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THATS ALL FOLKS!

There was a lot that I felt I needed to get out of this course because I for one knows that I have always had a hard time with social studies. Most people get anxiety about math or science, not me! In fact I never did good in social studies and I always was anxious about tests, homework, and projects. I do not want to put this same anxiety that I have onto my students, I know that this is one of the worst things I could do. HOWEVER, now that I have gone through this course, gained skills, learned teaching methods, learned about the learning cycle, gained new ideas, and so much more I feel confident that I can in fact teach social studies. Not the way my teachers taught me, where it was direct instruction all the time, memorizing facts, concepts and ideas, then being told to make sense of it all on my own. I learned how to make social studies fun, engaging, exciting, and meaningful, powerful, valuable! I learned that I can in fact create inquiry lesson, this is something I never knew was possible. I thought "How would I make a inquiry lesson where students discover the ideas and knowledge, when there are only facts to memorize".

I enjoyed learning about how to create tests for social studies classroom and in fact for all subjects. I learned about divergent questions and the benefits to them. They are why, how, if questions, not just asking students to give facts. These are crucial to get the student to show you their true understanding of the things they have learned. memorizing what the Columbian exchange is, is not very hard, but having the students show why it happened, what events led up to the exchange and how is has affected the people in the western and eastern hemisphere is a lot more powerful. I also learned how to set up multiple choice questions, making sure that there are proper distracter answers. Along with multiple choices I learned how to right true/false and essay questions. This is important because I have yet to learn proper testing ways and now I have finally gained the ability to properly assess the student’s knowledge that they have gained throughout the lesson or unit or even the entire year.

Other things that I learned are the elements to a truly wonderful social studies lesson, making it meaningful. This means that the student can see a connection to their own life; this makes it easier to learn because they see the connection and they see the affects it has on their lives. Make the lesson integrative, this means that bring social studies into the classroom during all lessons. Social studies should not just be taught within the 40 minute time slot it gets every other day, teachers should realize that it is apart of things such as creating rules and routines in the class, civics. May even be teaching students a math strategy and a quick glimpse of the history behind it. Then making the lesson value-based is critical, bringing respect and appreciation of students for others into the lesson. This is easily done, having students bring in a piece of their heritage and sharing it among their peers. Students will gain knowledge and respect for other cultures, traditions, and backgrounds. This also means that to make the most out of the lesson and make it the most valuable, the teacher needs to make sure the students are using their critical thinking skills and decision making skills. Make the lesson challenging! Students want to have to put in effort, feeding them facts to memorize does not do this. Challenge them to put their knowledge to use, create something, figure something out, make a decision. This goes hand in hand with making the lesson active, engage the students minds in the lesson.

I learned about the 5 strands of social studies and the ability the teacher should have to integrate different lessons using multiple strands. One unit should touch on all of the strands in my opinion, this will make sure the student gains the most they can.

ARTIFACT BAG! This was a great piece of knowledge, a great idea for a lesson that can be used in soo many different ways. It is great to use in the lesson, as a starter, as the actual lesson, or even as a closing activity for the entire unit. It is so versatile and fun; this has student use the knowledge that they have along with their critical thinking skills to convey an understanding for the artifacts!

I learned to use my colleagues as resources because they are full of great ideas and strategies that I can use to be successful in my classroom!

I feel this semester was successful for me, I gained the knowledge that I wanted to for the time we had, I learned about different lessons, things I can do to engage my students and how to be the best social studies teacher I can be. It is hard to really integrate fun inquiry based lesson because of the standardized tests, but I know through the knowledge I have gained in this course, IT IS POSSIBLE! I do not feel that I have failed in any way in this class, I always give things my all. I push myself to constantly do better and strive to be the best. Saying this I feel that I have gained so much. As you can see from what I have already wrote that there is a lot of knowledge, skills, and pedagogical knowledge that I have gained. I feel that the only loss is not learning every strategy, every method, everything. BUT this is not possible, we are given one semester to gain what we can and I think that I have gained a wealth of knowledge, a wealth of Pedagogical Knowledge! I think that this will only grow as I move onto becoming a teacher and experimenting with different lessons and providing my own assessment of my teaching.

 

Me know from me 3 months ago!

What a huge difference, I was scared to teach social studies, I thought that I would never be good at it! However, now I feel I have gained so much knowledge and skills that I can use as I continue on into my educational career. I know now that social studies does not need to be feared and I can successfully teach my students.. Now I have a wealth of knowledge, I have truly added to my pedagogical knowledge and as I move onto to becoming a teacher I will gain even more!

My teaching plans are to just be the best teacher I can be. I want to create a classroom where the students enjoy learning about social studies and they find ways to connect the knowledge to their everyday lives. I want them to have fun while learning the facts and concepts, so that they can make generalizations and feel successful. I will bring in these fun activities that I have learned throughout this semester and my past semesters. My classroom will be an inviting, relaxed, secure, and knowledgeable classroom!

Job Interviewer

I had a great experience during the interview process. I really Thought that it was a great activity that Dr. Smirnova should continue in all of her classes. It is a simple reminder of how prepared you are to answer these question. I really learned that when it comes to my philosophy statement I need to OWN it and be fully prepared to say it and give a quick explaination for why that is apart of my philosophy. I do believe in my philosophy, infact I do own it, but i have to show the person interviewing that I feel this way. I need to show confidence when talking about my philosophy and as short and sweet as possible explain it. I also learned that I have the ability to use all of the things that I have gained throughout this semester, my years at the mount, my experiences, my observations, and fieldwork to come up with great lessons on the spot. To give great explainations for what I would do if I were put in specific scenerios. Even though I know some methods of teaching I do now know I really need to go through many of the methods and strategies I have learned so that I can impress the interviewer and show that I truly do know what it takes to be a GREAT teacher.

I have learned you never know what to expect, I read through my text book throughout the weekend to refresh my memory on the learning cycle, the types of lessons, and so much more. But regardless of how prepared I felt nothing truly can prepare you for what will occur in an interview. You just need to come in with confidence, a great personality, and use all of the knowledge that was gained throughout your time at the Mount to prove you are the best candidate.

I really liked all of the questions. Some were very direct about what you would do in a scenerio, I was able to answer these more easily. These questions were like, what would you do if children were working in groups and they were not getting along and some students were not doing any work and others were taking on a lot of the work. I immediatetly thought of the best solution, JIGSAW! The questions that I found enlightening were the questions about color and music. I really gave the best answer I could, I said blue and classical. However listening to the responses of my peers was a great eye opener of how I need to view these types of questions in the future. The answer of tie tide and the music would be based on the activity or time of day. Some of my peers really thought about this and gave excellent answers, answers that inspired me! It is funny to think the question about music and color was harder for me to answer, but it was. When I had to use knowledge that i have gained throughout the years I had no problem. When it came to something your not taught, something that is more opinion and creative I struggled.

How wasnt this a valuable experience? With all of the teachers looking for jobs you neeeeeed to stand out amongst the rest. The more practice you get interviewing, the better off you are. This has made me aware of the preparations I need to take. It makes me aware that I need to go to interviewing seminars and get better prepared for my future endevours.

I could use this kind of role playing in the future. It really gets the students thinking, its also a fun and engaging activity. I think my students would enjoy this. I think something like at the end of the unit have students pretend to be specific people we have learned about and dress up and get interviewed by their peers. They must really get to know the people they will be becoming and it makes it funner to learn all the facts. :)

Assessing students and beyond!

Assessment is a great tool for teachers, it is beneficial in everyway. Assessment does not just evaluate the knowledge students have gained, but it assesses how the knowledge students already have, the knowledge they are gaining throughout, and importantly how the teacher is doing. It is crucial for the teacher to get an understanding throughout the lesson, if they are teaching in the best way possible. By assessing, the teacher answers the questions:

Do the students understand what I am teaching?

Do I need to make this more interesting because the students are not engaged?

How can I make this better next time?

Do I need to make adjustments within my teaching method?

All of this adds to the pedological knowledge of the teacher. It allows for the teacher to make the best decisions within their lessons, so that the students can gain the most knowledge from it.

During my lessons, my peers and I decided there were a few ways that we were going to assess our students, we started off with a range of diagnostic assessment tools, such as a pre-test, then we asked a range of questions to see the knowledge that they previously had along with the knowledge that they retained from the last class.

Pre-Test Student Work:

As you can see the range within the students work is great. Some students were able to complete the pre-test without any problems whereas others struggled to complete it with the tie given. Some students seemed overwhelmed and did not even seem to give the test a chance, where others new the answers and flew through it. Throughout the diagnostic assessment I asked myself:

     What do my students already know about the topic?
     Do my students understand the concepts relating to this topic?
     Do i need to refresh my students on the topic
     What alternative conceptions do my students have on the subject?



For the formative assessment we asked students to complete a vortex smart board activity. They were asked to categorize words or statments that fall within either "an expedition" or "a tour". The students did not stuggle with this at all infact they flew right through the actvity.

For the summative assessment the students were asked to complete a jeapordy game to see the knowledge that they gained throughout the process. Along with this we had a summative assessment handout where the students were asked to simple reflect and write three things that they gained from the lesson. Here is their work:

Along with this the students were asked to complete a Newspaper article based on the hints and their prior knowledge. This gave us the ability to see how much the students gained from the direct instruction lesson and the knowledge that they previously acquired. This was a fun and exciting activity for the students that they enjoyed and excelled at. Here is there work:

My philosophy for teaching

I believe that Social Studies should be meaningful...

• As a teacher it is my duty to analyze my students knowledge and skills so that I can build meaningful connection. Students deserve the opportunity to truly grasp the knowledge and skills being taught and expand their experience and viewpoints.

I believe students should be given the opportunity to construct their own knowledge within Social Studies…

•  As a teacher I want to provide my students with the opportunity to construct and develop their own understanding and meaning of things that happened in the past and present. I am there to support and guide this understanding not to simply directly teach facts and dates. It will in fact  help the student grow and develop as a learner in an environment that is engaging and educational.

I believe each child should feel safe and comfortable in the classroom...

•  I truly feel that a student must feel safe in the classroom, they are more likely to be open to learning if they are not distracted by other things. If they are at ease and they understand it is ok to try and make a mistake then students will be more apt to gaining knowledge and understanding. Social Studies can be a very overwhelming topic with the amounts of facts and ideas to know, I want students to feel at ease and enjoy the learning experience.

I believe it is my duty to build respect and appreciation of all students…

•  Every child comes from a different background, culture, and ethnicity. All students should feel accepted and appreciated for who they are, therefore I will make sure to build respect and understanding into all my students. By allowing students to bring apart of them into the classroom, students can gain knowledge of other cultures; their history, traditions, and so much more.

I believe students must feel successful...

• Every day I will do my best to ensure every student feels proud or successful in the work that they have done. Some children are great writers, others are great at decoding information, others are great at working with peers, and others work well with hands on things. Finding something the child is good at and giving them praise and feedback can only enhance the quality of work that student brings to the table.

I believe building curiosity in the student will motivate their learning…

• If a student is curious about Social Studies and they want to learn or make a discovery, their learning can only be enhanced. I want my students to be curious about the world we live in, this way they understand that they can make discoveries about our past and how it affects our future.

Collabing on a scavenger hunt!

Today's lesson was fun, engaging, exciting, and interesting! The students really found interest in this lesson, they were motivated to learn. The general theme for this lesson was going on a scavenger hunt, for clues. The students were put into teams and they had to follow a treasure hunt map to discover different clues to show the class to help them guess what explorer or famous person they were speaking about. 

There were do many great things about this lesson, the first was simply getting the students to move around and get them outside. Simply taking a few extra minutes to bring them outside made the lesson much more exciting. The students were given a map to follow, this also made it more exciting because they did not feel as though they were learning. The lesson called for all students to collaborate and work together to discover something. They really needed to use their critical thinking skills to perform the objective. It also called for their peers to use their prior knowledge and critical thinking skills to come up with an answer of who each group was referring to. The students in the group also needed good communication skills to get across to the rest of the class there ideas, thought, facts, and information.

Overall, this lesson went down wonderfully. It is something that I will do each year with my very own class because I saw how well it worked out. I do however wish that the teachers shared the roles of leader. I felt as though I only heard Corey speaking the entire time. I wish that my other peers had joined in on the teaching process. We all need practice putting lessons together and performing them, so this is something that i feel could have went better.

Bibliography.... some more insight on teaching methods

The students were able to successfully meet the objective for this session. It was a direct instruction lesson plan and the students were asked to complete a bibliography on the information that they were provided during the lesson. The fact that the students had to fill out a paper made the process a lot more interesting and fun; the students were actually engaged in the lesson. The strengths of the students were recalling the information that they were given because they were provided the information while they were filling out the form. I feel that they did face some challenges; because they were asked to write the bibliography during the lesson the students had a hard time keeping up. If they heard an answer and went to write it down they missed the information that was given during that time. The students seemed to be able to complete the vortex without any support. They were able to recall the information that was given to them and successfully categorize the information. 

Observing the students today helped me to get a better understanding of other teaching methods and how students react to it. I saw that having the students create something while information was being given to them was tough. They had a hard time catching up while new information was being given to them. I feel as though I would have student either create the bibliography during the lesson, but pause and give them time to catch up. Or I will have the students fill it out right after the information was provided to them. 

Having the students create a bibliography is a great method that I have learned from my peers. It is something that I will use in my own classroom; this activity advances many skills of the students such as learning how to write a bibliography. Simple things like this activity allows for the student to learn an array of things through one lesson. This activity was great for advancing the skills of the students in the class.

This lesson definitely fostered the critical thinking of the students, they were able to generalize the information that they were given to fill out a bibliography. They were able to analyze the information that was provided to them to fill in the writing assignment.