A slideshow can help you teach social studies, but simply presenting information does not guarantee students are actually learning it.
In Part 2 of the PD Series, we are breaking down how to turn an informational slideshow into a complete lesson.
You’ll learn a simple lesson structure that includes:
A clear learning objective
Focused direct instruction
Opportunities for student discussion
Meaningful practice
A quick check for understanding
We will also talk about how to avoid rushing through too much information and how to give students opportunities to actually use what they have learned.
If your social studies lessons sometimes feel like you are racing through slides before the bell rings, this episode will help you rethink what happens before, during, and after your presentation.
Free Guided Lesson Sampler for Texas Social Studies Teachers
Looking for a ready-to-use social studies lesson for your grade level? Grab a free guided lesson sample created specifically for Texas teachers.
Choose from 3rd grade Communities, 4th grade Texas History, 5th grade U.S. History, 6th grade World Cultures, or 7th grade Texas History.
Each sampler includes a teacher guide, lesson slideshow, digital version, guided notes, practice activity, exit ticket, answer keys, and more information about the full 36-week guided curriculum program.
Download your free sampler and choose your grade level at thesouthernteach.com/lessons
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I love sharing ideas and strategies that are low-prep and easy to implement, so let's dive in together
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What happened? Presenting information isn't necessarily the same as students learning information. Welcome back to the Social Studies Teacher podcast. This is part two of a five-part series. Hopefully, you're enjoying this so far, and you continue to follow and tune in for the future episodes for this series.
Today, we're going to be talking about how to turn an informational slideshow into a complete social studies lesson. I love using slideshows as part of instruction. They provide structure, organize information, and they help students follow along, and it's the bulk of what I create in my resources. My units have a slideshow component that is very important for my curriculum.
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Instead of saying, "Students will learn about the US economy," you might say, "Students will explain how the oil industry contributed to the growth of US cities." That is a much clearer target. Now you can make decisions about what information belongs in the lesson and what students will need to practice. If students are supposed to explain cause and effect, then your lesson needs opportunities for them to practice explaining cause and effect.
e oil industry is not enough [:
Then you can present the essential information in manageable sections. For example, let's say you're teaching students how the discovery of oil changed the United States. You might explain that oil discoveries created new jobs. Workers moved to communities near oil fields. Businesses opened to support the growing population, and some towns expanded as a result.
turn to a partner and talk, [:
These are small moments that would transform students from passive listeners into active participants. Step number two is to give students an opportunity to apply the information. This is where the actual practice activity comes in, and this is what should connect directly to your learning objective.
So going back to our oil industry example, students have learned that the oil industry created jobs and contributed to urbanization. So they now have to explain that relationship, and you can use a simple cause and effect graphic organizer, where the first box would say, "Oil is discovered," and the next boxes ask students to identify what happens to jobs, population, and communities.
it and using it to explain a [:
Students could identify evidence of population growth and describe what the photographs suggest about the changes in that community. So the key would be for here, use an activity that requires students to do something meaningful with the information they learned. Step number three, checking for understanding.
So at the end of your lesson, you need a way to determine whether your students accomplished the learning objective. Pretty easy, right? And it does not have to be complicated. For the oil industry lesson that we've been talking about in this episode, you could do a quick exit ticket with one question.
iew the responses and notice [:
So now you know what to address during your next lesson, and that is exactly what an effective exit ticket should accomplish. It's not something that you just grade and then put away. You actually use it to give yourself useful information about whether students understand the concept So let's put everything together.
Let's look at how this might work in a 30-minute social studies class. You can spend about five minutes introducing the topic and activating prior knowledge, 10 to 12 minutes for direct instruction and guided discussion, giving students 10 to 13 or so minutes to complete some type of application activity, and then use the final five minutes for an exit ticket and closure.
ill, and demonstrating their [:
You don't necessarily need a better slideshow, you just need a plan for what students will do with the information in that slideshow. So start with your objective, introduce the information, provide meaningful practice, and then check for understanding. This is the basic structure behind the guided lessons I create for the resources in The Southern Teach, and it's an approach that you can apply to just about any social studies topic, whether you're buying it or you create your own.
m if that's something you're [:
Most of my curriculum is for grades three through seven at this point in time, but I do have additional units that you can utilize for a variety of different topics that even if you don't teach in Texas might be useful to you. So I'll just link that in there in the description. Next week we're going to be discussing one of my favorite ways to get students interested in social studies before the actual lesson even begins.
So I'm gonna be sharing with you five lesson hooks you can use in less than five minutes. Thanks for listening, and I will talk to you again next time. Thanks for listening to The Social Studies Teacher Podcast. If you enjoyed listening to this episode, hit that subscribe button and leave a review. I would love to hear your thoughts.
