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Teach History and Social Sciences | Teach Creativity With Adobe and Khan Academy

This video is part of 'Teach Creativity with Adobe and Khan Academy'; a free, accredited course on the Adobe Education Exchange. You can take this course here: http://adobe.ly/Khancreativitycourse In this video, you'll hear from expert educators and learn why it's important to infuse creativity into history and social science curricula to help catalyze students’ learning.  You can view just the course videos in the 'Teach Creativity with Adobe and Khan Academy' playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLB7pbNktGmfQebBJquJdJcfG6Mdlg4QXC Subscribe now for more educational content from Adobe: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEgdeceOHkMqiGFiSGoNZEQ Connect with us: - Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AdobeforEducation/ - Twitter: https://twitter.com/AdobeForEdu - Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.co.uk/adobeforeducation/_created/ #AdobeforEducation #AdobeEduCreative #KhanAcademy. Created by Shannon Sallis.

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Video transcript

In history and the social sciences, we teach students to understand the complexities of social relationships, governments, societies, and how the human experience has been documented over time. Beyond disciplinary skills and content knowledge, we also must ensure students are active participants and engaged citizens, we have the opportunity to teach students to learn to express how they're both powerful individuals and part of a planet filled with billions of others, that local community and international civic life is important, and that we are all part of history and creating a shared future. Of course, the artifacts studied by historians and social scientists are often multimedia: everything from documents to videos, images, interviews, political cartoons, audio recordings, and more. One of the most important things we can do in the 21st century is to teach students to interpret, interact with, and create these kinds of digital and multimedia artifacts. Students learn to analyze and create media in ways that reflect historical and social scientific thinking and at the same time, they demonstrate the importance of civic engagement. Adobe's activities that extend Khan Academy lessons give students practice creating and communicating, with examples where students empathize with and contextualize the past by creating imaginary social media posts produced by historic figures, create professional looking presentations with ease on the impact of trade on global society, and demonstrate corroboration and critical thinking in a video that answers the question: "Why do we need government anyhow?" Let's hear how social studies educators in K-12 and in higher education use creative and digital applications to enhance students' learning and engagement in their subjects. Social studies is my favorite subject because I was a social studies teacher, and what I love about Khan Academy and Adobe working together to create these awesome lessons is that Khan Academy provides really, really great core content and Adobe provides the creative application of that core content, so that students can take those facts and dates and numbers, and really apply them in creative ways. What excites me about Adobe and Khan Academy coming together for social studies, is this is a way in which you can actually bring social studies to life for kids. As a former social studies teacher, I've always found that some students would automatically step into the class and say: "I don't like history". However, what I would do to engage them is to not ask them to write a paper, but to ask them to express it through their own artistic or creative means. This is where Adobe allows students to really unleash their understanding and demonstrate their comprehension in a totally different manner than the traditional test or paper. I've had students in the past that created storyboards, I've had one young man who - he really struggled writing, however - I would have him design or draw a poster or a graphic novel of his understanding, and he flourished in that capacity, even though teachers thought he had a learning disability, he actually thrived expressing creatively and actually went on to become a graphic novelist over in Japan. Again, Adobe and Khan Academy allows students from any walk of life the accessibility, really enhance and present their talents in a multitude of fashions. The combination of using Khan Academy and Adobe tools for education when teaching social studies or social sciences is really exciting because it gives students the opportunity to self pace their learning and creating. Often some students feel that they are ready to go beyond or go ahead, and that - and using Khan Academy gives them the opportunity to do that. It also gives students who need more time with content to slow down, to work in chunks, and so I really liked to have the ability to differentiate in that way. It also allows students to create a substantial product when they're finished with their learning, and it gives them a way to showcase their understanding. We know that to be successful in social sciences, students have got to just build a lot of knowledge and Khan Academy can really help them do that in areas like US history, world history, government, economics, but then students have also got to be able to apply that knowledge to engage in higher order thinking, and that's where Adobe can really step in because you've got these opportunities for creativity of applications using that domain knowledge in social sciences. So for example, you could be creating a video to summarize your understanding of continuity and change over a certain historical period, or making a data visualization of voter trend changes over time, loads of applications like that. They can get students really like engaging with the content, deepening their knowledge of it. I am most excited about the Khan and Adobe resources for social science, because these lessons ask students to synthesize what they've learned, while simultaneously asking them to consider how a particular historical event might continue to shape their world today. In addition, by asking students to make their thinking visible and create these creative demonstrations of learning, students learn that their voice matters. Students often internalize this notion that they need to wait until adulthood to initiate change. Rather than being passive participants in their classroom, students are encouraged to share and reflect on their work and feel encouraged and empowered as active learners and change makers.