Candidates will create a plan to effectively facilitate student discourse pertaining to a topic, issue, conflict, or event, that aligns with the Washington state social studies standards for a specific grade level of choice. The candidate will first unpack the topic in order to better understand multiple perspectives (common interpretations in texts, personal, common).
Then, the candidate will select methods and instructional strategies to address six student needs in effective social studies discourse: 1) eliciting students’ ideas, 2) recognizing biases and perspectives, 3) understanding differing perspectives, 4) setting boundaries and redirecting, 5) engaging students as collaborative sense makers, and 6) promoting active listening. The candidate will apply those instructional strategies by giving specific implementation details for that strategy/method in the context of the selected topic, issue, conflict, or event. Candidate will reflect on the theoretical and personal benefits and challenges of implementing the selected strategies.
Be sure to address the six student needs (second part of the assignment), and feel free to add commentary on how your experience was (minus the format which is admittedly abysmal) and how you might manage/facilitate this type of activity in your classroom (including grade level as you would need to approach it differently in third grade versus middle school versus high school).