C3 Social Studies: Inquiring Minds Want to Know!, Wells, Fall 2019

Course Description

Students will no longer sit and listen to irrelevant Social Studies lessons where the main goal is to memorize facts. It is an exciting time for Social Studies in Vermont with the state adopting the inquiry based C3 Framework to guide our work. This course itself will be guided by the inquiry model as participants study questions, sources and activities that lead to a student’s deeper understanding of Social Studies concepts. The course will culminate with each participant having a inquiry based lesson that they can teach in their classroom.

Audience: K-12 Classroom Teachers, Administrators and Curriculum Coordinators

Course Goals & Objectives

Course Goals: 

• Provide a thorough overview of the C3 Framework and its Inquiry Arc
• Present the key features of inquiry-based social studies lessons: questions, tasks, sources, and presenting arguments.
• Support participants as they design an inquiry-based Social Studies Lesson.

Course Objectives:
Participants in this course will demonstrate their ability to do the following:

• Develop an understanding of the C3 Framework and its Inquiry Arc
• Identify and understand the role of questions, tasks, sources and the presentation of strong arguments in an inquiry-based Social Studies Lesson.
• Demonstrate an overall understanding of an inquiry-based Social Studies instruction by developing a unit that will be taught in the participant’s classroom.

Course Expectations

Assignments:

Workshop: What was the question?
Readings: Swan, Lee & Grant, chapters 1-2
Written Reflection: How can your lessons align with the Inquiry Arc?
Forum Response: Where do questions belong in your Social Studies curriculum?

Week Two: Questions, questions, questions
Readings: Swan, Lee & Grant, chapters 3-4
Forum Discussion: How do you see Compelling and Supporting questions moving student through the inquiry arc?

Week Three: Finding Sources for Inquiry
Readings: Swan, Lee & Grant, chapter 5
Written Reflection
Forum Discussion: Sharing sources that support inquiry

Week Four: Tasks that Work
Readings: Swan, Lee & Grant, chapter 6
Written Reflection
Forum Discussion: Tasks that Work

Week Five: Taking Informed Action
Readings: Swan, Lee & Grant, chapter 9
Written Reflection
Forum Discussion: Taking Informed Action

Week Six: Designing your IDM
Readings: Swan, Lee & Grant, chapter 10
Forum: Posting IDM for Feedback

Week Seven: Final Draft of Your IDM
Written Assignment: Final Draft of C3 Aligned, Inquiry-Based Mini-Unit

Final Project:
Classroom Action Plan: Designing a C3 Aligned, Inquiry-Based Mini-Unit that will be taught in your social studies classroom.

Evaluation:
It is expected that participants will be highly engaged in each classroom forum discussion. Forum discussions will demonstrate the participants’ understanding of new information learned in each week. Weekly Written Reflections will demonstrate the participant’s ability to apply course concepts to their own instruction. The completion of the final project will demonstrate the participant’s ability to identify key areas of instructional improvement in the participant’s classroom and concrete steps that he or she will take to improve student learning outcomes and behavior.

Required Texts

Costs, if any, for the required readings are not included in the course tuition.

Required Readings/Texts: 

Swan, Lee & Grant, Inquiry Design Model: Building Inquiries in Social Studies, 2018

National Council for the Social Studies (2014) C3 Framework for Social Studies State Standards

Web Resource:  http://www.c3teachers.org/

For additional course information

David Wells
(802) 661-4049

For additional registration information

Bethany Sprague
(802) 468-1325

Register online now!