That's A Wrap!!

So I am finally done with the semester and finishing up all the "loose ends."  My Social Studies Methods class has taught me so much.  In order to teach effectively you must be able to teach alongside of other teachers.  It is imperative to be able to collaborate with other professional.  Our group came up with some great ideas just by discussing our thoughts and working with those ideas.  We also learned a lot from the other groups teaching experiences.  I was able to watch some great examples of what engaging teaching should resemble.  Though direct, inquiry and cooperative learning lessons are different in ways, they are similar as they all need to be engaging for students.  I learned how to further the students knowledge through these three learning lessons.  Technology is a must in the classroom these days.  It helps keep the students intrigued and helps the lesson come to life.

I will not lie...this class was challenging!  But so worth it!  I have learned so much that I will take with me as I move forward in my student teaching.  Thanks so much to Dr. Smirnova and my fellow classmates for providing me with such an awesome experience.

Native American Collaborative Learning Project Reflection

We participated in a Native American Cooperative Lesson in our Social Studies Methods class.  Before this project my knowledge about Native Americans here in the area was very limited.  I knew basic information about Native Americans.  Most of my knowledge consisted of Native Americans from the western United States as I lived in South Dakota for a three years.  Through this project I gained a lot of new knowledge about the Native Americans from this region.  I gained this new knowledge through working collaboratively in our expert groups and then reteaching the information in our base groups.  Our presentations went well and everyone did such a great job.  The only aspect that could have been improved was the way we presented our PowerPoint Presentation.  Our groups were somewhat large and it was hard for everyone to see the screen and hear the speaker at the same time.   Other than this, there was nothing major that prevented anyone of us from gaining new knowledge.

During this teaching demonstration I learned the importance jobs within the expert group.  We divided the work up and tackled the presentation information.  This worked well and saved time.  I think if I were to do this project in the classroom I would ensure that the students would have ample amount of time to complete the research task.  This project also highlighted the importance of working collaboratively and assigning jobs within the group.  The jobs were essential in completing the research on time.  This project also showed me the importance of creating Social Studies lessons that are engaging for the students.  The quiz that was created in the end helped check for comprehension and reinforced what we had learned in our expert groups.

This project was designed for college students.  I would adapt this project for elementary students by providing the research information for the students. The material could be printed off a head of time for the students to read and create a presentation.  Because the students are younger, the students will require more guidance.  I would assign the jobs within the groups so it would eliminate any issues of choosing their jobs.

This project can be related to The Six Elements of Geography Education that is addressed in our textbook reading of Social Studies for the Elementary and Middle Grades.  According to Sunal when students know about "locations and interactions between people and natural habitats" this helps them "understand events and places today, in the past, and possibly in the future."

I loved exploring the Native American history during this project.  I could imagine using this in my own classroom and will definitely adapt it for whatever grade I teach!

Kahoot! Quiz

Recently, I demonstrated this new website in our college classroom.  After I worked out some errors on my end, it worked very well.  I did not realize that everyone had to enter the same access code when entering the quiz.  Once we solved that issue, things ran smoothly.  The website is user friendly.  I loved how easy it was to add graphics to the quiz.  The graphics made the quiz more engaging.  If you know your material, it will not take long to create the quiz.  The best part is that the teacher gets immediate feedback whether students understood the material that was taught.  It provides the teacher the opportunity to reteach any material the students may not have understood right after the quiz.  I believe that this is the most important feature of the website.  The website also shares other quizzes that have been created.  You can search for quizzes that other people have made and use them in your classroom too.  What a time saver!!

The best part was that our quiz was featured on their website.  I got an email from the co-founder and lead designer of the website informing us of this.  So exciting!  He also shared with us the idea of having the students create the quizzes to check for understanding.  Great idea!

Current Events in the Elementary Classroom

When I was in elementary school, my teachers always assigned current event projects.  We were required to bring in an newspaper article and present it to the classroom.  We learned about the news but it was not engaging.  In college I had a professor who reviewed news articles from each country as we studied where they were located.  This was interesting and provided us with a perspective of what society was like in that location.  I loved this activity and found it to be very enjoyable.

After reviewing the websites our professor suggested I found a lot of intriguing ideas to use in the classroom.  I particularly liked this website that provided many engaging ideas of how to bring current events into the classroom.  The website suggests to challenge the students and ask them to identify why the news article is news.  Some of the suggestion they provide are:

Timeliness—News that is happening right now, news of interest to readers right now
Relevance—The story happened nearby or is about a concern of local interest.
Magnitude—The story is great in size or number; for example, a tornado that destroys a couple of houses might not make the news but a story about a tornado that devastates a community would be very newsworthy.
Unexpectedness—something unusual or something that occurs without warning.
Impact—News that will affect a large number of readers.
Reference to someone famous or important—News about a prominent person or personality.
Oddity—A unique or unusual situation.
Conflict—A major struggle in the news.
Reference to something negative—Bad news often "sells" better than good news.
Continuity—A follow-up or continuation to a story that has been in the news or is familiar.
Emotions—Emotions (such as fear, jealousy, love, or hate) increase interest in a story.
Progress—News of new hope, new achievement, new improvement

I like the idea of examining the news on a deeper level and have to students question this.  This activity promotes critical thinking skills as it has them constantly questioning and thinking. Another idea this website poses is to have the students create historical newspapers.  The students would chose a historical happening and answer Who, What, When, Where and How.

After thinking about these different activities,  it would differ what you can do with each grade.  I feel that a teacher would be able to allow the students to explore more independently in sixth grade as compared to first grade.  In first grade I would provide more guidance and structure for the students in what they are exploring in the news.  

In my classroom I would love to use a map and use yarn to link the articles to the location.  I also would have the students preserve the news articles as suggested in the blog featured above.  The students then could create books with all the news articles from that year.  The books could then be kept over the years for students to look back into history.  I feel with current events there is so much room to be creative in the classroom.  I am excited to use these ideas in the classroom.

Multicultural, Global and Civic Perspectives in the Classroom

I recently reviewed an article for my Social Studies Methods class about integrating multicultural, global and civic ideals in the classroom.  It was an interesting article that I feel pertains to all educators.  Their is a growing demand for students who have these qualities. Without this perspective, students will lack the ability to understand others' positions in life and be able to relate to these people.  The world will not be a socially just place without this global perspective.  Even with this demand, it is not present in the majority of curriculum in our schools.  In order to be excellent leaders and citizens it is necessary for them to be possess multiple perspectives.  It is our duty as educators to help guide the students.  I imagine that this might be easier said then done.  In a classroom a teacher could be presented with multiple needs of the students and it might be challenging to meet everyone's needs.  Though I feel it is crucial that I try my hardest to meet that goal.  I will definitely remember this article as I move forward in my career.  You can access my entire using this link.

Think Bigger!!

As we quickly approach the next chapter of our education, student teaching, we have a lot to think about.  One of the topics that always seems to be the invisible elephant in the room is high-stakes assessments.  I have a feeling that this is present no matter where you are at in your education or in your career as an educator.  Whether you support them or are against these tests, I think it is easy to say we need to improve these tests because, in my opinion, we are failing our students. I recently read this article and watched a video Standardized Testing: The Monster That Ate American Education.  I found this article very interesting and it makes a valid point.  We are teaching our kids not to be critical thinkers.  We are closing schools because they are not performing well enough on these tests.  These school usually have a high population of poor students or students with disabilities.  So, if students are repeatedly performing horribly on tests we just close the school?  How does that make any sense?  To me, it does not.  I feel as though we need to step up to the plate for our students and fight for them.  Something needs to change.  What do you think?

 "If we think about what our needs are for the twenty-first century, and not just how do we compete in the world but how do we live in the world, how do we survive in the world, we need a generation of people who will succeed us who are thoughtful, who can reflect, who can think," says Ravitch. The question is, does testing really provide us with a measure of how well students utilize higher-order thinking skills? If not, perhaps it's time to reconsider the use of standardized tests as a monolithic means of evaluation in K-12 education.

QR Codes in the Classroom

I am currently enrolled in three methods classes at MSMC.  Aside from my Social Studies Methods class, I am also taking Language Arts Methods and Math Methods.  In our Math Methods fieldwork we were assigned to work with students one on one.  My student was not engaged by the worksheets I was creating for her and I could tell she would enjoy a more interactive way to learning.  I thought back in to my Social Studies class and how we completed a QR Code hunt.  I thoughtI could use this idea in my Math Methods class too.  I was so excited to use what I learned in Dr. Smirnova's classroom about QR Codes!  I created laminated cards with different three-digit subtraction problems.  On the cards, I placed a QR Code that told the student the answer once she completed the problem.  It was a hit!! The student and teacher both loved the idea.  The student had such a great time with it she challenged me to create a math game using QR codes for next time.  The great part to this was that this project was easy and FREE to create  and view the QR codes.  Most importantly though, the student was engaged and had a good experience with math!

Every Kid Needs a Champion!

Let me start off with this:  I absolutely love TED talks.  These speakers have so many insightful talks on education...it is worth your time to check it out.  Go get inspired!  I wanted to share this particular video because it inspired me.  While the speaker is comical, she has a very valid point.  Please check out the video here.  Again, it inspired me and maybe it will inspire you too.  As going into the teaching field, we will be faced with many different challenges.  Some of these will be major roadblocks but you can always overcome.  You all had an adult or teacher in our life that made a difference. It's time to pay it forward and make a difference in another child's life.

Lessons Learned During First Fieldwork Sessions

Honestly, I am relieved that our first week of fieldwork is over and done with.  It was definitely stressful being the first group.  Overall I think it went well for our first experience and we learned a lot from this teaching experience.  We can move on now and grow from our mistakes.  I found that if you were comfortable with yourself and what you were teaching it made a world of difference.  As the week went on, I noticed that our group became more comfortable with our role and it reflected in our teaching and lesson plans.  I think our fieldwork group worked well collaboratively.  I recognize that we need to work on our transitions between the different sections of the lesson plan.  We also needed to work on staying in role to keep the students engaged.  This fieldwork has highlighted how the use of technology in the classroom is so vital.  The kids loved when we incorporated the Voki into the lesson.  We also learned the importance of time management.  I think this will come with time and experience.  I think there truly is an art behind being able to create a lesson plan and have it run for about the time allotted.  Our last lesson really ran overtime but we were having so much fun with the kids, and when you are having fun times flies!!  Now looking back there are a lot of things we could have done differently but we learned so much from this experience.  Our experience was invaluable and will make us better teachers for it.  

Can You Guess My Theme?

Below is my artifact bag that I completed for our Social Studies Methods class.  I felt that this project really helped us explore our unit theme "Goods and Services in Our Community."  I could see our group for fieldwork presenting an artifact bag to our class to help introduce Economics.  I tied my artifact bag into American History with Native Americans.  You can click on the image to be able to see the print.  

What is Up With Unit Plans??

Today in class we discussed Unit Plans.  We also discussed developing are Unit Plans for our upcoming fieldwork sessions.  A Unit Plan is the largest segment of teaching a key idea, a skill, an attitude or a value.  May consist of 4 weeks to a semester.  Evaluation criteria for Unit Plans are: Significance, Coherence and Relevance.  Significance is content that is taught is important to the discipline and to the student's need for powerful social studies.  Coherence is the questioning and investigation nature of social studies cuts across all parts of the unit and across the curriculum. Relevance is the content, activities and the breadth of experiences in the Social Studies unit reflect the student's current life, future goals, and aspirations.

We also learned about different types of Unit Plans.  Descriptive Content-Focused Unit Plans are focused on the student's acquisition of knowledge.  Thinking Skills-Focused Unit Plans focus less on content and more about the process of developing inquiry and thinking skills.  Theme Focused Unit Plans cut across Social Studies topics and integrate other subject areas.  Problem-Solving Unit Plans are an attempt to solve an issue or a problem relevant to an individual, a group or society as a whole. Unit Plans can also be disciplined based, parallel, interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary.
 
We also discussed different methods of planning our Unit Plans.  One of the examples that was shown to us in class was a Planning Wheel.  Out of all the different methods shown to us, I like this one the best and I could myself using this in my own class.

With the Planning Wheel the teacher would start with the Social Studies topics in the outermost ring.  Then add subjects (science, ELA, math, Arts, etc.) that fit in the second, third, etc. all the way to the center of the ring which is student's achievement. 

So far, we have learned SO much on how a well organized lesson plan should be and how to make the Unit Plans engaging for students.  It is definitely a lot to take in but I feel like I am finally understanding the process better!

Using Visual Mapping to Explore Unit Plans

Above is a picture of my visual map that I created to lay out the different parts of unit plans.  I found this activity to be very helpful in remembering all aspects of the unit plan and was fun to do at the same time.  If you do not know what a visual map is, check it out here.  More to come later this week on what I have learned about effective unit plans and how to implement them!

Inspiring Young Historians Through Artifact Bags

For students to be motivated to actively learn about history you must first inspire them to do so.  Being able to touch and see history will help activate their thinking and immerse them into history.  I think artifact bags are just the right way to activate Cambourne's engagement theory as it is stated in the article we read for class.  (If you do not remember what Cambourne's engagement theory is, check it out here.  This concept is critical in creating a successful classroom. For those of you who are not in our Social Studies Methods class with Dr. Smirnova...an artifact bag is when you select a collection of artifacts that relate to a historical topic you may be introducing or it could be used as a get to know you project.  The artifacts are then wrapped up, so that the student may discover each one separately.  This really does add to the experience for the children I believe.  Then, just place them in a little bag and you have got yourself an artifact bag!  A teacher could use this at the beginning of a unit to introduce a new historical period.  Artifact bags could also be used to introduce primary sources.  Students could also use artifact bags in creative writing.  After discovering the items, they would then be responsible for creating the character and writing a story about this new character's journey.  Artifact bags could also be used as a really nice way to get to know your students and to show them your history.  Some tips to remember when creating your collection of artifacts and presenting the lesson are:

• The teacher must first model how to discover an artifact bag.  One must actually walk through the process, "telling" is not sufficient enough.  
• Talk aloud about what you are thinking about as you walk through the process.  
• Ask the students' plenty of quality questions that help guide them in their discoveries.  
• Help them summarize what they have learned and highlight the important facts.  
• Incorporate reading and writing into the lesson.
• Make sure the groups that the students are separated into are diverse.  Each student will have a different strength, it is important to identify these.

Our professor, Dr. Smirnova, had us discover an artifact bag in our class on Wednesday.  Below are the artifacts we found in our bags.  After investigation of the artifacts we discovered the person was her!  It was a very interactive and fun way to get to know our professor!

Yes! There are benefits behind studying history!!

History to some may mean something different.  Some people, for instances historians, believe that when our past is study in a chronological way and it is interpreted, explains events and shows us the truth.  Though the definition of history in school is much more diverse.  The goal of studying history in school is not just to inform our students of the past but it is also to create "responsible citizens."  This is done when a student is aware of their culturally background and others of the world.  The only way to accomplish this is by discovering our past.

There are so many benefits from studying history.  By studying history it helps the students identify who they are and how they "fit" into this world.  Imagine not knowing about your past ancestors and where you came from?  This helps students create an identity and sense of who they are and where they are going.  Secondly, history helps you understand other subjects.  History easily ties into other humanities in school and will help create a well-rounded student.  Third, history helps create a sense of national identity.  We are one nation and we stand together.  This is important for students to grasp.  It creates a sense of community.  Studying history will definitely develop a citizen with good morals and sense of "we are all in this together!"

Chapter 11 also discusses as the Bradley Commission of 1989 refers to "habits of the mind."  These are intellectual skills that are developed due to the study of history.  I thought these were particularly interesting because, honestly, I never considered the many benefits of history.  I have always enjoyed learning about our past but never considered what I was receiving in return for studying it.  The Bradley Commission states what skills are developed when studying history:

• Understanding the past is significant to individuals and society
• Comprehend the diversity of cultures and shared humanity
• Comprehend the interplay of change and continuity
• Accept uncertainties of life - so important!
• Consider conclusions and generalizations as tentative
• Read widely and critically

Students develop all this just from exploring our past!  Amazing!  With these "habits of the mind" being developed, I do not know why history is not influenced more in schools today.  

The bottom line is that studying history is imperative, it is a must.  Without history in our schools students will not understand how far we have come, be able to learn from our mistakes and celebrate our successes.  

Teaching Powerful Social Studies!

Today in class we discussed elements of powerful Social Studies and how teach effectively.  I think making Social Studies meaningful is an idea that is necessary in our society.  To engage students and have them make connections to the world around them is SO important.  I think this is forgotten in classroom sometimes. I know this was forgotten when I was in school a long, long time ago!  Also, to make Social Studies integrative, to include all subjects in their learning is another important aspect we cannot forget about.  Another powerful element of teaching Social Studies effectively is when lessons are value-based.  This is important to develop critical thinking skills in our young students.  We as teachers have to make sure our lessons are challenging enough to students to encourage them to learn.  Goals need to obtainable for students.  Teachers need to know when to lead and when to support the leadership of their students in lessons.  I feel that the most important concept is when they are active.  To keep your students actively engaged in learning is important in all studies.  Teachers must also be active in their learning process, always adapting their lessons to the needs of their students.  This really ties in all aspects of meaningful teaching.  Being able to adjust lessons and make new decisions for your students on what is taught is crucial in successful teaching!  I found what we learned in today's class to be so imperative in our journey to become teachers.  This reading has inspired me.  I want to light a fire in students, to create a desire to learn about the world around them, be self-motivated in the process and become better citizens.  I want this for every student.  If I could accomplish this one goal...I know I would be making an excellent impact on students.

Walking and Talking the Timeline

Another important aspect of Chapter 11 was effectively teaching history and using timelines in the classroom.  I feel that this teacher does an excellent job in utilizing a timeline in her classroom.  Students work could be added to the timeline as the year progresses.  At the end of the year, the students could narrate the timeline as a culminating project.  Love this idea!

Why Study History?

I came across this video after reading a chapter in my Social Studies Methods book.  I thought it pertained to the chapter because it really illustrates WHY it is important to study history.   It is important to study past history so that students understand how they fit into our history.  Also, it is important to understand past history because it makes it easier to understand the present.  Students can also learn from past mistakes and successes.  It is also important to study history because it creates a sense of unity as a nation.  This movie was inspiring and could be used in the classroom.  It would be a good opening video in the beginning of the year with students to help explain to them why they are learning what they are.  The pictures are moving and go well with the music.  The creator does an excellent job explaining why history is important.

A Vision of Students Today Video Reflection

When I saw this video I truly felt bad for students who feel this way.  I am sure there are a lot of students that get lost at larger universities and colleges and it should not be that way.  I am blessed with professors who know my name and know me personally.  We use the books that are required of us to have and students show up to class.  I have never known it to be any other way.  I guess I am a lucky student.

"Education is not the filling of a pail but the lighting of a fire." - William Butler Yeats 

Learning to Teach

Another semester has started and I am off to a running start.  I already know this semester will be a busy one!  I am looking forward to learning new methods of teaching and learning from all my professors.