Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to: create effective plans for implementing social studies lessons in the elementary classroom; explain social studies education in regard to curriculum patterns, classroom environments, and roles of the teacher; investigate the role of democracy and citizenship in social studies education; describe strategies that promote a culturally responsive learning environment; explain how curriculum standards may be applied to the social studies disciplines; describe learner-, society-, and knowledge-centered approaches to organize a social studies curriculum; explain how social, emotional, cultural, and educational factors interact to influence English language development in school; analyze the sequential progress of lessons directed toward the development of a theme in an effective unit; identify direct and indirect instructional strategies that are used in effective learning environments; investigate authentic assessments that improve teaching and learning; describe strategies to improve metacognition and inquiry in the social studies classroom; describe how to differentiate instruction to meet the varied needs of English learners; synthesize a variety of projects that can be incorporated in an interdisciplinary unit of study; describe how students can become map-makers rather than map-readers; explain the importance of studying history; describe strategies that promote literacy in social studies curriculum; and identify the keys to reflective thinking.