Importance of Humanities and Social Sciences

This assignment aims to educate learners on the importance of Humanities and Social Sciences, specifically History and Geography. It emphasizes how these subjects help analyze current societies, make predictions, and develop skills for design and technology. The focus is on understanding trends of change in communities, politics, economy, religion, landscapes, weather effects, and their impacts on people.

HASS AND TECHNOLOGY
DIGITAL RESOURCE
Name | Course Title | Date

Tab 1 – Learnings
This particular course is based on teaching the learners the basics of
Humanities and Social Sciences (HaSS). HaSS and Technology is defined as
the subject that deals with the humanities and social sciences aspect of
technology i.e. it is used to learn about the humanities and social sciences
factors that affect the development and implementation of technology (Yow
2014). This particular subject is extremely important to determine the
outcomes of many other courses although most people have the
misconception that HaSS is only general studies and have no useful purpose.
However, in reality, HaSS plays a very major role for the development and
implementation of the new technology (Herrmann 2018). For instance, if the
research and development of a new medicine depends on the study of
pathogens and the antidotes, very few people realize that the entire
research also uses humanities and social sciences to determine the nature
and behavioral trends among the people affected by the particular disease
(Monmonier 2015). In the learning area for the foundation year of this
course, the students will be gradually taught basic history and geography as
the course will be gradually upgraded to the study of technology.
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Tab 2 – Reasons for Teaching the Learning Areas
There are a large number of reasons for teaching the specific learning areas
to the learners especially the Early Years Learners (EYL). As per the Au
curriculum, the main aim of the school is to promote equity and excellence
in each of the students as the subjects are taught to them throughout the
course. The main goal is to teach the students such that each and every
Australian becomes successful learners, creative and confident and finally
active and informed citizens of the country. Before the learners move on to
the courses of technology and development, they need to learn about the
Humanities and Social Sciences in order to understand the impact and
importance of the subjects on technology and its development. While HaSS
has many high level importance and significance in other technical fields of
study, the beginning level learners need to learn about the basics to get a
head start on their future lessons (Weber 2017). This is why, most of the
elementary schools start the learning courses with humanities and social
science subjects other than literature and language studies. For this module
as well, the same trend will be followed as the learners will be taught HaSS
with special emphasis on history and geography. The beginners mainly need
to learn history in order to learn about past civilizations, their cultures,
religions, economy and most importantly technology. From the lessons about
ancient technology, the learners can have a basic idea regarding the gradual
progress and development of technology that will help them in future for
studying technology as well as working on it to develop even more advanced
technology (Mohammadi and Thelwall 2014). On the other hand, the
beginners are taught geography so that they have the basic idea of various
landscapes, climate, weather conditions and others around the world and
how these factors affect the type and quality of life on earth. The learners
will be able to have a clear idea on how the geographical conditions have
affected the development of technology throughout the history of mankind.
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Tab 3 – Knowledge and Understandings
There is a lot of knowledge as well as understanding that is related to the
curriculum learning areas (design and technology). In this curriculum, the
beginning level learners will be taught these knowledge and understandings
for their educational as well as personal development. However, throughout
the curriculum, the learners need to get hold of various concepts and their
applications on various subjects in order to gather sufficient amount of
knowledge and understanding. The curriculum is designed by following the
standard Australian curriculum and is aimed to make the students well
learned and confident individuals in the near future. The learning starts
from the foundation stage and it gradually culminates into advanced
learning process where the students learn to use technology in a practical
environment. The entire course curriculum has been designed such that it
benefits the EYLs and hence, the entire course has been built based on EYLF
(Early Years Learning Framework) (Grusin 2015). The concepts and ideas to
be taught in this curriculum have selected in such a way that the beginners
are easily able to catch the ideas and grow on the same. For instance, in the
EYLF, none of the students will be taught about European Dark Age or the
landscape of the Pampas in South America. Rather the courses will mainly
include early human history and basic knowledge of landscapes. These basic
lessons will act as the building blocks for the development of the early year
learners. The entire module will be completed in a number of phases. The
main purpose of the phase division is that it is necessary to evaluate the
knowledge and understanding gathered by the learners throughout the
course of the curriculum (Eve and Willinsky 2015). The first phase will
include the teaching phase where a number of sessions will be undertaken
to incorporate the lessons to the learners. The method of teaching may vary
on the special requirements of some of the learners. The next phase will
include the questioning phase where during the sessions; the learners will
be asked simple questions that are based on the lessons taught. The
objective of these questions is to find out how much the student has been
able to progress and gain knowledge on the lessons taught during the
session. In case the progress is not satisfactory, the teaching phase will
again be repeated for certain period of time (Miletzki and Broten 2017). The
next phase includes self research phase where the learners will need to
undertake minor research and learning that will help their personal
development. Due to the limitations of EYLF, the requirements are very
minor and the learners are only expected to find two or three pieces of
information from their own research using reference books and materials.
The final phase is the evaluation phase where the learners are needed to go
through a series of evaluation processes where their learnings and
understandings are assessed. This evaluation phase is undertaken at the end
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of each learning module and includes assessment from the entire learning
curriculum.
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Tab 4 – Role of the Stages of Inquiry Based Learning
Inquiry based learning is an effective method of teaching that has been
accepted in a large number of learning centers around the world. This
particular method requires complete involvement of the learners during the
sessions and they need to interact with the teachers on a constant basis.
There are generally four stages of inquiry based learning that play a
significant role in the learning of design and technology by the learners.
These four stages are explained as follows.
i. Interaction – In this stage, the learners are required to spend
significant amount of time in suitable media to conduct personal
research and study on the particular topic provided to them (Lee Jr
and Wallerstein 2015). Furthermore, with extensive research, the
curiosity of the students will gradually increase and they will seek to
learn even more by interacting with various types of media. Whenever
they are unable understand certain concepts, they will be able to
interact with the teachers in order to know more about the particular
concepts and ideas that they did not understand.
ii. Clarification – Clarification stage follows the interaction stage when
the student or learner asks for clarification on a certain topic or idea
that they have recently learnt. There may be a topic that a learner can
only partially understand and does not know to categorize or explain
the idea to get the actual concept embedded into it (Ossenblok, Guns
and Thelwall 2015). In this case, the student can interact with his
teacher and discuss about clarification regarding the same idea. With
an interactive session, the student will be able to classify the data and
understand the idea fully.
iii. Questioning – While preparing clarification of the ideas, some more
ideas may develop in the head of the learner based on the original
idea he gathered. With the growth of new ideas, some conceptual
based questions will also start to develop inside the head of the
learner that must be answered properly for his learning and
understanding on the particular topic (Gregory 2017). In this case
also, the learner will need to interact with the teacher who will be
able to answer their questions and fulfill the student’s curiosity and
quest for learning.
iv. Design – Finally comes the design stage where the learner will be to
apply the ideas and concepts he gathered during the learning course
in order to develop a practical design of his own (Davis, Torr and
Degotardi 2015). This phase is the most important phase of the
learner when he learns the practical implementation of the ideas,
which is quite essential during the studies of design and technology.
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Processes and production skills are required in the higher level design and
technology courses that generally build up from the four stages of inquiry
based learning phase. The skills define the competency of a student in the
development, design and implementation of creative ideas that are most
sought after in the field of design and technology (Akers 2017). Once the
student learns to develop new ideas and implement them in design and
technology, he will able to grow rapidly and establish his own designs and
frameworks for new technology.
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Tab 5 – Learning Connections
Apparently, there are no learning connections between HaSS and Design &
Technology. However, with in-depth search, it can be seen that both of these
learning areas are intricately intertwined with each other (Arthur et al.
2017). With HaSS, design and technology would not have been much
developed and without design and technology, HaSS would have no practical
use in all actuality. In order to understand the connections and relations
between the two, it is required to identify the main components of the two
learning areas (Neumann and Neumann 2014). While HaSS deals with
various aspects of human society like history, economy, psychology and
others, design and technology involves the development and implementation
of various technologies that are required in the near future. However, for
the development and implementation of the new technologies, it is important
to know about its impacts on the human society and vice versa (Clements
and Sarama 2014). HaSS acts as the building block needed to build up to the
competency in design and technology. Hence, in all elementary sessions and
learning centers, the main lessons start with humanities and social sciences.
Summary
This particular course aims at educating the learners in the importance and
significance of Humanities and Social Sciences on future and advanced
studies of design and technology. Since it is a very broad subject, the focus
will be specifically on History and Geography. Learning history is important
in order to understand the trend of changes of a particular community or a
group of people in terms of politics, economy, religion and others. This
knowledge is important to analyze the current society as well as make
suitable predictions for the future. On the other hand, geography is another
important that needs to be learned for understanding various landscapes,
weather effects and others. However, geography is not limited to landscape
or weather, rather it also includes the effects of landscape, climate and
weather on the people of various regions and hence, it is included in
Humanities and Social Sciences course.
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Tab 6 - Video
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Tab 7 - References
Akers, R., 2017. Social learning and social structure: A general theory of
crime and deviance. Routledge.
Arthur, L., Beecher, B., Death, E., Dockett, S. and Farmer, S., 2017.
Programming and Planning in Early Childhood Settings with Student
Resource Access 12 Months. Cengage AU.
Clements, D.H. and Sarama, J., 2014. Learning and teaching early math: The
learning trajectories approach. Routledge.
Davis, B., Torr, J. and Degotardi, S., 2015. Infants and toddlers: how visible
are they in the Early Years Learning Framework?. International Journal of
Child Care and Education Policy, 9(1), p.12.
Eve, M.P. and Willinsky, J., 2015. Open access in humanities and social
sciences: Visions for the future of publishing. College & Research Libraries
News, 76(2), pp.88-91.
Gregory, E. ed., 2017. One child, many worlds: Early learning in
multicultural communities. Routledge.
Grusin, R., 2015. The nonhuman turn. University of Minnesota Press.
Herrmann, A.C., 2018. Theorizing feminism: Parallel trends in the
humanities and social sciences. Routledge.
Lee Jr, R.E. and Wallerstein, I., 2015. Overcoming the Two Cultures: Science
Vs. the Humanities in the Modern World-system. Routledge.
Miletzki, J. and Broten, N., 2017. Development as freedom. Macat Library.
Mohammadi, E. and Thelwall, M., 2014. Mendeley readership altmetrics for
the social sciences and humanities: Research evaluation and knowledge
flows. Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology,
65(8), pp.1627-1638.
Monmonier, M., 2015. Mapping it out: expository cartography for the
humanities and social sciences. University of Chicago Press.
Neumann, M.M. and Neumann, D.L., 2014. Touch screen tablets and
emergent literacy. Early Childhood Education Journal, 42(4), pp.231-239.
Ossenblok, T.L., Guns, R. and Thelwall, M., 2015. Supplementary material to
‘Book editors in the social sciences and humanities: an analysis of
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publication and collaboration patterns of established researchers in
Flanders’.
Weber, M., 2017. Methodology of social sciences. Routledge.
Yow, V.R., 2014. Recording oral history: A guide for the humanities and
social sciences. Rowman & Littlefield.
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