Teaching Social Studies

Course Description

SSE3312 – Teaching Social Studies is a 3-credit upper-division methods course preparing elementary teacher candidates to teach social studies in grades K–6. It is the social studies counterpart to SCE3310 (Teaching Science in the Elementary School) and sits alongside it in most Florida elementary education programs.

Elementary social studies faces a documented squeeze similar to science: reading and mathematics carry the accountability weight, and social studies instructional time has contracted accordingly. The course addresses that directly, and the practical answer — as in science — is integration, since social studies content is naturally rich source material for reading, writing, and discussion.

Content covers the purposes of social studies education and civic preparation; the disciplines — history, geography, civics and government, and economics, and what each contributes; Florida's social studies standards and planning from them; inquiry-based instruction and the use of compelling and supporting questions; primary sources — selecting, adapting, and teaching students to analyze documents, images, maps, and artifacts; historical thinking — sourcing, contextualization, corroboration, and chronological reasoning; geographic thinking and map skills; civics — government structure, rights and responsibilities, and civil discourse; economics and financial literacy at the elementary level; lesson and unit planning; assessment of social studies learning; differentiation for exceptional students and English language learners; literacy integration; teaching difficult and controversial history age-appropriately; and resources including local history and community partners.

Most versions require candidates to plan and teach social studies lessons, often in a field placement.

Offered at approximately 12 Florida institutions with elementary education programs, including state colleges offering the B.S. in Elementary Education.

Learning Outcomes

Required Outcomes

• Describe the purposes of social studies education and its civic function.
• Describe the contributions of history, geography, civics, and economics to elementary social studies.
• Locate and interpret Florida's K-6 social studies standards and plan instruction aligned to them.
• Design inquiry-based lessons using compelling and supporting questions.
• Select and adapt primary sources appropriate to elementary readers.
• Teach students to analyze documents, photographs, maps, and artifacts.
• Apply historical thinking skills including sourcing, contextualization, and corroboration.
• Teach chronological reasoning and the use of timelines.
• Teach map skills and geographic reasoning at grade-appropriate levels.
• Teach civics content including government structure, rights, and responsibilities.
• Facilitate age-appropriate discussion of public issues and model civil discourse.
• Teach economic concepts and personal financial literacy at the elementary level.
• Design formative and summative assessments of social studies learning.
• Differentiate instruction for exceptional students and English language learners.
• Integrate social studies with reading and writing instruction.
• Select and evaluate instructional materials, trade books, technology, and community resources.
• Teach difficult historical content in an age-appropriate and accurate manner.
• Plan, teach, and reflect on social studies lessons in a field setting.

Optional Outcomes

• Describe Florida history and its use in the elementary curriculum.
• Describe service learning and civic action projects.
• Describe global education and cultural studies.
• Describe media literacy and evaluating sources.
• Describe local history and community-based instruction.
• Describe simulations, role play, and their appropriate use.

Major Topics

Required Topics

• Purposes of social studies — citizenship, civic competence, and disciplinary literacy.
• The social studies disciplines — history, geography, civics, and economics.
• Florida social studies standards — structure, benchmarks, and grade-level expectations.
• Inquiry design — compelling questions, supporting questions, sources, and tasks.
• Primary sources — selection, adaptation, and scaffolding for young readers.
• Historical thinking — sourcing, contextualization, corroboration, and close reading.
• Chronological reasoning — time concepts, sequence, and causation.
• Geography — map skills, spatial thinking, and human-environment interaction.
• Civics and government — structure, founding documents, rights, and responsibilities.
• Civil discourse — structured discussion, deliberation, and disagreement.
• Economics — scarcity, choice, markets, and personal financial literacy.
• Lesson and unit planning — objectives, sequence, and coherence.
• Assessment — performance tasks, writing, and document-based questions.
• Differentiation — ESE accommodations and ELL supports in content-heavy instruction.
• Literacy integration — informational text, vocabulary, and writing from sources.
• Difficult history — accuracy, age-appropriateness, and instructional judgment.
• Resources — trade books, digital archives, museums, and community partners.
• Field application — planning, teaching, and reflecting on lessons.

Optional Topics

• Florida history in the elementary curriculum.
• Service learning and civic action.
• Global and cultural education.
• Media literacy and source evaluation.
• Local history and community study.
• Simulations and role play.

Resources & Tools

• Elementary Social Studies: An Interdisciplinary Approach (Turner) or Social Studies for the Elementary and Middle Grades (Sunal & Haas).
• Teaching Social Studies to English Language Learners (Cruz & Thornton) — useful given Florida's ELL population.
• CPALMS — Florida's official standards and instructional resource repository, aligned to Florida benchmarks; free and the most directly usable planning tool.
• Florida Department of Education — the social studies standards and course descriptions.
• Library of Congress — free primary source sets with teacher guides; the best primary source archive available and built for classroom use.
• National Archives DocsTeach — free document-based activities and tools.
• iCivics — free civics games and lessons; widely used in Florida classrooms.
• Florida Memory (State Library and Archives of Florida) — free digitized Florida photographs, documents, and maps; the natural source for Florida history lessons.
• NCSS — the National Council for the Social Studies; the C3 Framework for inquiry design and position statements.
• FTCE test information guides — free from FLDOE, including the Elementary Education K-6 social science subtest.

Career Pathways

• Elementary School Teacher (SOC 25-2021) — the direct destination; requires Florida Professional Educator Certification.
• Exceptional Student Education Teacher (SOC 25-2059).
• Middle Grades Social Science Teacher — with the appropriate subject area certification.
• Instructional Coach and Curriculum Specialist — school and district roles.
• Museum Educator — Florida has substantial historical sites and museums.
• Educational Publisher or Curriculum Developer.
• Civics education organizations — a growing Florida sector given the state's civics requirements.

Special Information

Florida has a distinctive and mandated civics framework

Social studies in Florida operates under state requirements that go beyond standards, and candidates should know them:

• Required instruction under § 1003.42, F.S., specifies a substantial list of topics Florida schools must teach — including the history and content of the Declaration of Independence and Constitution, the history of the Holocaust, African American history, and the contributions of women and of various groups to American society. This is statute, not guidance.
• Civic literacy is a graduation and postsecondary requirement in Florida, and civics receives more statutory attention here than in most states, including a Civics End-of-Course assessment at the middle grades level. Elementary instruction builds toward it.
• Financial literacy instruction is now required for high school graduation, and elementary economics content is the foundation for it.
• Florida history is a required strand, and the state's history — Spanish colonial, territorial, Seminole, Civil War, and twentieth century development — is genuinely rich material with abundant free primary sources through Florida Memory.

Requirements in this area have been amended repeatedly in recent years. Candidates should work from current statute and current FLDOE guidance rather than from a textbook, and should expect district curriculum and adopted materials to reflect state requirements.

Teaching difficult history is a professional skill, and it is teachable

Elementary teachers must address slavery, displacement of native peoples, segregation, and other painful history accurately and at an age-appropriate level. The professional approach — teach the documented history accurately, use age-appropriate framing and sources, focus on people and their choices, avoid both sanitization and gratuitous detail, anticipate student questions, and know the district's adopted materials — is teachable, and this course is where candidates should practice it rather than improvising in front of a class. Knowing what state statute requires and what district materials cover is part of that preparation.

Integration is how social studies survives the schedule

Where reading and mathematics dominate the elementary day, the practical strategy is teaching social studies content through literacy instruction: informational text about historical events, writing from primary sources, and vocabulary drawn from content. This is not a compromise — content-rich reading instruction is well supported by evidence, since comprehension depends heavily on background knowledge. A candidate who can articulate that to an administrator protects instructional time and improves reading outcomes simultaneously. The same argument appears in SCE3310 for science.

Primary sources are free, abundant, and underused

The Library of Congress, National Archives DocsTeach, and Florida Memory provide enormous quantities of classroom-ready primary source material at no cost, with teaching guides. Elementary candidates often assume primary sources are too difficult for young students; they are not, when selected and scaffolded — a photograph, a map, or a short excerpt gives children something real to reason about, which is more engaging than a textbook summary and is what the inquiry standards ask for.

Certification

Florida Elementary Education (K-6) certification requires the FTCE General Knowledge Test, the Professional Education Test, and the Elementary Education K-6 Subject Area Examination, which contains a social science subtest. That subtest is content, not methods — candidates with thin history and geography backgrounds should prepare for it separately. The FLDOE test information guides are free.

Upper-division standing and field placement

The 3000-level number means junior or senior standing and normally admission to the teacher preparation program. Many versions carry a field experience requirement in a K-6 classroom, which requires district clearance and background screening — start that paperwork before the term begins. Verify prerequisites and field requirements locally.