1. Curriculum Overview
The primary social studies program focuses on Inuit Culture in Nunavik and seeks to establish a baseline for creating responsible and active citizens.
The program encourages students to think critically, to question themselves and their surroundings. During the Social Studies periods, students read, listen, speak and write. It is important to observe these language components or skills on multiple occasions during the day, even outside the time allocated to language. For these reasons, teachers may choose to evaluate students’ language skills, even when social studies concepts are at the forefront of the lesson.
Table of Contents
The program suggests learning and evaluation situations that support students as they acquire knowledge and develop competencies. Additional resources and material are available on different KI platforms, which can be used to create an inquiry-based learning environment. Teachers are also encouraged to adapt or develop activities that support this curriculum, making it relevant and interesting for their students.
Themes
The program is divided by grade levels into four themes:
- My Community (Grade 3)
- Nunavik (Grade 4)
- Indigenous Canada and Canada (Grades 5 and 6)
- The World (Grade 6)
The four themes contain a variety of units. Each unit is organized identically regardless which program is being used. Each program identifies how much time is required to complete the unit, along with its objectives, assessment criteria, and culminating task; it also provides a lesson overview and cross-curricular connections to the unit. You can view the following video to have a better understanding of how each unit is built.
2. Teaching
Multidisciplinarity
Multidisciplinarity aims to integrate several subjects to contextualize learning and increase relevance for the learner. Using the same vocabulary in multiple subjects helps with language acquisition. Students must use a word more than 15-20 times before they can remember it. So using vocabulary in multiple contexts is the best way to acquire it.
Each program theme is also accompanied by activities related to other subjects, such as Mathematics and Science. These activities are optional, but make the Social Studies program cross-curricular, which in turn helps students better understand the role of Social Studies in everyday life and can also help them in subjects with which they have more difficulty.
A Elders-Centered Approach:
Elders have a very important role in Inuit culture as knowledge holders. The integration of their knowledge in different school subjects is conducive to learning. The competencies of the social studies program can easily be worked on with the knowledge and participation of the Nunavimmiut elders. Building learning and assessment sequences around texts, interviews and short films featuring elders will have a positive impact on your students. View a variety of interviews with some of Nunavik’s elders.
3. Assessment
Assessment in this program should be ongoing and reflect the subjects covered in the course. Formative assessments should be the focal point for teachers and students. These assessments should provide students with useful feedback about their work and allow them to track their progress.
Throughout the program, teachers will have opportunities to follow suggested Evaluation Situations that align with the topics covered throughout the unit. These Evaluation Situations are meant to be informative, and allow students to demonstrate their learning in an appropriate manner.
4. Resources
KI Resources Library
KI teachers have access to the resources library, a repository curated by the Education Services.
Contact
For more information about this curriculum, contact KI education consultant by Teams, email or by phone.
Melanie Schaffer
- Teams
- Melanie.schaffer@kativik.qc.ca
- 819 964-1136 Ext 250
