47 Teaching Social Studies in Elementary Grades (Culture and Geography)

Some are able to choose greatness. Some are not. Their choice, though,
decides what legacy they will leave. Essentially, students were able to use the
activities in the DBQ packet to help them provide a solid, well-developed response to
the question: Leaders of the Old World: Did Adult Parental Figures in the Lives of
Great Old World Leaders Propel Them to Greatness or Set Them Up for Failure?

I hope these strategies and ideas were helpful to you! I love conjuring new
ways to help students maximize their learning. After all, they are our future.

Module 10
Geography Teaching Style and Strategies

“Good teachers use an appropriate range of teaching strategies to promote good

learning‘ and ‗Outstanding teachers use well-judged and often imaginative teaching
strategies… ―whereas inadequate teaching is where ‗teachers fail to use resources or
teaching strategies which secure effective geographical learning.‘‖

Teaching Children Geography: Strategies & Tools

Geography can be an interesting subject to teach and learn. This lesson will
provide some strategy

ies and tools you can use to engage your young students in Geography.

What Is Geography?
Learning about our planet, the land masses on it, the features of different
environments, and the people and their interactions with the environments can be
incredibly fascinating and eye-opening for young people. All of those features fall
under the study of Geography. By using engaging strategies and exciting tools, you
can open your students' minds up to a world they never knew existed.

Bring the Material Home

Your students may find it difficult to relate to some of the concepts you will
teach in Geography; especially if these concepts concern areas of the world your
students have never seen or heard of before. Therefore, when teaching Geography, it
is best to design lessons and activities that help students relate to the material.
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48 Teaching Social Studies in Elementary Grades (Culture and Geography)

For example, if you are teaching about the migration of a certain group of
people, you can choose from several ways to drive that material home for students.
For example, many of your students probably go on a vacation once a year or have
been on vacation before. Relate migration to the idea that many people go to a
certain area during the summer. This will help students understand the reasons
behind the migration of people in the past.

Helping students relate to concepts in

Geography will engage them in learning.

Another time you might be teaching your students about different landforms.
Take, for example, mountain ranges. If you are teaching in a relatively flat area of
the country, some of your students may never have seen mountains in person
before. To help them relate, you can use something in their immediate community as
an example, such as a hill or dirt mound. Explain to students that mountains are
much, much larger than dirt mounds when placed next to one another.

Tourism Presentations
When teaching Geography, you will be teaching your students about a lot of
different areas, including countries, states, cities, and provinces. Simply lecturing
about these different areas will help your students memorize information about these
places, but they will not really learn much about the world. Therefore, a useful
project to use would be a tourism presentation.
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In this activity, students are assigned an area of the world (country, continent,
state, city, province, etc.) to research. They can then create a presentation, poster,
or brochure about their assigned area, designed to attract people to that area of the
world. You are the one to determine what kind of information you'd like in the
posters, so you can vary it as students complete more of these kinds of projects.

Your students might need help doing research at first, so you will have to
guide them. Then, after they've had some practice, they'll be able to conduct
research on their own. This is a skill they can carry over to other activities, including
more topics in Geography, so it's worth it to take the time to guide your students.

Virtual Field Trips

You have most definitely heard of a field trip. Those times of the year when
you pile your classes into a bus and go somewhere that you think is exciting but that
they might not quite feel the same way about. However, what if I told you that you
are not limited to taking a trip to places near your school? What if I told you that you
could take a field trip anywhere on Earth?

5 Things Children Can Learn from Geography Lessons

Fundamentally, just as it is necessary to know the alphabet for reading, or
multiplication tables for arithmetic, it is also necessary to learn geography to know
where places are, and also some facts about those places so you can tell why they
are different. Geography, History, and Civics are seldom taught in classrooms today,
which is a major concern considering the increasing focus on globalization and the
world economy.

Future leaders who are oblivious of geographical knowledge will have a hard
time analyzing world events and making rational decisions, let alone understanding
basic physical systems of everyday life, like implications of the solar system on
climate, water cycles, ocean currents, etc.

Geography Helps You Understand Your Own Country

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50 Teaching Social Studies in Elementary Grades (Culture and Geography)

Studying geography gives you knowledge about different places on earth and
how they relate with each other. Usually, you start by learning about your home
community, region, country, continent, and so on as you gain more experience.

When it comes to your country, you can expect to learn about:

1. Citizenship
Geography knowledge makes you become a better citizen. Learning geography allows
you to identify and appreciate important events and national and international
policies; make better and informed decisions regarding the best use of national
resources; and ask relevant questions about policies that optimize the landscape and
land use. A more informed citizen makes for a better leader.

2. Economics
There is a close relation between economics and geography with regard to the level
of industrialization or energy production; transportation networks and the applications
of technology; the location of natural resources; and many other factors that
influence trade patterns and the economy of the country and region.

3. History
Learning geography allows you to identify and appreciate important clues of your
nation‘s history, including the influence of landforms and climate on land use, the rise
and fall of civilizations, and migration patterns, among other things. Knowing the
history of the landscape helps you understand the transformation processes that
have taken place.

4. The Environment
Geography also covers the relationship between human beings and the environment,
and how natural systems work. Geographers conduct research to identify the role of
environmental factors on population behavior, and ways in which social processes
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such as population growth and technological advances affect the environment. These
matters are critical for formulating environmental policies for global conservation.

Geography Helps You Understand t3he World

Geography also gives you the tools to gain an understanding of international matters,
multicultural concerns, and environmental matters. You learn to read maps, interpret
local and global information, and understand international networks for trade and
other things.

All this information allows you to integrate multiple concepts from humanities, social
science, and science, and apply critical thinking to dealing with current issues at the
local, national, and international level. But it starts with allocating some hours or days
per week for the study of different geographical aspects in the education system.

Teaching of Cultural Geography

Effectiveness of Instruction, Maps and Spatial Concepts, Evaluating

Geographic
Geography, like history, is not defined by the uniqueness of its content; rather, both
gain their distinction by the way in which they organize and analyze the data they
collect regarding particular aspects of the human experience. History compares and
contrasts information within the framework of chronology, while geography organizes
its information within the context of the spatial environment. Today, the focus of
geographic inquiry is generally conceded to be on spatial interactions, that is, the
geographer seeks to understand the significance of human activity within a spatial
framework. Where historians report their findings primarily through written
narratives, geographers present their data primarily through the construction of
maps.

Effectiveness of Instruction
Whether taught as a separate subject or fused in some way with subject
matter drawn from other fields of the natural and social sciences, there is a long
history of ineffectiveness of instruction in the teaching of geography. From the first
attempt to assess the effectiveness of instruction in geography, in the 1840s in
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Boston's public schools, to the most recent efforts, notably the National Assessment
of Educational Progress (NAEP), there is a continuing record of what most consider to
be substandard results. A much more sophisticated assessment tool than those of
past years, the NAEP results have shown, for example, that secondary students learn
more geographic information in history classes than in those classes devoted
exclusively to the study of geography. Although one can decry such a seeming
incongruity, the historical knowledge displayed by students on these tests was
equally dismal.

Maps and Spatial Concepts

Since the map provides the basic tool for reporting spatial interactions, the
ability to read maps meaningfully is a primary objective of instruction. Map reading
can be viewed as a more complex form of print reading–the reading of books,
newspapers, and so forth–in which the number of symbols and their positions in
relation to one another are both consistent and limited. Map reading, in contrast,
requires the reader to develop meanings for a wide variety of symbols, some
conventional print but others of varying degrees of abstraction, all arranged in a
relational two-dimensional environment. The reading process, regardless of the
symbol systems employed, requires the creation of meanings, which in turn are
dependent upon the reader's conceptual base, that is, what the reader understands
the symbols are intended to represent. There has long been controversy over how
the reading process, regardless of the complexity of the symbol system involved, is
initiated. Many believe that initial skills should be taught in a more or less arbitrary
fashion and that the development of meanings follows. Others, and that is the
argument here, believe that form follows function, that concepts, in this case of
spatial relationships, are basic to the process of creating meanings in response to
apprehending textual material.

As in learning to read conventional print, it is argued that the most

constructive route to fluent reading involves much writing based on one's own
experience. If map reading is, as it appears, similar to reading print in its more
conventional form, but complicated by the presence of a variety of symbols
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representing different sets of meanings arranged in a two-dimensional plane (as well

as an abstraction of the world's three-dimensional reality), then learning to read
maps with some degree of sophistication must depend upon prior experiences in
constructing maps out of one's personal experience. Taking this view, an important
activity throughout the school curriculum for both elementary and secondary schools
should entail an emphasis on a developmental sequence that takes the student from
first creating maps directly out of one's own experience and going onward from there
toward learning how the mathematics of map making results in the kind of
representations seen in classrooms and the world at large.

Studies of children's conceptions of spatial interactions indicate the progression

toward some degree of intellectual maturity in this regard is much slower than
commonly perceived. For example, concepts of political entities (towns, states,
nations, etc.), notions of boundary lines, slope, and elevation seem to commence
their emergence late–in early adolescence at best. The argument that television and
various forms of virtual reality, abstractions even at their best, have expanded
student's views such that they are much more aware of the world they live in begs
further examination. It is to be regretted in this regard that Piagetian research
protocols have not been updated and applied to furthering our knowledge. The
admittedly little evidence we do have suggests that we be cautious in coming to any
conclusions about the efficacy of media, including the Internet, in promoting
geographic understandings because the emergence of mature geographic
understanding appears to be so highly dependent upon prior firsthand experiencing
of the immediate environment.

Evaluating Geographic Learning

How, then, does one evaluate geographic learning? Geographers are not in
agreement regarding the approach instruction should take and, consequently, how to
judge whether significant learning has occurred. The major traditions of geographic
inquiry, which might be used as the basic framework for making such judgments,
have been defined as the spatial tradition, the areas studies tradition, man–land
tradition, and the earth science tradition. These are the traditional categories
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employed in developing college curricula. Geographers more interested in defining

geography appropriate to elementary and secondary schools have argued for what
they call the five themes of geography: location, place, relationships within places,
movement over the earth, and regions.

Whichever set of criteria one uses for developing test items, and despite the
popularity of paper-and-pencil multiple-choice questions, easily evaluated by
mechanical means, it is now widely accepted that evaluation procedures, to be valid,
must include questions requiring the student to demonstrate reasoning abilities for
reaching a particular conclusion about spatial interrelationships. Evaluating responses
that demonstrate reasoning powers along with knowledge of specifics requires more
time than current test practice provides and will, therefore, not be widely used until
there is a broader acceptance of in-depth analyses of knowledge as the better
indicator of students' progress.

What is effective geography teaching?

As a teacher your chief purpose is to ensure that students become effective
geography students – but what does that actually mean? You must be absolutely
clear in your own mind about what ‗effective‘ geography teaching is, and this should
guide you in setting goals for students to achieve.

Effective geography teaching that can be summarize as:

a. Questions and answer which is used not just to test knowledge but to guide
the development of understanding. Teachers use ‗why‘ questions to encourage
pupils to reason and reflect on what they are learning.
b. Teaching is not just ‗subject content‘ but also teaching pupils how to solve
problems and make sense of experience, encouraging them to make explicit
their thinking.
c. Active teaching and learning which involves organizing exchanges of ideas
and mutual support amongst pupils, encouraging them to take a more active,
vocal role in classroom events, explicitly relating current activity to past

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experience and using pupils‘ contributions as a resource in building the

‗common knowledge‘ of the class‘.

What is an effective geography teacher? Drawing all of these sources

together suggests that an effective geography teacher should:
• be secure and confident in their subject knowledge (both subject content
knowledge and subject
pedagogy), including an understanding geographical concepts and progression
in pupils‘ geographical learning.
• teach good lessons using a wide range of teaching strategies that have high
expectations, match different
pupils‘ needs, actively engage pupils and ensure they learn and think about
geography.
• make good use of maps, fieldwork, GIS, and a range of multimedia resources to
support geographical
learning.
• use geographical enquiry to involve pupils fully in exploring and learning
geography and promote them
curiosity and understanding of the world.
• be able to assess geographical learning and use their assessments formatively
• plan geography curricula appropriate for young people today that cover all
aspects of geography, as well as
contributing to wider skills including literacy and numeracy.
• be evaluative and reflective so that they incorporate new strategies into their
teaching repertoire after
they have researched them carefully and understand what they are seeking to
achieve.

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Module 10: Assessment

Answer Briefly:
a. How will I teach geography in a fun way?

b. How does geography affect culture? Explain in detail.

c. How does culture relate to geography?

d. What is the importance of cultural geography?

e. How the content and skills from this lesson be transferred to the next
lesson?

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II. Write a Set of Instruction Lesson Plan

a. Grade 2
b. Subject Matter: Me and My Community
c. Objectives:
1. Identify the purpose of writing (i.e., to inform)
2. Select the most appropriate format for writing a specific
work=related text.
(i.e., instructions, directions.)
3. create somewhat complicated work-related text like
directions, reports
4. Materials:
5. activities and procedures:

III. Grade 6
Subject Matter: ―The Filipino Community‖

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Module 11

Strategies and Techniques for Teaching Culture

Culture is abroad concept that embraces all aspects of human life. It includes
everything people learn to do. It is everything human have learned‘ Culture shapes
our thoughts and actions, and often does so with a heavy hand.

Approaches: Commonly used facts Approaches fort teaching culture.

A Framework for Building Cultural Understanding;

- Based on process skills

- Includes both factual and geography content

Four Dimensions:

1. Convention: Students need to r3cognize and understand how people in a

given culture typically behave in common =, everyday situations.

2.Connotationn: Students need to know the significant meanings that are

associated with words.

3. Conditioning: Students need to j=know that people act in a manner

consistent with their cultural frame of reference, and that all people respond in
culturally conditioned ways to basic

human needs.

4. Comprehension: Students need the skill of analysis, hypothesis formation,

an tolerance of ambiguity.

A Framework for Learning/Teaching Culture

a. Knowing about getting information

1. Nature of the content- getting information
 What is the capital of the Philippines?
 Spots play an important role in every Filipino
2. Learning Objectives- demonstrate a mastery of the information
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3. Techniques/activities- cultural reading; film/video; recording realia cultural

artifacts; personal anecdotes.
4. Note
 How culture is traditionally taught- giving students information and asking
them to show that they know it;
 Teacher role; informant.
b. Knowing how (developing behavior)
1. Nature of content - skills
- Buying ticket to a sports event;
- Acting and speaking skills
2. Learning Objectives: demonstrate an ability—an expertise, confidence
ease.
3. Techniques/Activities: dialogs, role plays, simulations, field experiences.
4. Note
- where communicative competence in the language
and culture occurs. Students know both what to say and how to do it
in a culturally appropriate manner.
- Teacher role, coach or model.

c. Knowing Why (discovering explanations)

1. Nature of content - values and assumptions
- Why are sports so important
- Are you making an observation or an interpretation
2. Leaning Objectives
- Learners interpret and make explanation based on above activities
3. Techniques/Activities
- Learners interpret and make explanations based on above activities
- Comparison with own culture
- Reflective writing
4. Note

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- Learners engage in in actively using their power of induction, analysis

and intuition to draw
Conclusion about cultural information or experiences like—anthropologist.
- Teacher role: co-researcher or guide
d. Knowing Oneself
1. Nature of content- self awareness
- What importance do sports have in your life?
2. Learning Objectives:
By behavior/ statement demonstrate understanding of one‘s feelings, values,
opinions, attitudes.
3. Techniques/ Activities
- Learners examine and make statements about themselves
4. Note
- Learners themselves are the subjects matter in a process of guided
self-discovery, as they study their own values and their reactions to
those of the culture. They decide whether or not to change
- Teacher role: counselor or guide

We have already concluded that teaching culture needs to be integrated.

Teachers do indeed need to teach students few critical skills that can help them
develop and improve the quality of their intercultural communication, that can
help them get their feet wet in the waters of another culture.

Goals to teach culture for understanding, teacher should achieve the

following:
Goal 1 = Interest – the student demonstrate curiosity about the target culture and
empathy toward its people.

Goal 2 = Who – The student recognized that role expectations and other social
variables such as age, sex, social class, ethnicity, and place of residence affect the
way people speak and behave.

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Goal 3 = What – The student realizes that effective communication requires

discovering the culturally conditioned images that are evoked in the minds of people
hen they think, act, and react to the world around them.

Goal 4 = Where and When – the student recognizes that situational variables and
convention shape behavior in important ways,

Goal 5 = Why – The student understand that people generally act the way they do
because they are using options society allows for satisfying basic physical and
psychological needs, and that cultural patterns are interrelated and tend mutually to
support need satisfaction

Goal 6 = Exploration – the student can evaluate a generalization about the target
culture in terms of the amount of evidence sustaining it, and has the skills need to
locate and information about the target culture from the library the mass media,
people and personal observation.

In order to translate the goals for teaching culture into classroom practice, we need
to follow specific strategies and techniques:

Strategies:
a. Lecture
b. Native of informants
c. Audio-taped interviews
d. Video-taped interviews
e. Using authentic readings and realia for cross-cultural understanding) a four -
stage approach to a cultural reading of authentic materials is very effective to
lead students through the process if guided exploration and discovery:
a. thinking
b. looking

3. Learning
4. Integrating

Techniques:
a. Culture Clusters
b. Culture Assimilations
c. Culture Mini-Dramas
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62 Teaching Social Studies in Elementary Grades (Culture and Geography)

d. Quiz
e. Action Logs
f. Noticing
g. Prediction
h. Research
Module 11: Assessment

Answer briefly:

a. What will the teacher do if he/she faces an overcrowded curriculum?

b. Teachers‘ fear of not knowing enough, what will you do as a teacher?

c. How will you deal students with negative attitudes?

d. What will you do if you are facing lack of adequate training?

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