• "Problem solving is the most pervasive of skills from a curricular standpoint. It is the one skill that is most needed throughout life. Almost all the situations we face as a society and nearly all the personal events demanding decisions may be best described as problem"

  [William B. Russell III, Stewart Waters.Essentials of Elementary Social Studies]

• Effective citizens should use “effective decision-making and problem-solving skills in public and private life.”

  
  

  Teaching students these skills can help students understand and set goals and objectives for becoming problem solvers, leading to an even broader goal of being a good citizen.

  
  

• "The goals of character education include establishing life patterns and personal codes of behavior that include qualities such as integrity, belief in self and others, responsibil-ity, and honor. Character itself has a strong relationship to how individuals view the world and their values."

  [William B. Russell III, Stewart Waters.Essentials of Elementary Social Studies]

For students to become "good citizens" The teaching of attitudes, behaviors, traits, and more help students gain a responsibilty framed in this form of education.

• "One goal of social studies education is to develop students’ abilities to make decisions based on democratic principles and sound moral value"

• "Students need to be given frequent and significant opportunities to make decisions. They need to learn how and when to question what they see and hear. Teachers need to model how such decisions are made."

  [William B. Russell III, Stewart Waters.Essentials of Elementary Social Studies]

  Students need to learn the value of making decisions, especially as it contributes to becoming active citizens in a society. How decisions could effect their character, but how they could effect those around them.

• "The focus themes identified by the Standards Task Force are, to some extent, taken from the social science disciplines and represent their essential lines of inquiry. Following a kind of candlewick , these themes can run through topics of study and across Framework. grade levels, drawing essential content and skill development to themselves."

  [William B. Russell III, Stewart Waters.Essentials of Elementary Social Studies]

  Using the thematic approach and units, it can allow for students to explore multiple perspectives. A theme could be "My Community" where students can discover important topics such as geography, maps, economics, and more.

• "Content outlines help the teacher determine what is most important to teach. They help teachers and students discover the structure of the topic being studied."

• A flowchart not only identifies the areas of study but also begins to suggest the order of the teaching itself.

  [William B. Russell III, Stewart Waters.Essentials of Elementary Social Studies]

  With social Studies topics, such as one on "Supply and Demand" or "U.S Government' this method could support teachers in identifying subtopics, or other components of the main topic, while structuring order of how the main topic will be taught.

• "Finding meanings for new words can be an exciting new adventure for students if well planned.

• "Student involvement and participation in the discovery of new definitions will slow the instructional process but will help ensure a greater understanding.

  [William B. Russell III, Stewart Waters.Essentials of Elementary Social Studies]

  Social Studies has a complexity of framework, there are topics of government, economics, geography, etc. Opportunity for students to interact with vocabulary can expand their knowledge of a topic and could further apply it to a greater context.

• "Reporting activities allow students to pursue individual interests and work at their own levels.

  • Giving a report gives a student a sense of authority. He or she becomes an expert and gains ownership of a unique and special knowledge.

  • Reporting can help a student develop and improve self-expression."

[William B. Russell III, Stewart Waters.Essentials of Elementary Social Studies]

Students can bring in their own thoughts and ideas when researching and further then applying that to reporting activities. It gives students agency to allow students to develop an understanding of content, but using inquiry, asking questions and developing their indiviudal knowledge as a part of their self-expression, and using those traits to benefit and develop these skills further in understanding curriculum.

• "Means reaching comfort levels with curricular issues that give us discomfort, raising and addressing issues that are difficult, and asking questions that challenge thinking and beliefs"

• "Teachers them-selves need to become more sensitive and aware of both obvious and subtle incidents of prejudice, bias, and/or intolerance. "

• Culturally Responsive Teaching!

[William B. Russell III, Stewart Waters.Essentials of Elementary Social Studies]

Social Studies itself, explores multiple cultures, events from around the world, and more. Teaching in ways that recognize students of all cultural backrounds, allows students to feel respected, where they can share their experiences, ask questions, and learn about their peers. Social Studies, allows students to learn about America and other parts of the world, but a more personalized approach in allowing students to reflect on their experiences as a part of the content, will be too good for student engagement and have a positive impact on their learning.

• "ELLs need social interaction, and fostering an environment that encourages social interaction will allow ELLs to be more comfortable, thus increasing their chances of success.

• "Social interaction with peers can help ELLs with basic vocabulary, building BICS, and increasing self-esteem and, most of all, can prevent segregation."

  [William B. Russell III, Stewart Waters.Essentials of Elementary Social Studies]

  Social Interaction can help students be engaged with one another, and build upon skills that help them learn to communicate with those who are similar to them, and those who are different. Our society is one of many cultures, so the interactions among those groups increases their knowledge in learning how different cultures communicate but as well being comfortable to share and express thoughts and ideas of one's own culture as a way to understand Social Studies in a more interactive way, further helping with active citizenship.

• "Entire units can have a dramatic focus. One approach is what Fulwer and McGuire (1997) call “Storypath.” It utilizes a story line as the effective organizer for a study"

• A story scenario is the point of departure, with students creating roles for themselves consistent with that scenario"

• Discussion and artwork allow students to elaborate on the scenario. As events unfold in the scenario, students construct meaning for themselves. As stakeholders in the story line, they have both character sympathy and a real need to solve the problems in the evolving plot line"

  [William B. Russell III, Stewart Waters.Essentials of Elementary Social Studies]

  Using drama with social studies allows students to experience events, and become part of a story or piece of history. They take on a role, but can make it their own, working effectively to make meaning. They can have the real world, they could have the story world, and they can pull multiple perspectives into the units, where the content could be made into multiple meanings. They can experience events or senarios as characters, or other figures, and step out of that world, being their real self, and using their already aquired knowledge to help understand more the significance of events and how they are important to the social studies world.

• "Inquiry has changed the way we look at teaching elementary social studies and has provided problem-solving tools that continue to be useful in teaching students to become independent thinkers and problem solvers."

• "One contribution of the inquiry approach has been the development of a variety of creative problem-solving strategies"

  [William B. Russell III, Stewart Waters.Essentials of Elementary Social Studies]

  The classroom should be a space that provides students many opportunities to problem solve. Bringing in problems that address that real world approach, is effective with students, because some can draw on their own experiences, therefore they can share ideas, thoughts and even solutions for how to solve a problem. It is being creative, taking risks and asking questions that help students become confindent thinkers and problem solvers, in social studies, but in other areas too.

Stimulation games! Mock trials have been around the classroom for long time. Students can interact within the content, and gain perspective outside of their own, as they engage in different roles and characters.

• "Modules provide for a series of lessons, sometimes consisting of several activities centered on one or a series of closely related ideas, usually concept statements or generalizations."

• "Built into modular teaching is the notion of mastery. Mastery, in this case, means that the module teaches the idea to a point at which some specified or at least defined level of understanding is reached"

  [William B. Russell III, Stewart Waters.Essentials of Elementary Social Studies].

  Using modules are effective methods for teaching social studies. It can narrow in on smaller topics within larger ones, and help students build knowledge in smaller units to then be able to further apply that to the larger topic. Geography for example; teachers can include modules using maps and models, human and physical geography as well. Building units in this way allows students to work on mastery within a focused lesson, applying that then too in greater content.

• "Story makes the past come alive and humanizes other people, no matter how different their culture or the geography of where they live"

• "Storytelling is experiencing a worldwide revival. Throughout human history, storytellers have passed on the culture, created and preserved heroes, and passed on the history."

  (cite)

  Storytelling is a way for students to share experinces, and be expressive and vulnerable as well. Students who learn and build upon these skills within the classroom can further participate outside of the classroom within society and the world around them, as citizens. Storytelling is a way to understand the many cultures and groups that make up a community. Stories allow students to understand history, but presently share their own using what they have practiced within the classroom.

• "Every day, teachers in elementary classrooms all over the country utilize this powerful tool to motivate, engage, and inform students about a variety of topics and concepts.

• "Teaching with film is considered a best practice in classrooms during the digital age and an effective way to teach elementary social studies content."

  [William B. Russell III, Stewart Waters.Essentials of Elementary Social Studies]

  Film is effective in demonstrating visuals that allow students to see the experience, and events of many major parts of social studies. It adds different perspective then that of reading or other activities related to content, allows students to in a way feel a part of those events, may keep them more engaged too, making them want to learn and participate in the content.

• Media Literacy

• Virtual Literacy

• "With the knowledge that students learn much more when information is presented in a variety of ways, elementary teachers should more actively pursue instructional methods that place an emphasis on multimodal learning in the social studies."

  [William B. Russell III, Stewart Waters.Essentials of Elementary Social Studies]

  Students are able to gain greater insight, they can use images as a way to recognize events or scenarios they can relate to, they can bring themselves into this way of learning, and apply their thinking in various modes. They can communicate with visuals, create media that shares stories or content important to topics in which students are learning. There are so many resources that can be useful to students, maps, models, historic images, and more that can be included within the curriculum, students too may be able to connect more with parts of the content, when they are presented with a variety of literacy.

  
  

As the digital age has been so dominant in the 21st century, it is important to teach students, starting young, how to use the internet with safety, and responsibilty. Evaluating sources and websites, teachers is a good starting point that is crucial in sharing with students. This because, for future assignments and activites, studnets know how to stay safe, and use the internet effectively, as it supports them as learners.

Content often requires multiple perspectives and ideas when solving problems. Students can examine a problem differently, sharing their own ideas on how to find a solution. Opinions too, in this way of thinking, is cooperating with ideas and those opinions of others, as it helps ground understanding of problems.