Social Studies Team Meeting - 9/8/08

The following are the notes from the S.S. Team meeting that addressed the following agenda items:

- Student Notebooks: teachers will utilize marble or spiral notebooks to have the students keep their class notes organized. Teachers are free and encouraged to use any graphic organizer they feel will best suit their needs on a particular day and keep the students' interests. One method was to have a column for questions, a column for answers and a column for a textbook reference page;
- Baseline Assessment: will be due on Friday. Seventh and eighth grade teachers will use the multiple choice section of the state exam to gauge the students' knowledge of American History. The exam for grade 6 will be developed by Ms. Gumbs with Mr. Boston-Hill assisting. There was a question of how the bi-lingual students who are taught in native language will be tested. Will they receive the assessment in Spanish or English? The answer will be forthcoming;
- Inquiry Based Learning: students will learn to create their own learning with the guidance of their teachers. Teachers can find more information on Inquiry-based Learning on the school wiki on the Teacher Page. It was suggested that we explore the use of "visual thesaurus" to help students build an ongoing vocabulary list so they can explore the language used in social studies and examine the careers associated with different aspects of social studies to gain more of a connection between the content area and real life;
- Weekly Walkthroughs: teachers understand that administration will conduct a walkthrough every other Wednesday starting this Wednesday. They will be informed of the outcomes within a couple of days of the walkthrough;
- Student Data Binders: it was discussed that the students would carry their own data binders to each class so all teachers can have conversations on goal setting with the student. Inside the binder, the student will have, among other things, their profile sheet obtained from Renzulli Learning System. Teachers can use this to assist in goal setting and when guiding the students in the inquiry or project-based assignments.

Additional resources that can be found on the wiki are The 8 Dimensions of Teaching and Learning and Best Practices in Social Studies.