Month: March 2019

I thought tonight’s class was very helpful, insightful, and beneficial to elementary social studies instruction. Reviewing the list of stereotypical/bias books that are used in the classroom setting was incredibly eye-opening for me. While I know that these gender, cultural, and racial stereotypes exist in our past and current literature, the topography of those issues weren’t as obvious to me as they were tonight. Demonstrating tokenism in literature was helpful in recognizing those pieces, even if subtle. For me, that brings up the larger issue  about teaching to the difficult subject areas in elementary in a safe and appropriate way. There are so many pieces to consider to ensure that you are able to teach about subjects such as slavery and the Native American’s without bias or stereotypes included in your content. I wonder, are the books that we looked at on the website placed on a ban list for classroom literature, or was this just a representation of books that teachers are using in their own lessons? Also, was Happy Birthday, Mr. President removed from just Scholastic or pulled from shelves altogether? I would love a curated list of books without these bias/stereotypes to keep in my toolbox for the future. If I am being honest, this practice left me feeling a sort of particular ignorance about my ability to immediately recognize the stereotypes or biases in literature without this guided activity. I am happy to have been given this experience to mold my decision-making moving forward.

I appreciated the lesson review, especially since we were able to look at assessment/instruction at the first-grade level. For me, this activity was beneficial in many ways and forced me to think outside of the box. I do think it was difficult to look at the lesson/assessment first and then work backwards to do the actual design but I was able to work through some of that using UBD strategies.

I enjoyed the sticky note predictions paired with the gallery walk. I think the ‘I notice’ and ‘I wonder’ presents a good opportunity for students to have an open and creative discussion in small-groups, pairs, or whole-group. The map activity was a nice way to introduce map instruction. Specifically,  I thought that the opportunity to compare the two maps was a strong closure to the activity. It allowed us to compare and contrast the maps, but also to explore our inferences and ‘I wonder/notice’ observations. What resonated with me the most from our class was the closure activity. I liked that the 12 questions provided student choice and a variety of angles to communicate our thoughts. Having a variety of choices will hopefully deter students from repeating after their peers, demonstrating a lack of creativity and critical thinking in their own responses.

In reflection of our semester thus far, I feel as though we’ve spent so much time on teaching social studies to upper elementary. I don’t feel like I’ve had an opportunity to create a toolbox for the lower elementary grades regarding this content. While I understand that the more in-depth strategies used in social studies are targeted in the higher grades, I’d like to learn about other K-2 strategies that relate to the skills progression chart that was provided. While I think that the activities in the classroom are beneficial for teaching students how to ask questions, make observations, and infer about primary sources, I am starting to feel as though we are engaging in very similar activities each week. I did enjoy the Jamestown activity but I just feel like it was an extension of the same thing we’ve been doing all semester. I would like to have an opportunity to learn more about specific content areas in social studies with a variety of creative assignments for instruction.  I think overall, I just want to be challenged more instructionally in the classroom.

The presentation on the document-based questioning was so interesting! I really enjoyed the opportunity to learn more about the DBQ from such experienced teachers. Outside of special education, my biggest passion has always been to teach kindergarten. Just hearing their thought processes about being a pilgrim or a native-american, really demonstrated their ability to make decisions using critical thinking. There were 10-12 standards that were addressed in the DBQ and across curricular areas that made the entire assessment really strong. I thought that it was a very well-thought-out lesson overall. I liked that they are already thinking about ways to improve the assessment for the next year, including the rubric. I wonder what the process is like to introduce the DBQ to administration or if there is approval needed before implementation. I also think it would be cool to have these same students replicate this DBQ in the fourth-grade when Virginia history is introduced to see how their thought process has grown with this content.

Looking toward the assessment project, I think that we have had a lot of opportunities in class to observe bad examples of assessment.  I wish that we had reviewed examples of what a great assessment looks like, outside of the expectations of the rubric. I did like working through bad examples of the rubric itself. It was a good way for me apply my knowledge of assessment.