At SBS, Upper School Social Studies focuses on learning how to learn. This approach weaves together educational research and theory, realities of classroom teaching, challenges of standards-based instruction, and innovative instruction that excites students about social studies. A mission of our school is social justice and this thread permeates units across the grades. Facing History and Ourselves and History Alive! are two interactive teaching approaches used in Upper School Social Studies courses that support a variety of content including American History, the Holocaust, ancient cultures, and current events.
5th and 6th grade content rotates between an ancient culture study one year and American history from colonies to country, the next. 7th and 8th graders study alternatively a developing country and American history in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Lessons and activities are based on three dynamic educational theories:
- Multiple intelligences -- research recognizes students' multiple intelligences. Because everyone learns in a different way, the best activities tap more than one kind of intelligence (i.e. verbal-linguistic, logical-mathematical, visual-spatial, body-kinesthetic, musical-rhythmic, interpersonal, and intrapersonal).
- Cooperative interaction -- cooperative group work leads to learning gains and to higher student achievement. When students are trained in cooperative behaviors, placed in mixed-ability groups, and assigned roles to complete during a multiple ability task, they tend to interact more equally. This increased student interaction leads to more learning and greater content retention.
- Spiral curriculum -- students learn progressively more difficult concepts through a process of step-by-step discovery. With this approach all students can learn once a teacher has shown them how to think and discover knowledge for themselves.