This paper is the product of observing and practicing several elementary social studies classroom lessons. We observed the lessons in an elementary school setting and practiced the lessons for preservice teachers and elementary students. According to ...
This paper is the product of observing and practicing several elementary social studies classroom lessons. We observed the lessons in an elementary school setting and practiced the lessons for preservice teachers and elementary students. According to our observation, activity-focused textbook is not very helpful for teachers and children in order to understand the concepts clearly. If the concepts and the skills of subject matter were not presented clearly with overemphasizing learners’ experience and interest, the teachers would lose the orientation in the reconstructive process of subject matter. Even if the teachers recognized the explicit, external geographical concepts and skills clearly, we confirmed that they had the trial and error in the practical situation of classroom lessons without having the implicit, internal insight of geography, and that the students could not understand the content and the meaning of them. When teachers practice classroom lessons in the base of geographical insight, considering the pedagogical content knowing- knowledge of subject matter, pedagogy, learners, environmental contexts, only then can we describe and explain the classroom lesson activities completely.