About OSSRC

• What is the Ohio Social Studies Resource Center?
• What services and resources does the OSSRC provide for Ohio educators?
• Where is the OSSRC located?
• How does the OSSRC work?

What is the Ohio Social Studies Resource Center (OSSRC)?

The Ohio Social Studies Resource Center (OSSRC), is a collaborative effort of twelve partnering agencies, funded by a grant from the Ohio Board of Regents, and supported in-kind by the Ohio Historical Society. The OSSRC will:

• Identify and disseminate effective instructional and professional development resources and best practices to schools, school districts, and higher education institutions;
• Foster an integrated educational research and development capacity through a collaborative approach with Ohios schools, school districts, and colleges and universities involved in teacher preparation.

What services and resources does the OSSRC provide for Ohio educators?

The OSSRC provides links to peer-reviewed instructional resources that have been identified by a review board of Ohio educators as exemplifying best or promising practices. Available resources also include content and professional resources as well as assessment and general education resources that will support the work of  Pre K - 16 classroom teachers and higher education faculty members. The resources are correlated with the Ohio Social Studies Academic Content Standards.

How does the OSSRC work?

The twelve partnering agencies provide guidance, direction and content specific contributions in the social studies standards areas of History, People in Societies, Geography, Economics, Government, Citizenship Rights and Responsibilities, and Social Studies Skills and Methods. The OSSRC operates primarily as a virtual best practice center, with working groups drawn from faculty at Ohio ’s colleges and universities in cooperation with schools and school districts across the state. The OSSRC resources are available via the World Wide Web and are coordinated with other state and regional efforts to improve student achievement and teacher effectiveness in  Pre K  - 16 social studies. The website is organized around the Ohio Social Studies Academic Content Standards.

The role of the OSSRC is to identify best practices, and then disseminate this information to a wide variety of user audiences. The OSSRC convenes statewide review boards for the purpose of identifying best: teaching practices, instructional resources and assessment items. These are then electronically disseminated via the OSSRC web site in support of standards based educational practices in Ohio ’s schools. The peer review process insures the validity and reliability of each item for its intended purpose. The OSSRC also makes important contributions to the knowledge base of public and private stakeholders of education and to the expansion of the knowledge and databases for informing educational policy.

Twelve partnering agencies presently serve the OSSRC and have exemplified their commitment to working together to improve the resources available to Ohio social studies educators.  These agencies are; the Ohio Historical Society, the Ohio Board of Regents, the Ohio Education Association, the Ohio Council for Economic Education, the Ohio Council for the Social Studies, the Ohio Center for Law-Related Education, the Ohio Geographic Alliance, the Harvey Goldberg Program for Excellence in Teaching, the Ohio Association of Community Colleges, and the State University Education Deans. To access more information about the OSSRC partnering agencies link to their websites at http://www.ossrc.org/policy_board.php.