Tutorial 3, CCL402 Advanced Strategies in Teaching of Social Studies II

What I've Learnt from Tutorial 3


That "an EQ is the door to Enduring Understanding".


Please click here to view an overview of what I had learnt about the "science" of EQs.

Click here to view an overview of Big Ideas.


Reflection

Today's tutorial was the most intensive one thus far, with more lecture slides and lecture material covered. I did however find formulating EQs somewhat less harrowing than EUs, as it was much easier getting to the "door", than entering the house, if I may adapt Ms Ananthi's analogy.

I'm still wondering though, if SS students will indeed be aware of the overarching princples and concepts behind the unit that they're learning. Will the students who are often preoccupied with the microscopic, sometimes myopic view of the unit, truly be able to have a more global, even analytical view of the entire topic, through these EQs?

I found that Ms Ananthi's sharing of her metacognitive processes with us, as she pondered over last week's EU on identity, was most helpful, in revealing the overarching principles and concepts of the topic.

I wonder if the cognitive and metacognitive processes that shaped the planning of my SS lesson, ought to be made explicit to students, so that it is more apparant to them, why they are learning the topic, rather than merely what they will be expected to learn (and not forgetting the blood, sweat and tears, that went into the planning too!). Should I also "teach" metacognition to young children?

I expect debate over whether teachers ought to "teach" metacognition to young primary school children, but research by Kauchak and Kauchak (2001) seems to suggest that it is possible and indeed wise to do so, even for Lower Primary children.

Thus, I believe that I should tell my SS students - not merely why I think it is important to learn the topics in the textbook - but also my mental processes, as I went about deciding what they should learn, how they would go about learning, and why they would be doing so.

Is this a wise decision? I'll be eagerly awaiting to try this out in teaching practicum 3.