KSDE Social Studies Standards

Standards:

A standard tells teachers what teachers what a student should know at each grade and what they should be able to do at each different grade level. Standards help school districts develop their curriculum. It is important to note that standards are not the curriculum. Within social studies there are 5 standards that can be used throughout grades K-12. Those 5 being; choices have consequences, individuals have rights and responsibilities, societies are shaped by identifies, beliefs, and practices, societies experience continuity and change over time, and relationship among people, places, ideas, and environments are dynamic. Each standard must include a benchmark, scope, and sequence.

Benchmark:

As mentioned before, each standard needs to have a benchmark. A benchmark narrows down what the standard covers. They should be used for scaffolding with measurable verbs. Benchmarks should be used to help develop questions, problems, and task for assessments on both the state and local level. Benchmarks also connect with contemporary issues so, the teacher should be using to create a relevant relationship with the past and present. Each standard comes with 4 benchmarks. Teachers should be using those 4 benchmarks to come up with possible questions, units, lessons, task, or assessments. If teachers do use the benchmark to create an assessment they must make sure that the academic content and cognitive skill that is mentioned in the benchmark is what they are being evaluated on.

Scope and Sequence:

The scope is what content is being taught. The sequence is when it is being taught. For example, sense of self is taught in kindergarten. So, the scope would be 'sense of self' while the sequence is 'kindergarten.' When both of these things are taught at the right time it allows for two things to happen; vertical alignment and horizontal alignment. Vertical alignment is when content is not going to repeat in different grade levels. Horizontal alignment is when each classroom in the same grade level are being taught the same thing. KSDE suggest that each standards should have a scope and sequence, but it is not required.

Personal Beliefs

As someone who has thought about going into History education many times I greatly appreciate and value social studies. Social studies gets taught for less than 30 minutes a day in elementary classrooms. Not only will I be giving the best instruction that I can during that time, but I will also be incorporating it in other content areas. I will be incorporating social studies content into the ELA setting because according to the article "Want Kids to Be Better Readers? Teach Social Studies" published by Forbes and written by Natalie Wexler, "students who received an additional thirty minutes a day of social studies instruction got significantly higher reading scores than students who didn’t." However, this is not the only reason I plan to add more social studies content into my classroom. These students will some day be voters, running for offices, lawyers, on juries, etc. They need to be informed when they are participating in these events and only getting 7 basic social studies in high school and middle school is not enough.

Resources

Kansas State Department of Education. (2020). Kansas history, government, and social studies standards .https://www.ksde.org/LinkCli

Kids in social studies [image]. https://www.scholastic.com/content/dam/parents/migrated-assets/articles/header-images-5/preschool-social-studies.jpg.parentsimagerendition.xl.680.510.png

Wexler, N. (2020, Sept. 26). Want kids to be better readers? Teach social studies. Forbes. Kids in social studies [image]. https://www.scholastic.com/content/dam/parents/migrated-assets/articles/header-images-5/preschool-social-studies.jpg.parentsimagerendition.xl.680.510.png