ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the relationship between ideas and questions. Ideas can take any number of forms—facts, topics, and concepts. Ideas are the stuff of social studies: the people, places, and events that define the social world. But, knowing a bunch of ideas is not enough. Students also need to understand the role that questions play in thinking about and acting in social situations. Questions also give students and their teachers the opportunity to move from a traditional, “just the facts” kind of social studies to an inquiry-based approach. To conclude this first teaching chapter, we discuss the use of big ideas within Lee Shulman’s “Phases of Pedagogical Reasoning,” a useful framework for thinking about teaching.
