Social Studies 11 Explorations
BACKGROUND
Curriculum Link: https://curriculum.gov.bc.ca/curriculum/social-studies/11/explorations-in-social-studies -- click the download links to read the Ministry suggestions for constructing this course.
As of 2018-19, a new Grade 11 Social Studies course has entered the BC Curriculum to bridge the mandatory K-10 Social Studies curriculum and the various electives available under the Social Studies banner in Grade 12, such as History Studies, Contemporary Indigenous Issues, or Comparative Cultures. This new corse, "Explorations in Social Studies 11" is an elective that provides Grade 11 students a chance to survey diverse topics in the Social Sciences or focus on some locally developed topics designed by teachers of this course.
This concept originated as a "shell course" to allow teachers to build and offer a Grade 11 course with no set content, just a set of suggested big ideas and a version of the competencies that are found in SS K-10. The latest version of this course on the BC Curriculum site lists a whopping 14 Big Ideas to choose from (with a suggestion that teachers can find or supply other Big Ideas if they like), and a list of 14 Content Standards, of which students should know at least three -- these are pulled from Grade 12 electives.
The open-ended nature of this course embodies the "choice and flexibility" character of the revised curriculum, with all of its pros and cons. Among the pros, this course allows for creative curricular design, interdisciplinary concepts, and a variety of learning methods. On the con side, this course creates uncertainty for school-based planning and amplifies the infrequent yet disturbing tendency for some teachers to simply throw a few things that interest them together and call it a course, rather than proceeding with a masterful plan for learning that makes sense of students' past and future learning -- an "easy way out" pathway to getting Social Studies course credits. To be fair, this can happen in any classroom but is more likely when the curricular standards are almost completely optional. Nonetheless, the course is here so the Pacific Slope would like to see this course grow to become a vital part of the K-12 experience for students in Social Studies, one that creates excitemetn for learnning in Grade 11 and encourages students to take one or more Social Studies electives in Grade 12.
The creation of this course is also an acknowledgement that the curriculum team/s had free reign to create a large number of senior electives, more than any one school could offer at the same time. Thus, some vehicle was needed for introducing these course themes, or giving teachers a chance to try a unit or two from them. Another issue to be resolved was simply the calculus of course offerings. It seems that without a reasonable Grade 11 elective, students are less likely to take a Grade 12 elective in the Grade 11 year, and thus Social Studies Departments were concerned about loss of overall courses and teaching blocks. Although the total amount of Social Studies credits required to graduate remain the same, creating a gap year was seen as the loss of an opportunity to enrol students. so the case for something in Grade 11 is there, the question is whether the Explorations course as described on the BC Curriculum site is gaining traction.
Regardless of the pros and cons, the course is here so the Pacific Slope would like to see this course grow to become a vital part of the K-12 experience for students in Social Studies, one that creates excitement for learnning in Grade 11 and encourages students to take one or more Social Studies electives in Grade 12. So how is the curriculum of this course playing out in BC Schools? In reality, the spirit of a "shell course" has persisted, and teachers are using Social Studies 11 Explorations for all kinds of purposes:
As one might imagine, outside of the most regimented Social Studies departments where members act as one, there will not be a consistent approach to teaching this course, perhaps not even in the same teacher's classroom from year to year. Our own informal survey of BC Social Studies teachers shows that most SS11 Explorations courses are indeed a hodgepodge of the list above, with many teachers still struggling to find the core of this course, and yet excited by the work because of the agency and creativity required to make it succeed.
As of 2018-19, a new Grade 11 Social Studies course has entered the BC Curriculum to bridge the mandatory K-10 Social Studies curriculum and the various electives available under the Social Studies banner in Grade 12, such as History Studies, Contemporary Indigenous Issues, or Comparative Cultures. This new corse, "Explorations in Social Studies 11" is an elective that provides Grade 11 students a chance to survey diverse topics in the Social Sciences or focus on some locally developed topics designed by teachers of this course.
This concept originated as a "shell course" to allow teachers to build and offer a Grade 11 course with no set content, just a set of suggested big ideas and a version of the competencies that are found in SS K-10. The latest version of this course on the BC Curriculum site lists a whopping 14 Big Ideas to choose from (with a suggestion that teachers can find or supply other Big Ideas if they like), and a list of 14 Content Standards, of which students should know at least three -- these are pulled from Grade 12 electives.
The open-ended nature of this course embodies the "choice and flexibility" character of the revised curriculum, with all of its pros and cons. Among the pros, this course allows for creative curricular design, interdisciplinary concepts, and a variety of learning methods. On the con side, this course creates uncertainty for school-based planning and amplifies the infrequent yet disturbing tendency for some teachers to simply throw a few things that interest them together and call it a course, rather than proceeding with a masterful plan for learning that makes sense of students' past and future learning -- an "easy way out" pathway to getting Social Studies course credits. To be fair, this can happen in any classroom but is more likely when the curricular standards are almost completely optional. Nonetheless, the course is here so the Pacific Slope would like to see this course grow to become a vital part of the K-12 experience for students in Social Studies, one that creates excitemetn for learnning in Grade 11 and encourages students to take one or more Social Studies electives in Grade 12.
The creation of this course is also an acknowledgement that the curriculum team/s had free reign to create a large number of senior electives, more than any one school could offer at the same time. Thus, some vehicle was needed for introducing these course themes, or giving teachers a chance to try a unit or two from them. Another issue to be resolved was simply the calculus of course offerings. It seems that without a reasonable Grade 11 elective, students are less likely to take a Grade 12 elective in the Grade 11 year, and thus Social Studies Departments were concerned about loss of overall courses and teaching blocks. Although the total amount of Social Studies credits required to graduate remain the same, creating a gap year was seen as the loss of an opportunity to enrol students. so the case for something in Grade 11 is there, the question is whether the Explorations course as described on the BC Curriculum site is gaining traction.
Regardless of the pros and cons, the course is here so the Pacific Slope would like to see this course grow to become a vital part of the K-12 experience for students in Social Studies, one that creates excitement for learnning in Grade 11 and encourages students to take one or more Social Studies electives in Grade 12. So how is the curriculum of this course playing out in BC Schools? In reality, the spirit of a "shell course" has persisted, and teachers are using Social Studies 11 Explorations for all kinds of purposes:
- to introduce students the topics that are available as electives to them in the following year (some Law, some World History, some First Nations Studies, some Human Geography, etc.)
- to explore topics from Grade 12 electives that they will not be able to access are their school because the numbers aren't there to support them (e.g. Genocide Studies, Asian Studies, Philosophy, Urban Studies, etc.)
- to reimagine some portion of popular locally developed courses that were set aside with the revised curriculum -- the shell course concept allows teachers to essentially run a locally developed course without going through the arduous Board/Authority Authorized Course process.
- to play "clean-up" with topics that are perceived to have been dropped in the revised curriculum (e.g. the focus on human development, population, and poverty from the old SS11 curriculum, or the "BC Economy" section from older versions of SS10 that focused on water/fisheries, forestry, agriculture, and mining); this may include topics that are featured in the revised curriculum but teachers at a particular school have agreed to drop
- to highlight and delve into topics that perhaps were only surveyed in past courses (e.g. Canada in WWI, History/Geography of British Columbia, a modernized and thorough treatment of environmental issues, particularly climate change)
- to include topics that seemed to be missing from past courses or the revised curriculum (e.g. History and Geography of "The North" including Arctic exploration, climate change and the Inuit, modern-day Arctic sovereignty issues, or histories of Africa, South America, and the Middle East, or a deeper dive into the immigrant and multicultural experience in Canada)
- to move away from History as the core of Social Studies and emphasize other areas of Social Sciences and the Humanities (e.g. Geography, Anthropology, Archaeology, Literary Studies (as they relate to place and history), Traditional Ecological Knowledge, Sociology, Environmental History, etc. -- usually a synthesis of some of these)
- to explore the Big Ideas for the course (whatever they may be) through local or regional history and geography using community resources, archives, museums, agencies, elders, maps, filed trips and site visits.
- to create unique learning experiences for students by wrapping the course around student-desigend inquiry projects, experiential or place-responsive learning, filed studies, community partnerships, interdisciplinary work (a popular option to combing learning standards from Social Studies and Outdoor Education), or use of theoretical lenses (e.g. feminist approach, indigenization, social justice or climate justice lens) to conduct community observations, learning, and action
As one might imagine, outside of the most regimented Social Studies departments where members act as one, there will not be a consistent approach to teaching this course, perhaps not even in the same teacher's classroom from year to year. Our own informal survey of BC Social Studies teachers shows that most SS11 Explorations courses are indeed a hodgepodge of the list above, with many teachers still struggling to find the core of this course, and yet excited by the work because of the agency and creativity required to make it succeed.
Suggested Units
- Global Population & Development
The old SS11 provided space for exploring population development, standards of living, and problems in global development. This unit revives these themes from the perspective of global literacy - a survey of political, climate, and population related issues. A "state of the world" study with a chance to practice skills with real-world and real-time data. - Sense of Place
How are we connected to the human and physical spaces around us? How does our identity and culture relate to the land? How do experience place and how do we represent these relationships? This topic may stand alone, or serve an introduction to Suggestions 2-7 below. - Local History & Geography
Find out more about the history in your area: First Nations past & present, exploration and settlement/development to the present, commerce and trade, environmental adaptations, geologic and landform history - Environment and Economy
An introduction to both economics and environmental dynamics & systems. The goal is to apply principles of sustainable development to modern relevant case studies. - Introduction to Philosophy
Who are we? Is there a soul? What is beauty? What is art? What is truth? What knowledge is worth knowing? How should reason be applied to everyday problems? How should we live? - Contemporary Indigenous Issues
Case studies in the issues that face First Nations in Canada and about the directions that "truth and reconciliation" might take in the next 25 years. - Case Studies in Genocide
Teacher-Led case study (e.g. Holodomor, Rwanda) followed by student-led solo or group case studies (e.g. Japanese occupation of China, Khmer Rouge, Armenian Genocide) - The Canoe in Canada
A look at Canadian history and geography through the lens of the canoe. Stories and studies from the First Nations, the fur trade, gold rushes, literary escapades, and other adventures. Tie-ins with woodworking and survival skills.
Bill Mason's Canoe. http://canoemuseum.ca/collection/