Working with Multiple Courses

Frequently, students who are enrolled in Knowledge and Employability Social Studies 10-4 are in the same class as students who are enrolled in Social Studies 10-2. Although there are similar themes in the two courses, there are differences in the learning outcomes. This will affect decisions that you must make in order to differentiate for students in the two courses. A full comparison of the outcomes from Social Studies 10-4, 10-2 and 10-1 can be found in Programs of Study Outcome Correlations for Social Studies 10-4, 10-2 and 10-1 .

A key difference between Social Studies 10-4 and 10-2 is in the examples provided with the outcomes. In Social Studies 10-4, all examples are indicated as "e.g.'s"; this means that they are intended to be illustrative, not mandatory, and do not have to be explored. In Social Studies 10-2, the examples in parentheses must be explored to some extent. Another key difference is the presence, in Social Studies 10-4, of Guiding Questions. These are not present in Social Studies 10-2. Guiding Questions highlight the big ideas in each related issue and can be used to support exploration of outcomes.

In Related Issue 3, in the 10-2 course, students address the foundations of contemporary globalization by considering the Bretton Woods Conference (Knowledge and Understanding Outcome 3.4). This outcome does not appear in the 10-4 course and, therefore, the content cannot be summatively assessed for students in Social Studies 10-4.

There are similarities in the Skills and Processes outcomes for both courses; however, differences exist in the complexity of the skills that students are required to demonstrate. When designing assessment tasks, it is essential to focus on the verb of the outcome to ensure that the assessment task is true to the level of cognition embedded within the outcome. When adapting 10-4 materials for a 10-2 class, it may be necessary to increase the complexity of the assessment task to align with a higher level skill.

Samples of how this adaptation plays out in an actual classroom context are provided in the Instructional Example.