Chapter 12 Blog

In this chapter I learned about social studies and the issues that teachers face when teaching the subject. One problem that teachers have is trying to cover a large content area in a short period of time. This only allows teachers to scratch the surface in the broad field of social studies. I also learned about how teachers can use simulation devices to help students better engage with the topics and also be motivated by the material. I also learned about the value of taking field trips in this topic area and about the benefits that that offers to the students.

To avoid just scratching the surface in this subject area teachers could focus their lessons on one particular event throughout the semester or school year. As students progress through elementary or middle school they could go over different subject each year which would allow them to dig deeper into the material. This would also allow for more time to give students to online materials such as time simulations that would help them engage more with the material and also be highly motivated by it. Spending more time in subject areas within social studies would also allow more time for teachers to incorporate field trips into their lessons. This would highly benefit the students because they would be at a high level of interactiong with the material that they are learning. Since social studies is not a main topic in standardized testing this would be possible because teachers are not having to cover enourmus amounts of material in a little amount of time.

How possible is it to take kids on an effective amount of field trips throughout the year since social studies is not a highly funded subject area?