ND Curriculum Initiative

Subject & Standards

Social Studies: 6. Human Development and Behavior.

Understandings & Goals

Enduring Understanding: I want my students to recognize that there are many different cultures in our world and also the different characteristics that make cultures distinct (religion, language, economic and political systems).
Goal(s): 1. Students will study culture.  2. Students will explore cultures that they are unfamiliar with.

Questions Answered

Essential questions: 1. What is culture? 2.  What characteristics make up different cultures?
Objectives: 1. Students will discover what culture means by reflecting on our culture.  2. Students will describe the culture of a certain country or area by investigating their religion, language, economic system and political system.  3. Students will recognize how cultures differ from one another.  4. Students will compare and contrast main types of economic and political systems.

Assessment

What quiz and test items (e.g. simple content-focused questions that require a single, best answer) will provide evidence of understanding?
Students will take an on line assessment based on the content that we are studying which is cultures.
What academic prompts (e.g. open-ended questions or problems that require students to think critically and then to prepare a response / product / performance) will provide evidence of understanding.  Students will be asked to compare the cultures that they are studying with our culture in the form of an essay.
What performance tasks and projects (e.g. complex challenges that are authentic, mirror the real world and require a performance or product) will you include that will provide evidence of student understanding?
Students will prepare a PowerPoint presentation showing that they understand the topic and presenting evidence of work to inform others. What other evidence <em>(e.g. observations, work samples, dialogues, student self-assessment) of understanding will you collect?
With guided questions, the student will e-mail me at the end of every class period. I will also collect students work samples, notes, etc.

Instructional Strategies

Students will need to divide their work within their groups. By doing this they will teach their findings to their group members. Project-based learning will be used to help students use higher-order thinking skills in the organization of their information into a PowerPoint presentation. Once they have their presentation prepared they will share it with their peers.