Month: February 2019

The VMFA is a place I have taken my children for years. Last night, I learned how to incorporate my love of the fine arts into my classroom. Even though our guide, Sarah, said distance learning was not available for elementary school yet, there are many ways I can use their resources.

I plan on teaching grades 3-5. If we cannot take a field trip or have a virtual field trip to the museum, I could download an image related to what we are learning and create a lesson around that. For example, 4th grade students in Chesterfield are learning about the Revolutionary War right now. I could find a painting of key Virginians or key events to help them visualize what life was like then. Similarly, I could find images of artifacts for children to analyze.

I think opening children to the world of fine arts is integral in their education. Yes, they have art and music, but including pieces into their core curriculum enhances the learning for each student.

The way assessment options were presented during Tuesday nights class was interesting for a few reasons. First, I had always been under the impression that giving multiple choice tests doesn’t teach the child the information but how to take a test. But what I heard Tuesday night was that multiple choice was a good method to test knowledge of a topic. I do realize these tests can be created either with low or high quality questions and answers.

Short answer questions can gauge if a child knows the material well enough to talk about it. Isn’t that the goal of teaching? I am looking at teaching upper elementary school, so I would expect students to be able to write down their answers and be able to defend them (This is the answer because….).

I guess what I  am concluding is that there needs to be a balance among testing methods. I realize short answer is not practical sometimes but I also think some teachers rely heavily on multiple choice tests in order to teach students how to complete an SOL.

This week I was able to take a lot away from the readings. I have always wondered best techniques to build background knowledge. How do you know how much background knowledge each student comes into your classroom with? Where should I begin instruction? How much background knowledge is necessary for success within the topic?

Chapter 2 in our text book was interesting because it gave me quite a few techniques to use in my classroom to help students build background knowledge. The tea party strategy seemed as though it would be the most interesting to students. Most anything that gets kids up and moving is a great idea in my eyes. This strategy forces children to discuss different ideas or aspects as it pertains to a particular topic, then analyze what they discussed to make predictions and activate background knowledge.

My question with this, though, is how will I incorporate this into my social studies block? The text suggests using a few minutes for this activity and then discussion, but will I have time in my day to allow this type of interactive activity? The social studies block is so short compared to math and language arts. I would hate to take valuable instruction time away. Also, what ages would this activity be most effective? I know my procedures must be in place and effective for this activity to work without turning into chaos in the classroom.

In my opinion, this would be a great activity to get students excited about what they will be learning next!

The greatest take away from this weeks’ lesson was the use of primary resources. We used this to piece together the life of Mr. Stohr, but this technique can be used in a variety of ways.

After reviewing the skills progression sheet we were handed, I was left wondering how I would implement this in a class as young as first grade? Clearly there would be differentiation and a more basic lesson, but how would I use primary sources with a group of 6-7-year-old students? Would it look more like a presentation of artifacts and a gallery walk in which students are allowed to move from station to station while observing and potentially handling the primary source? Then the students would move back to their seats for the remainder of the lesson?

I fully believe children learn with more depth and complexity when they are allowed to view, handle, and manipulate resources and this would be a fantastic way to extend a lesson on basic concepts.