Month: April 2019

Virtual field trips belong in every classroom! Thanks so much for dedicating the majority of a class period to the virtual field trip presentations! What a great way to create a memorable image of what a virtual field trip is by allowing us to see it in action from a variety of interpretations! We each got a chance to experience what a virtual field trip is as a student and as a teacher.

As a student going on the virtual field trips hosted by my peers, I found myself wanting to experience the full field trip and wanting to learn more about each topic. I was truly engrossed in the Statue of Liberty field trip from the point when Lisa showed us how we would travel from Virginia to New York to get there. What a great visual and use of maps! I have been to the Statue of Liberty in person, but it has been almost 20 years, and I don’t remember learning that level of detail about the statue’s skin. What a fantastic way for kids to make a personal connection! They can almost relate to the statue by imagining it to have skin like theirs; placing pennies at each table to describe the thickness (2 layered pennies) created such a powerful, lasting image that is so understandable for students because it is concrete. Additionally, I agree with Caroline and Sarah (State Capital field trip) that kids will be more engaged in the trip if they see their teachers actually on the site of the field trip. It makes the field trip seem less distant by showing students, “Hey, I’ve been there, and this is what I saw while I was there.” Also, teachers can speak with greater authority and confidence about the location by having a first-hand eyewitness account of the location. There are just so many great opportunities for kids to make connections through virtual field trips – imagining you are on the Susan Constant traveling to Jamestown listening to the sounds of the ship (“which space will you pick as your own”), imagining the base of the pyramid as larger than a football field, picturing what the Monticello dome room could be used for, etc. If I get excited watching the virtual field trips, the kids will feel that way too! Just because the SOLs say that students need to learn 2-3 bullets on a certain topic doesn’t mean that the lesson needs to be limited to only those 2-3 bullets and that they need to be restated over and over. Why not instead create context for the 2-3 bullets that creates a long-lasting image of the topic for the students and a desire to learn more.

As a teacher taking notes about how I will implement virtual field trips in my future classroom, I was so impressed by the presentations of other students and excited to try to implement some of their research into my future virtual field trips. I paid attention to resources that I could use (ex: National Park Service website, Nearpod, http://virtual-tour.battlefields.org, etc.). I also took note of the way the material was presented. For example, I love how Deborah had great quality images with very friendly, student-facing language and she really invited the students onto the ship by the way that she engaged them and the directions that she provided to students. I loved Marlea’s use of the Nearpod questions as formative assessments. I haven’t previously used Nearpod, but I hope to use it soon. I think Stephanie’s use of QR codes to encourage student-directed learning was great. I have some experience using QR codes, and I think they would be a great addition to virtual field trips. I was really curious to see where the links would take you, and I am sure that students will be equally curious.

Across the course, I have learned skills that I can implement in my future classroom because we were able to try out so many techniques during the semester. The textbook, articles, and videos are great resources that I will to refer back to, but what has been most helpful has been the amount of collaboration that we have had with peers where we have actually practiced techniques (literature circles, analyzing source documents, critically thinking about literature, determining cause and effect, creating meaningful rubrics and assessments, understanding document-based questions, building background knowledge, teaching vocabulary, etc.). Hands-on experiences are so valuable because they create a lasting memory of how you used that technique and how it made you feel as a learner. For me, it makes me much more likely to use those techniques with my students because I have experienced first-hand how much more effective that technique was versus having the teacher lecture the same information or ask the students to read it alone independently. What I have learned this semester is how interesting social studies is and how engaging it can be for your students. It does not have to be and should not be rote memorization. History, civics, economics, and geography are full of stories and interesting cause and effects. As teachers, we just need to know our students, know the information, and plan ahead for how to make the information meaningful for our students. It does little good to have students memorize information for a test and have them forget it the next year. The social studies teacher’s role is to ignite student’s interest and passion for social studies by teaching them how to analyze the information and create their own interpretation of the evidence and make them excited to learn more.

This week’s lesson gave me some helpful tips to add to my teaching strategies. First, I found it reassuring to hear Professor Bland say that even she sometimes consults with other experts when she is not sure of the right answer (like in the example she shared about the Helen Keller simulation of being deaf and blind). It is comforting to know that teachers out in the field truly use their professional learning communities and also resident experts at their schools to bounce ideas off of and get advice. Second, the emphasis on “sticking to the facts” when communicating with students and parents really resonated with me. For example, I found the example of what to include in the letter home to parents on sensitive topics to be very useful. It makes perfect sense to not include in the letter that the topic may be controversial and to instead just communicate the SOLs that will be covered and highlight the activities that may be involved (and of course run the letter by the principal as well). However, before this class I may have naively included the word “controversial” or “sensitive” in a letter home when mentioning such a topic, but now I understand why there is no need to say that in the letter. Let the parents decide for themselves if they have any concerns over the skills to be addressed or the planned activities, but don’t unnecessarily create concerns. Third, I agree that teachers need to make meaning of the lesson for themselves first and prepare a list of questions that students may ask on the topic in advance so that they can be prepared regarding how to respond. This is really not all that different than planning for any lesson. With each lesson, the teacher should always do the exercises or worksheets first in order to anticipate where students could struggle and need extra help. I think this planning process is even more critical though when teaching hard history or controversial material. When teaching difficult topics, teachers cannot wing it and hope it goes as planned. Teaching with intention is so important when covering difficult topics so that you are not distracted when teaching them (i.e. figuring out what’s next in the plan); instead you need to be really listening to what each student is saying and truly understand the topic that you are speaking on in depth so that you can remove any emotion and remain grounded in the facts.

In our articles this week, I was surprised to read about Sophie Blackall’s link to the controversy over A Fine Dessert, a story about four families, in four different cities, over four centuries, making the same delicious dessert, blackberry fool. Sophie Blackall is the illustrator for this book that has become controversial because of its depiction of slavery as being easier and more pleasant than it was in reality – due to the enslaved mother and daughter being together, the smiles on their faces, and the page where they are eating the dessert in the closet. I was surprised to see Sophie Blackall’s name in this context of controversy about her drawings after listening to her speak during her visit to the University of Richmond. From her visit, I learned about her work with UNICEF and her advocacy for students from other cultures and the significant amount of research that she dedicates to each of her books. For this reason, I was taken aback to see her name as a target for criticism of her depiction of race issues. On the other hand, I can also understand and appreciate the concerns raised by critics. This is the perfect example to illustrate how sensitive slavery is as a topic to teach to children and how important it is to know all of the facts and to stick solely to the facts.

The question formulation technique really clicked with me. I think I will definitely use this strategy in my classroom. I love that it hopefully gets all of the students talking and contributing in their individual groups, and I think it is an easy way to enable student-directed learning. I like that all students have an opportunity to have a question or thought to offer even those who may not have otherwise had prior knowledge to offer because they can feed off of the starting cue/prompt. I like that the teacher can get a picture of the students’ thought processes and use that as a starting place for the lesson, but the teacher still has control and can redirect the lesson back to the intended objectives if students don’t ask all of the intended questions.

I also found the Four Reads technique to be useful, and I think I would use this strategy with my students as well. I like how it seems sort of like a hybrid between a whole group and a small group activity. The whole class can do the same activity but with different materials that could be differentiated based on reading levels, abilities, or student interests. It seems like many teachers encourage students to highlight as they read to look for key pieces of information, but I think that this activity would create higher interest and would encourage a much closer read than highlighting alone. I like the four step, incremental approach where students dive a little deeper into the reading each time. I think this activity would help students that have trouble focusing because it provides very detailed instructions about what should be done during each read. Since each read has its own purpose, I don’t think students would get bored from reading the document. I can see how this process would really help to improve student comprehension.

I find it helpful that we are practicing so many strategies in our class. This past week I tried to implement the jigsaw puzzle strategy in my 2nd grade biography lesson on Helen Keller. I am sure that it could still use some adjustments, but I enjoyed the practice of trying to create a lesson plan from scratch by choosing a strategy and then looking for the materials that could be used to go along with the strategy. I am interested to hear your thoughts and feedback on the lesson plan.

It is helpful to hear the stories that Professor Bland shares about the real pressures that we will likely be faced with in our first teaching jobs – pressures to follow the County’s planned strategies and planned curriculum pacing guidance. It is helpful to hear that we should be confident in what we have learned as best practices and to not necessary give up on doing a strategy that we believe will work well just because someone else does not agree with it (i.e. like the 4th grade teacher who improved her students SOL test scores by teaching the social studies content in her Language Arts block). I love the idea of teaching with your heart or with what you know in your gut is best to help your students learn and develop a desire to learn more.

Biography Lesson  – I felt that I didn’t make the best use of the time to work on the biography lesson plan. It could be that my process of creating lesson plans is not the best process, but at this point I am not quick at producing them, and it is hard for me to work on them in a group setting if I don’t have something prepared in advance to bring to the table. I wish I had know that we were going to have this time in class, then I would have prepared a possible idea or questions to ask of a partner. It takes me a long time presently to prepare a lesson plan, but a lot of the time is spent just on “google,” teacher sites, social studies sites, reviewing the SOLs and Curriculum Framework, etc. looking for ideas that might work. This research piece of the process is hard for me to do in a paired or group setting. I personally felt a little at a loss of what to do with the time, since I wasn’t well prepared for it. That being said, I feel like I have enough ideas from the readings this week and some of the ideas within my foursome table to work with to create a lesson plan after further research.

Dust Bowl/Jigsaw Puzzle Lesson – I loved this part of our class. It gives me an idea of how I could do station-like/rotation work with students. I liked the template/graphic organizer we had to use as a visual as we completed the activity, and I think that this sort of lesson would provide students with all of the knowledge that they need for the SOL. I like how it appealed to lots of different styles of learners – with the use of the music, maps, correspondence, and an image. It was helpful to consider that there are many different types of primary and secondary document types to choose from. Also, the example questions handouts from the National Archives were nice resources to try out. This is definitely a lesson plan structure that I would use in my future classroom. My only question would be, when using this lesson plan, how would you manage students who really struggle in class? If you have any students with significant behavioral issues, would you make sure that they are not the only student in a particular group for the “expert” piece that will report back on that piece to their original group? Would you make sure that instead 2 members from that group participate?