She teaches undergraduate courses
in elementary social studies education and field instruction and doctoral courses in teacher education, quantitative methods, and the history of education.
In cases where they do have this opportunity, the instruction is often rushed or superficial, reflecting a national trend
wherein elementary social studies are marginalized.
As an assistant professor in the College of Education at Michigan State University (MSU), I have spent the past six years working with a team of faculty members and doctoral students, and coordinated and taught the senior year and internship year courses of
elementary social studies methods.
Guest blogger Anne - Lise Halvorsen introduces the lesson study, a professional development method she uses to engage and inspire pre-service teachers around
elementary social studies curriculum.
Her recent projects involve exploring curriculum integration in
elementary social studies classrooms, preparing social studies teachers for culturally diverse classrooms, and the role of teacher preparation in novice primary teachers» practice.
Halvorsen's work focuses on
elementary social studies education, particularly for children from low socio - economic backgrounds, the history of education, teacher preparation in the social studies, and the integration of social studies and literacy.
Lesson study
in elementary social studies teacher education helps prepare our interns for the classroom, giving them the opportunity to learn about collaboratively planning, teaching and revising a social studies lesson so that it interests and challenges their students.
threatens to reduce
elementary social studies to ineffective integration attempts or eliminate elementary social studies
Computer use in
elementary social studies.
To evaluate student - created posters about different U.S. states,
an elementary social studies teacher used a rubric consisting of four different measures: directions followed (5 points); information conveyed (10 points); creativity (10 points); and design / color / neatness (5 points).
The preservice teachers entered
the elementary social studies methods course with 12 or more years of conditioning to accept social studies as an uninteresting content area, mainly requiring the memorization of names, events, places, and dates.
Because this study focused on one particular, albeit successful,
elementary social studies teaching methods course, no cut - and - dried rules for SCOEs can be offered.