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!