Transcript Teaching With Powerful Ideas

Dana Austin
Michelle Knox
Jodi Mathe
We will understand how to
incorporate powerful ideas
into our multicultural
curriculum.
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The big, powerful ideas that people tend to
remember and that facilitate understanding
and transfer of knowledge are called concepts
and generalizations.
Powerful ideas help students organize and
synthesize large amounts of information
Example: Most people can’t give all the battle
names and dates from the American
Revolution, but can you remember why the
war was started and how it progressed?
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Facts: low-level, specific empirical statements
Concepts: words or phrases that enable
people to categorize or classify a large class
of observations and reduce the complexity of
their world
Generalizations: tested or verified statements
that contain two or more concepts and state
how they are related – These are the BIG
IDEAS!
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Key concepts and
generalizations are
taught and
developed at an
increasing degree
of complexity and
depth throughout
the grades
Help Students:
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Develop an understanding of how
knowledge is constructed
Create awareness that knowledge is
influenced by biases, experiences, and
perceptions of historians, textbook writers,
and other researchers.
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Construct their own versions of the past,
present, and future.
Make thoughtful decisions
Reflect on their moral choices
Have courageous conversations
Ask intelligent questions
Values Education
 Provides students an outlet to act on their
moral decisions.
Why?
 Powerful concepts like discrimination and
prejudice are shaped by ones values and/or
morals.
Give students opportunities to develop
“democratic values” by stimulating value
discussion and decision making (p.72)
1. Define and recognize value problems
2. Describe value-relevant behavior
3. Name values exemplified by behavior
4. Determine conflicting values in behavior
5. Hypothesize about possible consequences
of behavior
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Name alternative values
Hypothesize about those possible
consequences
Choose value preference
State reasons, sources, consequences:
justify, hypothesize, predict
Make value choices you can defend
in a democratic society
 How we construct knowledge is just
as important as the knowledge itself.
 As stated by a world-known, social
studies instructor, Mr. R., “Don’t
always believe what you hear.”
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