Being positive in life

2.  What does social studies instruction look like
in the age of the coronavirus?
 How can I teach social studies to secondary
learners in the midst of the pandemic?
 What are the different recommendations I can
share to other social studies teachers that I
have found effective?

3.  What does social studies instruction look like
in the age of the coronavirus?

4.  “Building the airplane as we are flying it” – Our school head describes this era
of pandemic learning as such because we, teachers, are still trying our very
best in delivering the goods that our learners need—quality education. The
last several weeks of the Alternative Delivery Mode of education in our
school, Cayetano Arellano National High School, experienced a series of
successes and challenges for all of us and many other social studies
teachers.
 As a social studies teacher, I can share my teaching scenarios as follows:
 I Start From a Place of Social and Emotional Learning: As a teacher, I have to
be knowledgeable of the background of the learners I am to cater to. I went
to their houses and conducted a quick interview with the parents/ guardians/
carers of my learners to be able to have a survey of the learning environment
that my students have. Later on, I found out that there are many students
whose parents are not around and are not available to provide help for the
academic achievements of their children. Then, I was able to adjust the
lessons for them so that there will be ease of procedure in my class.
 Looking for Opportunities to Promote Relevancy: Helping students see
connections between social studies content and themselves is always
important—but engaging students in learning tasks is especially challenging
right now. Prioritizing relevancy can help provide a sense of purpose and
intrinsic motivation.
 Stay Connected. Maintain contact and collaboration with colleagues.
Although it is helpful to have a colleague review a new online activity you
created, sometimes the most helpful aspect is the human connection to
somebody who is going through the same situation.

5.  How can I teach social studies to secondary
learners in the midst of the pandemic?

6.  This has been one of the most difficult moments I can remember to
encourage students to follow the news. As two 8th graders said recently
in a Zoom chat:
 I don’t really bother to look because it is all about the coronavirus.
 There’s not much about anything else.
 In my Philippine history classes, we usually discuss one news article
together at the beginning of each period, and then three or four
students each present an article more formally each week.
 When we began online teaching in—for my school, synchronous classes
on an alternating block schedule—the news about the virus felt like a fire
hose, and I had doubts about continuing to discuss current events at all.
 Looking for feedback, I asked the 8th graders in early and late April, “Are
current events discussions too overwhelming right now?” They were split
both times.
 About half said that yes, it’s overwhelming. They commented that
“everything’s corona,” “it’s just depressing,” 'there’s a lot,” and “it makes
me sad that this is the world that we are dealing with today.” One girl
even wrote: “Whenever my parents put on the news or anything like that,
I go upstairs and play video games. I completely avoid it and try to only
do current events that don’t mention corona.”
 As a Social Studies teacher, we have to be connected with the learners to
be able to make them feel that even if the classes are online, their
opinions, ideas and feelings are being taken into consideration and are
counted. I make sure that I give them the emotional support basing on
the expressions of how depressed they were during the pandemic.

7.  What are the different recommendations I can
share to other social studies teachers that I
have found effective?

8.  Provide conducive learning environment for
the learners. I know that social studies is a
boring subject. And I know that most of the
young people today are not anymore
interested with history. So, what I did is to
provide a conducive learning virtual
environment to scaffold their prior knowledge
on Philippine History. I see to it that I allow
students to express how they feel about a
topic in Phil history. I made games related to
the topic which are interactive and which
catch the attention of the learners so that
they would want to learn more from me.

9.  My learners are like my own children. They
are always curious of things around them. To
be able to cater to their academic needs, I
connect with them even on personal matters
which will allow me to evaluate the
personality of my learner and so that I can
give a learning experience even on personal
matters.

10.  In this time of dramatic change, presenting
students with structures or tasks that they are
familiar with can have several benefits: a sense of
comfort and familiarity, a chance to build on
previous skills, and a focus on content rather
than a foreign task.
 Make students love the subject via making them
do things that they are familiar with. (i.e. having
a debate on certain issues, having a panel
discussion on recent events, and explaining
historical events and relate to current events.