Teaching and learning
The New Zealand Curriculum (2007) emphasises the importance of effective teaching and learning by including a statement about effective pedagogy for the first time. A concurrent development in the New Zealand Ministry of Education is the best evidence synthesis programme which has identified the characteristics of quality teaching for diverse learners.
Research in the Effective Pedagogy in Social Sciences/Tikanga ā iwi: Best Evidence Synthesis tells us that teaching in the social sciences/tikanga ā iwi is most likely to be effective if teachers:
· make connections to students’ lives
· align learning experiences to important outcomes
· build and sustain a learning community
· design experiences that interest learners.
In this section, find information and resources to support effective teaching in social studies classrooms.
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Ministry of Education learning units
These resource ideas from the Ministry of Education have a social studies focus, or a cross-curricular focus with social studies elements.
The resources are starting points for teachers in the classroom. Teachers are encouraged to save the unit files and adapt them to meet the needs of their students, school, and community.
These ideas link directly with the New Zealand Curriculum, and support development of the key competencies and values of the curriculum.
Looking for a unit of work from the old Social Studies Online site?
During the development phase for the new site, existing content was reviewed by a panel of social studies experts. Many of the units of work on the old site were found not to reflect current thinking about quality teaching and learning practices, and were not closely aligned to the New Zealand Curriculum. For this reason, it was decided that these units would not be available on the new SSOL site.
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Effective teaching in social studies
In this section, find out more about key social studies teaching and learning approaches, including building conceptual understandings, and approaches to social inquiry. Follow links to the social sciences Best Evidence Synthesis, and discover a range of effective teaching strategies for the social sciences.
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Student Resources
Social studies related interactive activities and digital learning objects for students to explore. Developed for the Ministry of Education.