Discussion Question #2: Making Connections Interesting Quote: The primary purpose of social studies is to help young people

develop the ability to make informed and reasoned decisions for the public good as citizens of a diverse, democratic society in an interdependent world." (p.3, 1) Big Idea: Effective teaching and learning happens when social studies teaching and learning relates to students personal lives and experiences, involves reading, writing, math, art and/or science to further explain, explore, and reinforce the ideas; is based on personal values and beliefs; challenges students to think further or out of the box, and involves hands-on activities that gets students moving instead of sitting down listening to a lecture. Make a Connection: I agree with the quote, Choice is also a powerful element in learning of any kind (p. 8, 5) because of personal experience. Back when I attended primary and secondary school, I loved when the teachers would let us have a choice on what to do. They never let us have complete choice however; they would give us a topic and let us choose a subtopic. For example, my junior year of high school, we were learning about the decades. The teacher gave us a choice on picking what decade we would work on, but she told us what information specifically we had to look up and we were allowed to pick an interesting fact on that decade that wasn't answered by the questions she gave us. Having the choice of picking a decade made me excited to complete the project, instead of having one given to me and not liking anything about that time.