S e p t e m b e r 2 0 1 0217

Using the NCSS National Curriculum Standards for Social Studies: A Framework for Teaching, Learning, and Assessment To Meet State Social Studies Standards

Michelle M. Herczog

This disparity is one of the many rea-sons the Common Core State Standards Initiative was established. According to the National Governors Association (NGA) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), the chief archi-tects of the Initiative, the Common Core State Standards define the knowledge and skills students should have within their K-12 education careers to graduate high school fully prepared for college and careers. They are:• Alignedwithcollegeandwork

expectations;• Clear,understandableand

consistent;• Includerigorouscontentand

application of knowledge through high-order skills;

• Builduponstrengthsandlessons

of current state standards;• Informedbyothertopperforming

countries, so that all students are prepared to succeed in our global economy and society; and

• Evidence-andresearch-based.2

On June 2, the NGA and CCSSO released the final versions of the English-LanguageArtsandMathematicsStandards but had no plan in place to replicate the process to create Common Core State Standards for any other subject area. For this reason, the release by the National Council for the Social Studies of National Curriculum Standards for Social Studies: A Framework for Teaching, Learning, and Assessment comes at a piv-otal moment in the current era of educa-tional reform. As other subject areas cre-

ate national standards to guide the work of the Common Core State Standards Initiative, these NCSS Standards provide a vision for the future of social studies education in our nation.

Just as the Common Core State Standards are designed to create a citi-zenry that has the knowledge and criti-cal thinking and problem solving skills to “succeed in our global economy and society,” the NCSS Standards provide a framework for selecting and organiz-ing knowledge and modes of inquiry for purposes of teaching and learning to meet these same goals. And though civic com-petence is the responsibility of an entire school curriculum, it is more central to social studies than other subject areas in schools and is clearly evident in the updated NCSS Standards Framework.

An important first step in this work is to define the nature and goals of social studies as an inclusive discipline driven by a common purpose. The National Council for the Social Studies defines social studies as:

…the integrated study of the social sciences and humanities to pro-mote civic competence. Within the school program, social studies pro-vides coordinated, systematic study drawing upon such disciplines as anthropology, archaeology, econom-

Social Education 74(4), pp 217–222©2010 National Council for the Social Studies

Got Standards? Of course! According to A Report on the State of U.S. History Education, State Policies and National Programs as of September 2008,1 “Forty-eight states and the District of Columbia have established academic standards to address academic achievement in history, the social sciences, or social studies. The sole exceptions are Iowa and Rhode Island which allow local jurisdictions to set the history/social studies curriculum.” The report also reveals tremendous divergence in the breadth, depth, purpose, and use of state standards across the nation. Some provide broad guidelines with few curriculum or assessment mandates. Some focus almost entirely on specific content with little attention to critical thinking skills and applications. And while many states use their adopted standards to drive assessment, instruction, and instructional materials, others utilize state standards as recommen-dations to allow for local interpretation and control.

Elementary Education

S o c i a l E d u c a t i o n218

ics, geography, history, law, philoso-phy, political science, psychology, religion, and sociology, as well as appropriate content from the human-ities, mathematics, and natural sci-ences. The primary purpose of social studies is to help young people make informed and reasoned decisions for the public good as citizens of a cul-turally diverse, democratic society in an interdependent world.3

This definition lays the foundation for the design and purpose of the updated NCSS Standards document. Unlike most content standards that provide a detailed description of content for history, civics, economics, geography or psychology, the NCSS Standards Framework provides a set of principles by which content can be selected and organized to build a viable, valid and defensible social studies curric-ulum. The Ten Themes described in the document represent a way of organizing knowledge about the human experience in the world. The Learning Expectations, at early, middle, and high school levels describe purposes, knowledge, intellec-tual processes, and democratic dispo-sitions that students should exhibit in student products. The Essential Social Studies Skills and Strategies represent the abilities involved in the thinking, rea-soning, researching, and understanding that learners engage in as they encoun-ter new concepts, principles and issues. Student Products describe what and how students will demonstrate acquired learnings and provide teachers with a vehicle to assess student achievement. Snapshots of Practice provide educators with images of how the standards might look when enacted in classrooms.

Our current reality regarding stan-dards and assessment, naturally, influ-ences our work in the classroom. And whether state standards are broad and non-specific or detailed and very specific, this important resource can assist educa-tors across the nation transform their cur-rent state standards into an educational program that will increase students’ con-

tent knowledge, build critical thinking skills, and develop the dispositions to become responsible, civically engaged citizens. In essence, the NCSS standards can be used to help social studies edu-cators, policymakers, and curriculum writers meet state standards and achieve the complex, important goals for students ofthe21stcentury.Belowisaplanforthis work.

Step One: Answer this Essential Question: Why Teach Social Studies?Whether you call it social studies, social science, history, history-social science, civics, economics, geography or psychol-ogy, the most enduring question to dis-cuss with colleagues and reach consensus is Why are you teaching the subject you teach? Since most state standards are extremely broad and may contain a mul-titude of facts and details to remember, it is important to identify the “big ideas” or

“enduring understandings” for ourselves to be able to help students understand the important key concepts of the dis-cipline and acquire the critical thinking and problem solving skills to apply their learning to relevant, real world scenar-ios. The Ten Themes of the National Curriculum Standards for Social Studies: A Framework for Teaching, Learning, and Assessment provides ample opportuni-ties to facilitate this discussion:4

1. Culture: Social studies programs should include experiences that provide for the study of culture and cultural diversity;

2. Time, Continuity, and Change: Social studies programs should include experiences that provide for the study of the past and its legacy;

3. People, Places, and Environments: Social studies programs should include experi-ences that provide for the study of people, places, and environments;

4. Individual, Development and Identity: Social studies programs should include experiences that provide for the study of individual

development and identity;5. Individuals, Groups, and

Institutions: Social studies pro-grams should include experiences that provide for the study of inter-actions among individuals, groups, and institutions;

6. Power, Authority, and Governance: Social studies pro-grams should include experiences that provide for the study of how people create, interact with, and change structures of power, author-ity, and governance;

7. Production, Distribution, and Consumption: Social studies pro-grams should include experiences that provide for the study of how people organize for the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services;

8. Science, Technology, and Society: Social studies programs should include experiences that provide for the study of relation-ships among science, technology, and society;

9. Global Connections: Social studies programs should include experiences that provide for the study of global connections and interdependence; and

10. Civic Ideals and Practices: Social studies programs should include experiences that provide for the study of the ideals, prin-ciples, and practices of citizenship in a democratic republic.

Step Two: Align Learning Expectations, Instruction and AssessmentWorking with “an end in mind” helps us to clarify our goals and purposes in the content we teach and the methods we employ. As we believe that students need to be equipped with more than content knowledge, but also with the skill sets and dispositions to be critical thinkers and problem solvers, we must be inten-tional when aligning learning expectations with our assessment design, instructional methodology and selection of resources

S e p t e m b e r 2 0 1 0219

in order to help every child succeed. The revised standards support these objectives through their explicit interconnection between purposes, key questions, desired knowledge, worthwhile processes, and appropriate student products.

One approach that many educators find helpful when “working with the end in mind,” is the backwards-mapping strat-egyofGrantWigginsandJayMcTighethat begins with identifying desired results and then determining acceptable evidence for success that can be used in planning instruction.5 This backwards-mapping concept is only one of a number of approaches that could be used in con-junction with the NCSS standards, which do not endorse any single approach. Bykeepingouressentialquestion,

“why teach social studies?” ever present in our minds and working backwards in the context of each topic or theme of our state standards, it is easy to see how the design, content, and structure of the NCSS

Standards, unlike any other resource, redefines the content of the discipline as purposeful, powerful learning experi-ences that will prepare students for college, career, and civic life in the 21st century. The following steps will help guide you through this process.

Step Three: Unpack your State Standards to identify the “Big Ideas” or “Enduring Understandings” for each course of study. Work with colleagues in a collaborative setting to identify the knowledge and skills of your state standards. Determine what is important for students to know and be able to do.Formulatea“BigIdea”that will transcend time and help stu-dents understand and address issues in the future. For example:

Sample State Standard: Students will understand the political principles underlying the U.S. Constitution and BillofRights.

Sample “Big Idea”: Studentswillunderstand that the rights and respon-sibilities of American citizenship guar-anteedbytheU.S.ConstitutionandBillof Rights call for continued civic action by individuals and groups to sustain and improve our democratic society.

Posing your learning objective in this way recognizes that, yes, students will need to “understand the political princi-ples underlying the U.S. Constitution and BillofRights”asmandatedbythestatestandard.Butitalsocallsuponstudentsto engage in collective inquiry about what is civic action, how was it utilized by indi-viduals and groups in the past to protect and defend the political principles of the Founding documents, and what is their responsibility now and in the future to practice or support civic action that will sustain and improve our democratic society? Knowledge—skills —disposi-tions. What do you need to know and be able to do to make informed and

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S o c i a l E d u c a t i o n220

reasoned decisions as citizens of a cul-turally diverse democratic society in an interdependent world?

Step Four: Adopt the NCSS National Curriculum Standards for Social Studies: A Framework for Teaching, Learning and Assessment as a resource for designing instruction and assessment.The NCSS Standards present purposes worth caring about, processes worth engaging in, and knowledge worth know-

ing organized separately for elementary, middle and high school grades as:

• QuestionsforExploration• Knowledge– the learnerswill

understand…• Processes—thelearnerswillbeable

to…• Products—learnersdemonstrate

understanding by…Figure 1 (page 223) demonstrates how

educators can align state standards to the NCSS Standards Framework in a

meaningful, relevant way to help stu-dents 1) acquire the content knowledge of the state standard, 2) acquire criti-cal thinking and analytical processes to apply the learning to meaningful, real life scenarios, and 3) demonstrate learn-ing in authentic ways to serve students throughout their lives in the 21st century. Bymappingoutthevariouselementsof a comprehensive social studies cur-riculum, teachers can develop coherent plans for designing effective instruction and assessing student learning.

Step Five: Align your state standards, instruction and assessment with the questions, knowledge, processes and products suggested by the NCSS Standards.Give yourself permission to “go deep” into your own state standards by apply-ing the rich ideas and approaches of the NCSS Standards. Project-based learning provides opportunities to learn, explore and apply key concepts and understandings when utilized with deliberate attention to learning goals, differentiated needs of students, and meaningful work. Develop performance assessment with specific criteria for demonstrating knowledge of the subject as well as demonstration of skills and attitudes driven by your big ideas and enduring understandings. A template, Figure 2 (page 224), can help educators develop similar plans for each of their key state standards.

Step Six: Reflect, Revisit, ReviseContinue to work collaboratively with colleagues, social studies experts and scholars to engage in an ongoing culture ofinquiryandactionresearch.Examinestudent products and other assessment measures to determine if the instruc-tional practices were effective. What would you do the same? What would you do differently? Are there some stu-dents who struggled more than others? What can you do to help all students succeed? Are there strategies you can utilizetohelpEnglishLearnersaccessthe curriculum and develop academic

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language? Are there literacy strategies you can utilize to help struggling read-ers understand the text and improve their reading comprehension skills?

As stated in the closing paragraph of the introductory chapter of the NCSS National Curriculum Standards for Social Studies: A Frame work for Teaching, Learning, and Assessment,

The civic mission of social stud-ies requires more than the acqui-sition of content. Since social studies has as its primary goal the development of a democratic citizenry, the experiences stu-dents have in their social studies classrooms should enable learn-ers to engage in civic discourse and problem-solving, and to take informed civic action.

This new document is both powerful and empowering. It supports teachers in their efforts to meet state mandates for social studies education but also inspires them to make the learning relevant to the current reality of our world and meaningful to the students in their classrooms. We invite you to reach back into your own past to recap-ture the reason you were drawn to the social studies as your life endeavor. Take some time to explore this new resource to discover for yourself, the purposes worth caring about, the processes worth engaging in, and the knowledge worth learning. Once you do, your passion for the social studies will help you lead your students to a place where they too, will develop the moral imperative to be contributors to the world we live in and stewards of democracy to uphold and protect the rights of others.

Notes1. D.Martin, J. Schneider, B. Fogo, and J. Kon, “A

ReportontheStateofU.S.HistoryEducation,StatePolicies and National Programs as of September 2008,”preparedfortheNationalHistoryEducationClearinghouse,4400UniversityDrive,MSN1E7,Fairfax, VA 22030.

2. Common Core State Standards Initiative, www.core standards.org

3. National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS), National Curriculum Standards for Social Studies: A Framework for Teaching, Learning, and Assessment (SilverSpring,MD:NCSS,2010),Introduction.

4. National Curriculum Standards for Social Studies: A Framework for Teaching, Learning, and Assessment, op. cit. The passages quoted are the opening lines describing each of the ten themes in the section “The Themes of Social Studies.”

5. SeeG.WigginsandJ.McTighe,Understanding by Design (Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 1998).

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213-016_Thinkfinity_SocED_Sept10_HalfPg_FNL.indd 1 8/6/10 4:09:19 PM

Michelle M. Herczog is the History-Social Science Consultant for the Los Angeles County Office of Education, Downey, CA.

S e p t e m b e r 2 0 1 0223

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United for Human RightsHumanRights.com

1. Source: Amnesty International Report 2009

Making human rights a reality far and wide starts with education here and now

Why is it so important to teach human rights?

Try this experiment. Ask five or ten students: “What are human rights?” If they can list any, it might be freedom of speech or belief and perhaps one or two others. You could conduct the same survey on the street to the same result.

The point? Very few people know their human rights.

Yet we all have 30 rights and freedoms, guaranteed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights—rights that are ours simply because we are human.

That’s the problem on a small scale, but it also reflects the greater situation: that ignorance and lack of respect for human rights extends to the world’s nations.

Perhaps that explains why 81 nations the world over restrict freedom of expression.. Why 50% of the world’s

nations conduct unfair trials. And why in at least 77 nations, people are not allowed to speak freely. The lists of human rights violations roll on and on.

You can help change that. Making human rights a reality everywhere begins with education here and now. Because when people know their rights and freedoms, they can insist on their use and application at all levels of society. And for young men and women starting out in professional careers, these principles can become a beacon to guide them successfully through life.

This vital educational step begins with you.

Order your FREE Story of Human Rights information kit & DVD TODAY

© 2010 United for Human Rights. All Rights Reserved.