A report on the development of an instructional unit entitled An introduction to community study

Abstract

The purpose of this project was to develop an instructional unit to be used in teaching social studies to primary grade children in schools in Newfoundland and Labrador. The specific purpose of the unit was to introduce Grade Two students to community study using their own community as an introductory example. -- The format chosen to accomplish this purpose was a detailed Teacher Guidebook and a slide-tape presentation. -- The instructional unit was produced following a specific plan for instructional development. The content and format of the unit was based on informal and formal evaluation by educators at the government, school board and classroom level, and content and media experts at Memorial University. -- The unit was piloted in a Grade Two classroom. A written student test was administered after the unit was completed by this group. The test results obtained by this group were compared to those obtained by another Grade Two class, which was considered to be equivalent, that did not receive any instruction. Statistical analyses of the posttest results of these two groups indicated that significantly more learning had taken place in the class that had completed the instructional unit. -- Seven classroom teachers were given the unit to read and were asked to evaluate it through a questionnaire. The results of this evaluation and the formal evaluation showed a very favorable reaction from both teachers and students to the use of this instructional unit in Grade Two classrooms.