Elem Social Studies 13 (Molly)

Hands down, my favorite class so far. I liked the fact that we covered a variety of activities and I actually found the skills progression chart quite useful and extremely interesting.

I would 100% use both of these activities in my classroom and believe they would be most well-received/understood in upper middle school and all levels of high school. At first, I did not understand the point of the year progression document activity, but once everyone had sorted their evidence, I was surprised at how much information had been gathered + how many inferences could be made. Surprisingly, I have never done an activity like this before. I have examined primary sources in depth but never put them in order and compared them to other groups’ data. Also, I appreciated that the activity allowed for individual, group, and class collaboration.

I have done a compare and contrast activity with historical pictures before, maybe even the same ones if I am remembering correctly. I have always enjoyed it..however, I think we did kind of go over board talking about the similarities/differences that we saw in the pictures. Nevertheless, a great activity!

I think that as everyone is finding their groove, the class is becoming more exciting and moving at a better pace. Sometimes I feel like we spend too much time on activities that only need a brief overview because we are all older. But, that could be just my fast-paced nature. I do think yesterday’s class was much better. Regarding time, in my opinion, literature circles do not need to be as long. If everyone does what they are supposed to do and stays on track, it isn’t a complex task. — On a happy note, I do enjoy my book! I wish it were written for adults because the young writing is sometimes hard to take seriously. I love a good love story mixed with some murder and maybe some fighting but I do understand that the book is written for kids. I think it does a great job incorporating history with intrigue and I am glad that I hadn’t read it before.

Overall, I think the flow of class is getting better and I am happy that I will utilize the lessons provided yesterday.

Besides the reiteration of the “I say” format, I really enjoyed tonight’s lesson. I think I am the one person in the world who LOVES being given information and completing worksheets from it. I found the format of the assignment incredibly straight forward and I think the lesson did a great job of connecting a seemingly simple concept to primary sourced evidence. Nevertheless, I wish we had spent more time delving into other instructional methods. And although the sources were interesting, I think too much time was spent on one way of doing things. On a side note, I was surprised to learn how many people did not know what a primary and secondary source were before this class. When we did the formative assessment vocabulary lesson weeks ago, several of my friends noted that they could not give a definition of either. I think that just goes to show that sources were not an “important” or stressed part of our history lessons.

Regarding my reading group, I am pleasantly surprised. The book was easy to follow and quick to read. Like Mercedes mentioned, our group too stopped on a cliffhanger and I am excited to read more. I do not think that reading groups need to be 30 minutes. I am a big advocate for moving quickly and efficiently through things and I believe that if everyone talks and listens it can be done in 20 minutes. I definitely want to implement reading groups into my classroom but also make each role not as in depth as some of the activities are repetitive.

The two take aways that I want to incorporate into my classroom are stressing the importance of sources and highlighting reading groups.

 

First off, I apologize for my late post! I’ve never had a DB post due after class and the deadline completely through me off. I know the timing is WAY off but I still wanted to submit my thoughts on last weeks class/discussion.

First, I really enjoy the Social Studies book that was assigned for the class. Although I am not a fan of writing thoughts in margins and discussing the reading in depth with my peers, I appreciate the strategies the book offers and think it was an excellent choice as it provides easy, efficient tools to use in the classroom. Also, please don’t take my disdain for note-taking/book discussion personally. Ever since I was little, I have disliked note-taking and think it is something I will get better at/not find so difficult as I get older and teach more. My mom forced reading on me when I was younger and the result is well, me.

Regarding the vocabulary activity we did in class, I was torn. When you told us that looking up dictionary definitions wasn’t the best way to learn new vocab or fun for students, I was shocked! Throughout my entire schooling, that is all teachers ever made us do and get this..it was my favorite activity, probably ever! I guess for me, it worked and the definitions stuck. I loved searching the dictionary for the assigned words and drawing my pictures on the charts. Nevertheless, I DO understand how that technique doesn’t work for most students. I think the activity we did regarding “revolution” and “reaction” was a great way to enforce definitions into students’ brains while taking a creative approach to vocabulary. However, as mentioned it class, I believe it would only be appropriate for certain unit words that needed specific attention as the activity can be long and repetitive.

I am enjoying learning new ways to teach social studies as it was never emphasized in my elementary school. I think SS gets put on the back burner for literacy, math, and even science and I think it’s important that we learn how to incorporate it into our daily plans as future teachers.

Again, I am SOOO sorry for the late blog post and it won’t happen again as I’ve set a weekly timer 😀

 

Molly

I’m curious to see how this course will progress. I love history, but I haven’t had much luck with social studies teachers in the past. I never found  my classes engaging and always noticed that my teachers did not seem passionate about the past or how to teach it. I’m hoping to learn how to become a knowledgable social studies teacher that makes learning fun for my students. One hope I have for myself is that I can remain positive this semester and make the most out of my classes. One thing I’ve struggled with is feeling burned out after a full day of work and back to back night classes. I just have to remind myself that this is just one more step on the path towards my goal of becoming a teacher. I just hope I can learn more techniques about how to teach social studies to children and get useful feedback. Although I’m nervous, I’m excited for this semester to begin!