A guide to exploring Discovery Education Social Studies Techbook in ten easy steps.
Step 1: Sign In to DE and Select Social Studies Techbook
Navigate to discoveryeducation.com or your custom URL. Input your username and password and select Sign in.
Select Social Studies Techbook from the Curriculum Packs section of your My DE homepage. You can also access Social Studies Techbook from any page using the Global Nav menu in the upper left corner.
Step 2: Navigate to Your Desired Social Studies Techbook
If your school or district has access to more than one Social Studies Techbook course, select the specific course from the Course menu.
Step 3: Select a Unit and Chapter of Study
Navigate to the Table of Contents to review the available units of study and corresponding chapters for the course. Select the desired chapter to continue.
Step 4: Select a Concept
Concepts are individual topics of study within a chapter. Review the Essential Question of a chapter and then select a Chapter Concept.
Step 5: Engage
Within each chapter concept, view the 5E instructional model. In the Engage tab, locate resources that create interest, generate curiosity, raise questions, and elicit responses that uncover what the students know or think about the concept/topic.
Here, lay the organizational groundwork for the activities ahead and stimulate students' involvement in the anticipation of these activities!
In Engage, students have the opportunity to make connections between past and present learning experiences.
Step 6: Explore
In the Explore tab, students are provided with a common set of conceptual learning experiences to identify and develop content knowledge, processes, and skills. Here, students often work together in teams, building a base of common experience which assists them in the process of sharing and communicating.
Located in Explore are resources to help students test predictions and hypotheses and record observations and ideas. Here, find interactive activities that check for understanding and provide opportunities for students to apply what they have learned.
You act as a facilitator, providing materials and guiding the focus, while your students' inquiry process drives instruction during an exploration.
Step 7: Explain
Explain provides students with opportunities to sharpen and clarify their understanding of content, including visualization activities, graphic organizers, and encyclopedia articles to help continue to build knowledge.
Students revisit the Essential Question first posed in Engage, and communicate their answers through Technology Enhanced Items (TEIs) or other formats.
Step 8: Elaborate
Elaborate activities encourage learners to expand on the concepts learned, make connections to other related concepts, and apply their understandings to the world around them.
Students participate in interactive activities, including document-based investigations and current events connections, and have access to related primary and secondary text and multimedia sources.
In Elaborate, understanding is demonstrated beyond Social Studies Explanations.
Step 9: Evaluate
In Social Studies Techbook, the Evaluate tab provides multiple options for student assessment, including brief and extended constructed response items and multiple-choice questions, and also includes multimedia review flashcards.
Evaluate content is divided into two sections:
Review: Students review important questions and answers related to the Social Studies Techbook Concept.
Assess: From the Assess tab, you can access a variety of assessment options to use throughout the Social Studies Concept.
Step 10: Access Reference, Global News, and Techbook Atlas from the Toolbar
Select Reference, Global News or Atlas at any time on any screen of Social Studies Techbook from the toolbar.
- Reference is a multimedia reference library for key academic terms and concepts and may include: details summarizing the concept; related places, terms, or events; videos and images; and primary sources representing the concept.
- Atlas is interactive, allowing students to toggle between many atlas features.
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Global News is a weekly video series to help students understand current events.