Class #1 Blog

After sitting through the first night of class there are a couple big take aways that I felt truly stood out to me about what the semester will look like. The first of these take aways being that during the class we will learn ways in which to teach social studies content through active learning. I know personally from my experience in social studies classes it has always felt very content heavy. There seemed to be a large amount of terms that just needed to be memorized and the idea of having hands on active learning was not a top priority. Learning how to still teach the content, but have the students engaged is an exciting way to teach and learn content that may be a little bit on the dry side.

The second large take away that I took from the first night of class the many ways in which curriculum and be integrated into all subjects during the school day. Using the different areas of a students day to help them earn material will not only help the student become more engaged with the content, but it will create a way in which for subject matter to be presented in many different forms. As I look to the way in which I will write lesson plants and in a short time teach my own class, I am very interested in ways in which to integrate this concept into my classroom. As the semester gets started this is one thing that I am looking forward to learning. Keeping social studies in a box that is only taught during that time creates a structure that does not allow much freedom for it to be used other times, knowing that I will have the skills to help it flow into other areas of my teaching is a very exciting concept.

I really enjoyed the first night of class and I am looking forward to getting to learn better ways to teach social studies content to elementary students in the very near future.