P L A N

Upon reflecting on what the attributes are for a "thoughtful, well planned, social studies lesson", I started thinking through ANY lesson plan for that matter. While there are many attributes I think a lesson plan should contain, I'd like to spend this time highlighting the most important.

Considerate

A lesson plan should be considerate of ALL students and their individual needs. When a lesson plan is considerate, it not only takes into account the needs of the students, but it also implements practices and strategies to address each individual need. For social studies specifically, when teaching about culture, history, economics, etc., it is of upmost importance to take into consideration the cultures of ones students as well as their socio-economic background.  

Engaging 

A social studies lesson should not be something that is mundane and unrelated to students. No longer should a lesson plan simply be reading a social studies text book and answering the questions in the back. This is a sure fire way to make a child hate social studies and not care for his or her learning in this subject.  A lesson plan should build upon a students background, and implement ways and strategies in which to engage a student in the material. 

Effective

A lesson plan that is engaging is not enough however. There needs to be actual learning taking place. The lesson needs to be effective. Clear goals need to be set in place that necessitate higher order learning and after establishing those goals, the content of the lesson should support those goals in order to ensure that learning is taking place. 

Assessable 

In order to gage a lesson plan's effectiveness, it needs to be assessable. A teacher should have activities in place that not only support the learning goals, but can also be assessed. This means that the activities will have meaning behind them in which students will be expected to use their skills to create, analyze, discuss, experiment, etc. All of these verbs are assessable with the right lesson plan and a willing teacher. 

Integrative

Last but most certainly not least, social studies lesson should be integrative. There is so much to social studies that spans across content areas. English language arts, math, science, and art (as well as other subjects) can all be integrated into a social studies lesson. Or a social studies lesson can be integrated into one of these subject areas. As George Maxim(2010)  puts it, "Social studies is integrative by nature; by definition, it is the school subject that synthesizes the social sciences." (Pg. 25). 

While I find all these attributes to be important for any content in the classroom, I find them to be especially fitting for social studies.  I believe with these attributes, a teacher will have a lesson that sustains learning.