Constructing a Powerful Approach to Teaching and Learning in Elementary Social Studies

The authors' contemporary framework uses four commonplaces of education--learners and learning, the subject matter of social studies, teachers and teaching, and classroom learning environment--to help future teachers create powerful learning experiences for their students. The text's teaching/learning model focuses on constructivism, or how new teachers construct their own knowledge. It puts readers into classroom situations with numerous demonstrations of elementary social studies teaching, and provides substance and powerful strategies to help teachers implement today's standards.

S. G. Grant is an associate professor of Social Studies Education in the Department of Learning and Instruction at the State University of New York, Buffalo. His research interests lie at the intersection of state curriculum and assessment policies and teachers' classroom practices, with a particular emphasis in social studies.

Bruce VanSledright is a teacher educator and researcher at the University of Maryland, College Park. His interests include how teachers teach and children learn history and social studies, and how prospective teachers can be helped to become the ambitious history and social studies teachers of the future.