Certell, Stanford & NYDOE: Tools to Create an Online Social Studies Class

As we move to virtual learning, we have focused on online textbooks like OpenStax. Now that we have Canvas, we can plug in resources from websites to create an online textbook of your own! Here are three great resources from fantastic websites including Stanford, NYDOE, and Certell. Oh, and all of these are FREE!

The Stanford History Education Group is a great organization that focuses on civic education. One of its best projects is the Reading Like a Historian project that has student-centered lessons in American and world history.

According to its website, "This curriculum teaches students how to investigate historical questions by employing reading strategies such as sourcing, contextualizing, corroborating, and close reading. Instead of memorizing historical facts, students evaluate the trustworthiness of multiple perspectives on historical issues and learn to make historical claims backed by documentary evidence. To learn more about how to use "Reading Like a Historian" lessons, watch this series of videos about how teachers use these materials in their classrooms.

Click here for a complete list of "Reading Like a Historian" lessons. These lessons come with PowerPoint slides, a lesson plan, student handouts, and primary resources! Below are just the lessons from the last three units in the American history program. 

The New York Department of Education provides many resources for its teachers. Although we live in NJ, we can still access their resources, especially their student-centered K-12 Social Studies Resource Center Toolkit. According to the NYDOE, "The Toolkit resources focus on the implementation of the Inquiry Arc, as presented in The College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies State Standards, including the four dimensions: (1) Developing questions and planning inquiries, (2) Applying disciplinary concepts and tools, (3) Evaluating sources and using evidence and (4) Communicating conclusions and taking informed action."

The Grades 5-8 and the Grades 9 - 12 toolkits have "mini-units" or multiple-day lessons fro topics in civics, economics, American history, and world history. Each of these lessons has formative and summative assessments. 

So, for example, I clicked on the Printing Press lesson, and you will read that "this inquiry leads students through an investigation of the impacts of the printing press by examining its utility in society, both as an instrument to preserve cultural products of the past and as an agent of change. By investigating the compelling question 'Did the printing press preserve the past or invent the future?' students evaluate both functions of the printing press and consider which had the greater impact. The formative performance tasks build on knowledge and skills through the course of the inquiry and help students recognize the dual nature of the printing press in order to better understand its importance in larger historical phenomena. Students create an evidence-based argument about whether the printing press promoted continuity or change after considering the ways in which it preserved existing systems of belief and thought, enabled the dissemination of information, and led to increased exploration and systemic change within European societies."

This year more states have joined the effort so click on the C3 website to find even more mini-lessons just like these that can augment your curriculum!

Certell’s resources can act as a wonderful complement to our curriculum, or it can even serve as an online course to boot!

I checked it out and I thought Certell does a nice job of weaving current popular media into their resources. Their reading assignments are just the right size, they offer eBooks for every student with each course they offer, and everything they provide is free. REALLY.

They offer these full-semester courses in the following subjects:

• Common Sense Economics
• Common Sense Government
• Common Sense American History
• Common Sense World History (NEW!)

Their material is relevant, and you can teach it as is “right out of the box” or use and adapt the parts you need into your existing curriculum. My favorites include their Bell Ringers and Mini Lessons!