Education - Social studies resources (Secondary)
Overview
The Programs of Study for Social Studies, which identify what students are expected to know and be able to do at each grade level, are available on the Alberta Education website.
Dimensions of Thinking are an important element of the design of the Social Studies Program. These dimensions consist of:
- Creative thinking
- Critical thinking
- Historical thinking
- Geographic thinking
- Decision making and problem solving
- Metacognition
Assessment in Alberta Social Studies - This discussion paper explores practices of fair assessment within the context of critical thinking and the Alberta Social Studies Program of Studies.
Transforming Pedagogy and Practice Through Inquiry-Based Curricula: A Study of High School Social Studies - An article combining information about the intent of the Alberta Social Studies curriculum with a research study which investigated to what extent this transformative curriculum has affected teaching practice.
- Critical Challenges Across the CurriculumA series of books in the Doucette Library which were developed by the Critical Thinking Consortium (similar to the Critical Challenge lesson plans on LearnAlberta). Many challenges relate directly to topics in the Alberta curriculum.
TO LOCATE: To find books in the Critical Challenges series in the Doucette Library type in - Critical challenges across the curriculum - and limit to the Doucette Library ( in the left hand column). - Critical Challenges (from LearnAlberta)Similar lessons to those above can be found through the LearnAlberta.ca website (Ask at the Doucette Reference Desk for user name and password). The link takes you to a list of all of them, or limit by grade.
- Alberta Assessment ConsortiumClick on Assessment Materials, then Performance Assessment to find examples of assessments designed specifically for the Alberta curriculum (Doucette Ref Desk has username/password)
- Voices into actionThis free online educational program meets requirements of Canadian secondary school curriculum. Explore social justice issues - both past and current. Become empowered to speak out and take action against hatred and all forms of discrimination!
- LearnAlbertaFind a wide variety of support materials, in addition to lesson plans. in the form of videos, collections of photographs etc. related to topics in the Alberta Social Studies program. (get username and password from Doucette reference desk).
- Alberta Teacher's Association Library GuidesFor Social Studies generally, choose the Teacher guides. For resources directly related to the content of the Alberta curriculum choose the Subject guides.
- Literature Connections to Social StudiesLists, by grade, of juvenile fiction and non-fiction that connects to the Alberta curriculum. These were developed by the Calgary Board of Education and made available through Learn Alberta.
- Authorized Resources DatabaseFind out which resources Alberta Education authorizes for each grade, including the choice of ‘student basic resources’ (textbooks) ;
- Cool teaching links for social studiesFrom the Doucette Library, links to carefully selected websites relevant to teaching Social Studies.