Month: April 2019

As I reflect on this class, I think of many things. I think of the projects we completed, the lesson plans we wrote, and the strategies we learned. What sticks out to me most, though, is how best practices were modeled for us.

One question I had going in to this course was how in the world do I make social studies interesting for kids?! I loved history so much that I have a degree in it, but not everyone finds history as interesting as I do. I really enjoyed stepping into the role of the student in our class because I had to work hard to analyze the content and work collaboratively to find the answers.

My favorite lesson was one of the first. We were shown a painting of the first Thanksgiving and asked to look at it for a few minutes. We were told to think about what we  notice and wonder. As a teacher, it is easy to pull the students back together before they really have enough time to process it. However, we had best practices modeled to us in this situation and so many more. There were pieces that my classmates noticed and I had not. I came away with questions I would not have had if I were only given one minute to look at the painting.

I will keep this lesson and so many more in my toolbox to use when I have my own classroom. Thank you for a wonderful semester!

 

This weeks class forced me to think about some very uncomfortable things about myself. However, as uncomfortable as I was, it is important to think and talk about these things.

It is easy to think that I am being considerate of the culture of those around me. Lynne helped me realize there are still some areas I need to be careful of. She was telling about an incident she had with a student who was being disrespectful and she told him he needed to address her with, “Yes, ma’am.”

I did exactly the same thing with a student that day. I have a group of students that I work with who are very difficult every single session. One of those students is an African-American boy, one student is an Asian girl, and two students are white girls. The boy and one of the white girls were being very rude and disrespectful after we had a whole conversation of expectations that day. I ended the session early and was telling them why I had done so when I was interrupted by these two students. I said, “Excuse me. That’s yes, ma’am to you.” That’s how I would speak to my children and it just came out of my mouth in a moment of frustration.

I did not feel good after that exchange, but it was because I had to be firm with my students. Again. But I didn’t think my words were inappropriate. After class I reflected on how I can handle that situation differently next time and instead I will model how I expect students to respond. It will be with a clear yes or no, but ma’am will not be attached to it.

Despite how careful I am, I’m sure there will be many other situations that I think I am handling correctly that I’m not. However, all of these situations will allow me to reflect and grow.

When I was a student, my social studies teachers did not show us pictures from history and have us ask questions. I really liked how we were to come up with the questions we had about the picture with little to no background knowledge. We were forced to analyze the picture instead of having facts spewed at us.

I will be using this strategy in my classroom, or some variation that fits with my students, in order to engage my students and create interest.

I think I could use this with students in all grade levels, but how I execute it will be differentiated based on the needs of my students. I could also use this as a differentiation technique with high level learners and lower level learners.

Overall, I thought this strategy was fantastic and turns the thinking and instruction back to the students.

Tonight’s class taught me another great strategy to use in my classroom. I have used the jigsaw strategy before, but never as explicitly as I did tonight. By being able to become an expert on my document, I was able to have a greater understanding of the dust bowl. Honestly, I never learned about this in school so much of the information was new to me, just as it would be for my students. Listening to what other “experts” had to say as well helped me to fit all the pieces together to see the big picture of what was going on in the Midwest during the Great Depression.

I would love to use this strategy in my classroom, but don’t know how often it is realistic to use it. There are so many great strategies to use and I understand the benefit of mixing it up for all of my students. Would I use this once every 9 weeks, more often, less often? I could also use this across the content areas, as well, as a way to differentiate for my high-level learners or my low-level learners. I really love this strategy. I just need help to figure out how often to fit this in to my curriculum.