CURRICULUM & ASSESSMENT
NEW! Personal Financial Literacy/Economics
Curriculum development for Personal Financial Literacy/Economics (PFLE) is complete and now available! After contributions from field experienced teachers, the TRS Social Studies Team, compiled the input and crafted the course. Assessment for PFLE is a new project for this year and will be built out as a developing feature.
NEW! Concept Chart and Overarching Understandings
The revised chart moves the concepts away from the strands that were disciplinary and toward a broader use of overarching concepts, a bit more universal, There more “overarching” concepts and fewer microconcept or “unit” concepts to be more discretely aligned. This organization helped to bring our Overarching Understandings into tight alignment with the concepts with each overarching concept being directly aligned to each macroconcept. The overarching understandings were merged to improve their focus being reduced from 23 to 14.
NEW! Conceptual VAD
The new Conceptual VAD (CVAD) has been released. The CVAD represents a matrix that merges the multiple facets of social studies knowledge, understandings, and skills with a set of universal concepts. Each student expectation is tagged with a single overarching understanding , a single macro concept and a single micro concept. This tagging creates a set of interlinked content standards that are aligned by understanding/concepts across K-12. Approaching this organization conceptually often results in the content of the standard being representative of an example of the bigger “idea”.
TEI Items
TEI items are steadily being created. Most focus on Grade 8 and US History. Look for those numbers to expand over time.
RESOURCES
NEW! Elementary Learning Goals Planning Tool
The Learning Goals resource is now complete for social studies K-12. These learning goals can serve as a target for lesson objectives. The teacher can readily break down the knowledge and skills a student needs to achieve with each lesson. See both secondary and elementary learning goals in the Resources section as a Learning Goals Planning Tool.
REVISED! Highlighting Vocabulary Resources
Embedded in every unit K-12 is defined Key Content Vocabulary and Related Vocabulary in every unit K-12. K-12 Vertical Vocabulary Resource that has been updated to reflect unit division. Each grade has an alphabetical set of flash cards. Each unit has a set of flashcards just for that unit. Each unit 6-12 has formative “idea completion” assessment items designed for students to provide more than a definition.
REVISED! NCSS Notable Social Studies Trade Books for Young People
The National Council for the Social Studies and the Children’s Book Council have been collaborating since the 1970s to recommend trade books around social studies topics. The NCSS Notable Social Studies Trade Books for Young People resource is a sortable spreadsheet compiling the book lists published since 2000. We republish the resource each year when they add new books. However, these are not TRS recommendations in that we do not read the thousands of recommended books, nor do we try to align them. We are just providing options for your district. Librarians and teachers are the best equipped to determine alignment to local resources and classroom instruction.
ADDITIONAL UPDATES
NEW! STAAR Analysis
What’s the Story? Research and Scholarship
Our scholarship this year has been a study of the work of Jonathan Bassett and Gary Shiffman with their new text From Story to Judgment. We have been revising elements of the curriculum to reflect their work on improving instruction in history classes. Their 4 Question Method (4QM) provides a way for educators to integrate content “coverage” through storytelling with practice in the thinking skills that real people use when they examine the human world thoughtfully. Their inquiry method promotes effective planning for teachers and effective learning for students without teachers needing to “flip the table” on their current instructional approaches. Add this book to your summer reading list!
Write for us! Earn CPE! Make money!
Join the TEKS RS Affiliate Group (TAG)! This group of Texas educators will be our go-to pool for qualified writers that have been trained to write assessment items. Our first training period has begun for new item writers, but you haven’t missed out. Show your interest in joining the TAG by filling out our brief form at bit.ly/TRSItemWriting (caps matter in the link). You’ll receive 3 hours of Continuing Professional Education (CPE) credits upon successful completion of the training. When you then complete your first contract of 10 items, you will receive an additional 12 hours of CPE and $45 per item! After that, you’ll be eligible to accept future contracts as your schedule allows. Sign up today!
Team Updates
Renee Blackmon retired in August after almost 10 years as a TRS Social Studies Program Manager and almost 30 years in education. She previously worked as a Travis County Jailer, City of Austin Police Officer, a teacher in Hays ISD and Round Rock ISD, and an instructional coach in Round Rock. She is a prolific crafter including paper arts, painting, die cuts, and quilting. She has added great value to the social studies curriculum and assessment. We wish her the best on her travels and adventures to come.
We also welcome Meghan Dougherty as our newest TRS K-12 Social Studies Specialist. She brings a wealth of worldly and professional experience to the team. Meghan volunteered with the Peace Corp and traveled abroad in Europe and South America teaching English. She also taught social studies in Virginia before she landed here in Texas. Meghan served almost ten years as social studies instructional coach in Round Rock ISD before taking on the role of an assistant principal of instruction. Meghan started with us in June and we are excited about the talent she brings to the team and the new ways she can help make TRS social studies even stronger.
