Lori Rice teaches fourth grade at West Elementary in Wamego and is the current Kansas Council for the Social Studies elementary teacher of the year. You can find Lori on Twitter at @MsLRice. She also blogs on all things teaching (not just social studies) at The Educator’s Room.
Albert Einstein said, “It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative 
expression and knowledge.” There is a never ending demand teachers in a classroom; things to change, things to learn, and things to implement. Mobile devices are a wonderful tool in a teacher’s tool belt of knowledge. Bringing apps into your social studies classroom will enable you to continue with proven teaching strategies while opening the doors to learning for your students.
I recently had a conversation with a friend. We were discussing high school and remembering funny anecdotes and stories of our past. I mentioned I had a social studies teacher I did not care for and I struggled in this class. The struggle was my engagement, not the grade. The class was simply boring. My friend also remembered that social studies was one of his least favorite subjects in school as well. There is an irony in the fact that a subject full of stories, history and culture would be boring.
Teaching is an art and a science. There are many proven strategies that can be used to increase student motivation and learning. As an educator, it is our job to allow for expression and creativity in learning. “App Up Your Social Studies” will bring a connection to proven strategies and apps that allow for creativity.
Using Bloom’s taxonomy in a classroom where students feel connected and safe is a wonderful tool. We will explore apps that can be used to help students analyze, evaluate and create to demonstrate their understanding of their social studies content. These apps will allow you to expand on what you are already doing in your curriculum.
Along with Bloom’s, we will also explore Marzano’s instructional strategies of summarizing and note taking (having a 34% gain in student learning), nonlinguistic representation (having a 27% gain in student learning), and asking questions (having a 22% gain in student learning).* We will use apps to allow students to sketch their learning and ask higher level questions. How powerful would our world be if our students had a deep understanding of our social studies standards along with a passion for other cultures and relationships?
Social studies is the stories of our past and our cultures. This can be personal past and culture, recent past and culture, or ancient past and culture. Helping students understand their own stories and connections to the stories of others allows for empathy. Apping up your social studies will allow students to explore, analyze, evaluate and create. So reflect on what you are already doing and join me to explore how to bring apps into your classroom for social studies fun!
Sound interesting? You can see Lori live next Monday at the Kansas Social Studies Conference at 2:10pm!
You won’t want to miss your chance to see presentations by some of the best social studies teachers in country, not just our state (
member presentations to whet your appetite for the great learning that’s going to happen on the Newman University Campus in a few short weeks.
This week’s post comes from Thomas Fulbright, current KCSS president and history teacher at Hope Street Academy, a public charter school in Topeka since 2008. Thomas intends “to spend my entire life convincing them how exciting and important history is.” His bio picture is daughter Claire and Thomas meeting President Lincoln.
We hope that social studies teachers currently part of the profession, pre-service teachers planning to enter the profession, and vendors passionate about supporting the profession will all join us at Newman University October 20-21 for two exciting days of networking, collaborating, and learning from one another.
