Elem Social Studies 02 (Caroline)

After the final class of the semester and my drive home, it is hard to believe that the semester is over. In thinking about all of the information that we have covered in the past 14 weeks I feel as though I have a large of amount of resources that I will easily be able to use in my classroom.  As I start to think about student teaching and I would like to to teach content during the fall semester, using methods like the jigsaw is a great way to help my students learn very valuable information.

The process of the virtual field trip and the presentation allowed me to see that while all students may not be able to physically go to the place in which we are studying, helping them infer about what it may be like there is a great way to cover different topics. As Sarah and I were able to take a large amount of information that we discovered at the State Capital and put it into a first grade content area. Working with a partner on this project helped me balance all of my ideas and work effectively to present information that a first grader would understand!

 

Thank you for a great semester!

As the semester is winding down, and I am becoming steps closer to being a real life teacher, conversations like the ones that I was able to have tonight are a great reminder that I am not alone. During the first portion of the class where we took some time to reflect on areas that we feel we are weak in, I was a little bit worried that others would not feel the same way about the topics that I had chosen. I was quick to speak up and self identify the areas that I feel I am weakest in and found that I was not alone. Personally, it was a good reminder that I may assume others have a better handle on something than they really do, and the only way to know that they also have questions is to speak up.

Considering again the type of bias that I may bring to a situation, I was reminded tonight that I consistently need to be self evaluating how I am walking into any situation. As someone who is not against working in a Title I school, I need to be extremely aware of the cultural differences that I may have from the moment I step foot into the community. Helpful reminders like the conversations tonight are a great way to see the areas that I have to grow and learn in!

Admittedly, as has been mentioned many times over the semester I would not say that social studies was one of my favorite subjects while I was in school. Ironically enough, however, the personalities of the teachers who were teaching the subject were in fact some of my favorite.  Maybe there is something to be said for that after hearing Lynn’s story tonight about the teacher that knew when she needed to use best practice rather than following the crowd. It was encouraging to hear that there are educators currently in the classroom who have been able to determine when is a good time to go out side of the box and do what they think is best for their students. I think personally that is an area that I find a little bit nerve racking. How will I know when to push the boundaries just enough to help my students learn that material in a way that is not reciting facts at them?

In reflecting through both of the methods that were taught last night in class, I am continuing to gain insight on the many ways in which information can be presented to students. Use the chart method that we started class with truly engaged my thinking. Though I had background knowledge on the topic as I was in the group who read the novel about the Civil Rights Movement, I still wanted to know more. Asking the many questions that we were able to formulate made me want to dig in even deeper that I had already done! This is something that I could see myself using in my classroom as it sparked wonderful conversation among peers.

Overall, I do feel that I am becoming better prepared to enter into the education world with a great understanding of the many methods that I could pull out of my pocket to help teach students!

Class last night was possibly one of my favorite this semester. I have always found the jig-saw method to be extremely meaningful during class time. Last night being able to participate as a student, but using my teacher frame of mind I was again reminded of the importance that it can play. Using this method allows for a wide range of documents and information to be covered in a relatively effective time. I have typically seen this done only using wide ranges of texts, so being able to see it done with a range of primary documents was exciting. I learned more about the dust bowl in the short amount of time that we had for group discussion that I would have otherwise.

As we were able to continue to work through this beast that is lesson planning I continue to find it very helpful to talk out the different aspect with my peers. Collaborating with other teachers allows me to see many different styles but also helps me craft my own. I am feeling more confident in my ability to write lesson plans and not send myself down a rabbit hole of trying to have each part perfect, but rather think about what will be the more impactful for students.

It’s hard to believe that the semester is almost over! Practicing many different methods of approaching teaching continues to remind me that I get the awesome privilege in a few short months of doing this in my own classroom.

After taking some time to process through last nights class I feel as though I have developed a little bit of a better understanding of the impact that literature can make in the classroom. As someone who loves books and plans on having a large number of them in my classroom, this is something that I am going to have to be careful about when selecting which books to allow in my room. It also allowed me the think to think about that fact when reading books such as some that were mentioned I never noticed the stereotypes due to the fact that I bring my own bias with me into a situation. As I edge closer and closer into stepping foot into a classroom full of children from different backgrounds I need to remember that my background will most likely be different than those of the students I am teaching. Tonight was a great reminder that I need to constantly be aware of my specific background.

After working with a partner on the lesson plan, it was helpful to see that process that a peer goes through when working through the template. While the lesson that was selected did seem like a lot of information to attempt to teach a first grader in two days, it helped me work through taking something that I was given and making it my own. As we talk about this in class, being prepared for this to be the case once I am in a school this was great practice. Continuing to get practice with writing lesson plans is a great way for this process that can sometimes be a little bit confusing to become more understandable!

 

 

After taking some time to think about class, I feel as though I was able to see the importance of starting off a lesson strong. Allowing us to see a map and spend some time looking at it making observations helping me to truly begin to develop deeper questions about all of the items that were on the map. As someone who loves poster paper and wants to find many ways to use it in my future classroom, walking around the room and seeing what different groups observed was a great way to see that while some minds may think in a similar way, not everyone always processes things as others. Seeing the connection between the original map and the one that we were given at the end was a great way for me to make connections to present day Virginia verse historic Virginia during 1606. Growing up in Chesterfield County, with Jamestown so close I have lost count of the number of times that I have been there on field trips, however, now looking at it from a teaching perspective I can see why it is a common trip. The amount of history and cross-curriculum that can be included into lessons about Jamestown is incredible.

Reflecting about the discussion about lesson planning I think personally it was helping to be reminded that the grade that we first get is not the grade that we are stuck with. As someone who works extremely hard for every grade, I know that I always have room for improvement. I will certainly be the student who submits them until time runs out, or I get a grade that I am happy with. It was helping to hear what exactly the social studies lesson plans should include so that moving forward I can make sure I approach them the correct way.

Each class that I am able to participate in hands on activities is a great reminder that teaching social studies content is so much more than having the student memorize facts so they can pass a test!

While tonights class seemed to be very term heavy, I do feel as though I came out of it having a better understanding of the many acronyms that come with being a classroom teacher. Assessments are still something that I feel like I am working through as there are so many options for ways to determine if students understand the information.

As someone who still thinks that I want to teacher the younger grades having the two kindergarten teachers come in and talk about how they implemented a DBQ and all of the components that come with it into their classrooms was extremely helpful. Seeing that this is very much something that I could help create in my future classroom was very encouraging. Learning the process of scaffolding of a big idea, such as would you rather be a Pilgrim or Native American allows it to be placed on a level that even the youngest learner can understand. Being reminded that students can think deep when we teach them to is so encouraging as I begin to think about how my style of teaching will develop over the next few years.

Looking forward I am interested to see how I could take some of the standards that are in the grade that I teach and implement something similar to what we saw presented tonight. It seems as though when you have the ability to step a little bit outside of your comfort zone the possibilities that it will create for yourself as the teacher and your students are endless.

After attending the VMFA for class this week I am extremely excited about the possibilities of field trips that they have to offer. While I know they mentioned that these field trips are ones that are currently geared towards older learners the possibility of having younger students who are allowed to attend is exciting. When looking at standards for a third-grade classroom, I know personally it is hard to wrap my head around the time periods that are covered in that content area. Having the option of allowing students to get a taste of what the time period looked like in terms of painting and sculptures would be a great way to spark an interest about the many events that occurred over such a broad amount of time.

One idea that I found to be very resourceful was the virtual field trip. Scheduling can be very hard and if there are not always resources to pay for the busing to the VMFA this is a wonderful option. As Maggie mentioned in her presentation, the use of technology in some cases may even allow the students to get closer with the camera then if there were there in person. This would be a great way for students to dig deeper into their thought processes. Using the kinds of questions that were prompted using the presentation caused me to view the one painting that we did differently. It would be exciting to see the possibilities that this would create in a classroom when there was more time and students were only focused on the painting.

As I begin to think about my teaching career, it is important to remember that there are many places and resources that are in the local area that I can use to further lessons that I am teaching in my own classroom.

In thinking about class this week, I was reminded about my time in school when it came to assessments. As someone who freezes up when given a multiple choice test, it is now very interesting being on other the other side. As I think about the kind of teaching that I hope do in my classroom, it is my hope that my students never think of me as someone who gives hard questions simply because I am mean or out to watch them fail. My goal in looking at assessments, is to test my students in a manner in which is reasonably fair and gives them the best opportunity to show me what they know.

The use of the VDOE website as a great tool is something that I know I will have to revisit when I find myself struggling to create rubrics that do not have my own personal bias at the center. Looking through the many forms of assessment I found it extremely helpful to see the break down of which question will help assess what certain thing in a student. I know personally, how to create an assessment is the portion of the lesson plan that I always find myself struggling with. I know that I want the end goal to be, and I often know the steps on how to get them there, but the assessing portion seems to carry a heavy weight that is intimidating. After last night, I feel like my understanding of the many times is much deeper and I would be more willing to use different means to determine a students understanding of the information that was presented.

Class tonight really helped solidify this idea of front loading. I know that it has been mentioned many times in multiple of my classes and I had always told myself that when I write my lessons I need to consider how important it is foundation of instruction. Between using the rate your knowledge organizer and the tea party activity, taking part in multiple ways that helped to build my knowledge as a student on the topic of Harriet Tubman. From a teaching perspective, I saw how effective this could be in a classroom with students who bring to the table a variety of knowledge on different issues.

One huge take away that I saw from tonight through the video, and then modeled at the end of class was the revisiting of the Hook/attention grabber that was used at the beginning of class. I know from the small amount of lessons that I have written that I often do not think of reusing something that I started a lesson with simply because I had not thought of it. As I begin to write a lesson for this class and in the future this is certainly something that I want to consider using. Personally, it was a great way for me to measure how much I was able to learn form the lesson. As a teacher, it is a great way to encourage students that they really are learning even when they feel that they aren’t!