Pre-service elementary teachers have many misconceptions about children’s interest in and abilities to learn social studies. They often also underestimate the variety of teaching skills that go into teaching powerful social studies lessons. Pre-service teachers who performed a self analysis of their own audio taped economic concept lesson discovered children could learn economic concepts and the teacher had an important role in the success of the students. They found that it was necessary to consciously plan not only meaningful activities, but also clear questions and directions. They also learned that engaging all of the students in the lesson was another difficult set of skills that requires both thought and practice from teachers.
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