenses that others have chosen to write in

Featured Sources

" Examining Events Through Multiple

Lenses

TRIMESTER 1 UNIT 1: LAUNCH - Length of Unit: 5 Weeks ESSENTIAL QUESTION: What are the lenses and tools that are most needed to understand history, geography, civics and economics?

Supporting Question 3

How do we analyze primary and secondary sources? How does studying current connections help us understand ourselves and the world?

Formative Performance Task

" Use the same protocol/organizer to analyze a primary source.

Supporting Question 4

Formative Performance Task

" Class determined product " Notebook Reflection

Featured Sources

" List of Primary and Secondary

Sources " Primary Source Analysis Worksheet " Analyzing Primary Sources " Political Cartoon Analysis " Photo Analysis Worksheet

" Textbook pp HT11-HT16

Featured Sources

Current Connections Overview

E: Classroom Environment

A classroom environment that is safe and nurturing, where student voice and choice are valued is the essence of social studies instruction. It is a journey for students to learn how to formulate their own questions and hypotheses. Creating intentional small groups, individual and whole group learning experiences that are inquiry-based and require students to work with multiple primary and secondary resources is critical in order for students to own their own learning. Strategies such as Socratic Seminar, debate, and fishbowl discussions allow the development of skills and habits needed to create hypotheses and to determine solutions through multiple lenses. The teacher as a facilitator and learner, while using the basal as a consistent resource, gives a framework from which to jumpstart proactive classroom dynamics and powerful discussions. As these units were developed, specific classroom structures were identified to ensure the environment would maintain collaborative and interactive learning.

T: Taking Action

Taking action is essential for today and tomorrow, and it is a pillar of the Illinois Social Science Standards and the C3 Framework. As we nurture citizens for today and tomorrow, students need to learn what others have done throughout

history to take action. It is an essential skill for students to understand and implement. The basal, coupled with the environment, supports a student’s ability to take action. Using primary resources such as newspapers, blogs, podcasts, documentaries, photos, graphics, essays, etc., helps students understand how others have taken action, and the “why” behind the action. Greta Thunberg is just one example of a teenager who has become a youth role model and has motivated many students to gain new perspectives on what they can do to take action in their own communities. Students in D75 need to understand they can make a difference in their classroom, as well as within their school, community, and beyond.

As a recent example, in July of 2022,

students in D75 had the opportunity to take action by painting rocks

of hope after the devastating mass shooting in Highland Park. Through their social studies classes, students learned that an action of the heart could be as powerful as an action that required extensive research, formal advocacy, and funding.

In August 2022, A Sure B.E.T was implemented. Since that time, teachers, students, and curriculum leaders have been participating regularly in intentional reflection activities regarding the curriculum, the experiences, and the levels of student voice and choice. Like all new implementations, there is room for improvement. By having structured reflection, the staff and students can determine what needs to be tweaked, what needs to be transitioned, and what needs to be transformed. We are looking forward to using the inquiry model for instruction while pairing it with the balance of a basal as a primary resource to provide consistency across the District.

“Building Bright Futures Together!”

Dr. Sarah Cacciatore is the Assistant Superintendent for Teaching & Learning in Mundelein Elementary School District 75 and has presented at a variety of conferences in the areas of change and leadership. With twenty years in education, she has come to value seeing instruction from multiple perspectives

and aims to ensure a future-focused vision as she works to implement instructional practices with success.

Dr. Dale Truding is a highly experienced Consultant and Leadership Coach in strategic design, program development, curriculum implementation, and coaching. She has worked in multiple states and has been working with the Mundelein School Districts, D75 and D120, for the past five years to support and develop their instructional programs.

Mrs. Jill Unger is a Teaching and Learning Coordinator in Mundelein Elementary School District 75. Jill supports teachers in implementing curriculum, with solid connections to literacy and best practices. She provides professional learning opportunities to support teachers with skills and strategies to increase student achievement and engagement.

Mrs. Erica Denman is the Director of Professional Development Training at Schoolwide, Inc. She recently completed her administrative internship at Mundelein Elementary District 75 and serves as the middle school professional development service provider in the areas of literacy and social studies.