Social Studies Distance Learning

For many social studies teachers, in addition to other subjects, shifting to remote teaching or distance learning has been a big jump, and quite frankly, one that many are not prepared for. There are several new challenges that arise when one switches to remote teaching, and in most cases, the way we’ve taught needs to change. To help with these challenges, this post will share social studies distance learning teaching ideas that you can use in your social studies class!

Social Studies Distance Learning Resources

Vocabulary Activities

Distance learning is a great opportunity to incorporate more vocabulary activities into your teaching. While we go into more depth about these activities in this dedicated blog post, one of my personal favorite tools to teach vocabulary is Quizlet. On Quizlet, you can create a set of vocabulary flashcards that is specific to the words your students are learning, and students can practice the words using flashcards, games, practice tests, and more! The Frayer Method is another proven vocabulary strategy which helps students think of words in multiple ways. Using the traditional Frayer Model, students come up with a definition of each vocabulary word, an image or picture that relates to the word, and examples and non-examples of the word. We created a ready-to-use editable template for Google Slides that you can check out here if you are interested! If you are looking for more vocabulary activities and you teach Ancient Civilizations, you might also enjoy these distance learning vocabulary activities!

Distance Learning Choice Board

Another great distance learning option is to incorporate student choice into your teaching. A choice board is probably one of the easiest ways to do this, as it gives students a variety of possible options of activities they can do, so they can choose something that is more interesting and relevant to them. Some of our favorite websites to use as part of a choice board are Ted-Ed, Duolingo, IXL, CNN 10, and Khan Academy, among others! You can view a sample of a choice board we created for middle school students here.

Country Research Project

Another favorite activity of ours has been having our students analyze data about different countries using the CIA World Factbook. There is so much to learn about each country from this data. You could have students look up key details about countries you studied earlier this year. While there are many different ways you can implement CIA World Factbook data into your teaching, we put together a simple country comparison chart for Google Drive that takes out any guesswork. We even included an overview slideshow that explains data-related concepts that your students might not know about! 

Historical Resume Project

Just because schools are not in session doesn’t mean that we can’t help our students with 21st-century skills! We love to incorporate job-related skills in the classroom, and there can be great connections within social studies. One creative lesson idea is for students to create a resume for a historical figure. Writing a resume is a challenging task all students must do in the future, but it’s not something that is typically taught, at least at the middle school level. A historical resume gives students the chance to research a historical figure and try to understand who they were before applying that information in a resume. To save time, we created this Google Drive template of all of the related files you might want!

Current Event Analysis Chart

A list of social studies distance learning activities would not be complete without incorporating current events, which is something students might be consuming more of these days anyway. One of our favorite activities to do with current events is an analysis activity.  Students will select two articles or videos about a similar topic from two different news networks and have to identify the similarities and differences between them. This helps our students understand bias and develop media literacy skills. You can check out this assignment template here. 

Social Studies Distance Learning Activities

If you are looking for some additional Social Studies activities for distance learning, check out our FREE guide, 5 Creative Projects to Ignite Student Engagement in Your Social Studies Class! This epic resource contains five different projects and activities to do with your students…and all of them have Google Drive components and resources! This makes them a great option for distance learning! Get access here.

Distance Learning Teaching Ideas

For more general tips and ideas related to distance learning or remote teaching, check out the recent video I made featuring 10 Tips for Distance Learning or Remote Teaching. While a lot of what we do here pertains to secondary social studies, the tips in this video can apply to any subject!

We hope you enjoyed this post! To learn more about Mr and Mrs Social Studies and our work, check out this page.