Month: January 2019

As someone who grew up with teachers who either simply shoved textbooks in our face (not literally…whew can you imagine?) or made copies of pages from other textbooks in an effort to teach social studies, I really appreciated the lesson modeled in class. Mind you, I found myself losing focus because I feel like we may have been allotted too much time to answer questions, but even so, the lesson was extremely effective. I don’t think I ever had one teacher explain the importance of looking at things in historical context, then again, I’m 33 and it’s been awhile so my memory could be off.

This new perspective is invaluable and this teaching technique seems critical to help students fully understand concepts in social studies.  I’ll admit that I wasn’t a huge fan of I say, you say, and so when it was first discussed, but after seeing how it can be used to examine different types of primary sources, it seems like a no brainer. One thing I might change would be to maybe say “so what…?” rather than “and so…” I fear some of us may have gotten caught up in the way it was worded thus keeping us from understanding the effectiveness of this model.

I do find myself stuck on the question I asked in class…how does an elementary school teacher find the time to teach this in-depth when faced with the tedious task of teaching to an SOL test in not only social studies, but multiple subjects?

 

I promise I’m not as Hamilton obsessed as it may seem based on my blog posts thus far, but when the term “revolution” was mentioned, the lyrics came to mind. “You want a revolution, I want a revelation…”

Class went on and I could not get Renee Elise Goldsberry out of my head, so rather than become frustrated by the revolving tune, I began to analyze what those lyrics meant and relate them to what we were doing. You asked for the definition of revolution and I had a revelation…vocabulary instruction can be effective!

Last week, I mentioned my complicated relationship with social studies mainly due to my inability to retain important information, mostly vocab. I can’t help but wonder how different I would feel had my teachers adopted any of the practices we discussed in class.

While not all worked for everyone as evident during “you say, I say, and so,” the common theme between most of the examples we either read about or discussed, was that each encouraged students to make a personal connection to the terms/material. As I mentioned in class, when a student is able to connect to the content in a personal way, they are more likely to remember. The key, in my opinion, is to find what makes your students click, what motivates them, and then direct your instruction/choose your vocab instruction model based on them. How does one do that?…By making the teacher/student relationship a priority.  Sure, front-loading information is crucial, but I also believe that it should be strategic to be as effective as possible…am I off in this thinking?

As I sit here, writing this blog/reflection…whatever it ends up being by the time I click “publish,” I have so many questions and feelings. I had good relationships with most of my teachers, but still lacked the ability to retain vocab. So were they onto something, but lacked the time to make the lessons more effective? They weren’t up against tests, but was there something else standing in their way? Was there any research supporting more effective vocabulary instruction models at the time?

Revelation: Vocabulary instruction can be effective

…but what is the best way to maximize its effectiveness and what stands in the way of doing so?

I hope this makes sense to whomever reads the 377 words above. If it doesn’t then know that I’m still trying to wrap my head around the disconnect between the instruction I received and the instruction I’ve being trained to provide.

 

I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with history. While I find it fascinating, I have trouble remembering the specifics of things so I tend to shut it out. Taking the Elem. Ed Content Knowledge: Social Studies Praxis forced me to bring that knowledge back out, but upon doing so, I realized the new ways in which I remembered history.

I don’t have much time for television, but I make the time to stay caught up with a select few, “Outlander” being one of those few. Well wouldn’t you know, I answered 3 questions on that test based off of historical facts I remembered from that show? I can’t even count how many times I read a question and was able to answer based on my having memorized every lyric to the musical “Hamilton.”

After finally passing that darned test, I started thinking about my future students. Sure, I’ll have those who can name off dates, people, places, etc., as required by the VDOE, but what about those like me? What about those who need to learn a different way? That’s when it hit me, to teach Social Studies, I have got to be inventive and bring interesting things to the table. I have got to get these students engaged and show them how to be active learners in a tough (in my opinion) subject.

My hope for this course is that I can learn how to be that inventive teacher my students need. I definitely plan on incorporating music and theatre (don’t worry, no Outlander…definitely not appropriate), but want to learn other ways to help history stick.

I’m looking forward to a fantastic semester!