Celebration of Learning

Throughout this course I believe that I have gained so much knowledge about social studies as well as teaching different methods to my students.

Before coming to this class I was not confident in teaching history. It was always my last favorite subject in school. I did not understand because I was so uninterested in the topics which caused me not to grasp them. This class has made me realize that there are so many engaging activities and ways to teach social studies to make lessons more authentic. 

In my future classroom I will be sure to have direct instruction, inquiry, and cooperative learning lessons because all students learn differently and learn from each other. By having these three different instruction on teaching students will be able to apply their knowledge to real life situations and internalize what they are learning. I will also provided students with games and activities to play to make it seem like they are not actually doing work. 

Throughout the course I had some failures and successful movements. I believe that my successful times including teaching three full lessons to a fourth grade class. This was such an exciting moment and accomplishment. I felt like a real teacher instead of just observing others. However, one of my failures was being able to fit all the material in a short amount of time. 

I took in a lot from this class some of the main concepts that I will take with me for the rest of my life would be: the inquiry model (5 E's), Cooperative Learning Model (PIGS), different ways to incorporate technology in to lessons, three types of assessments, different parts of Direct Instruction (guided practices, teaching, assessments), and different activities and lessons to make learning authentic. 

I believe that this course has prepared me extremely for the real world and how I will teach in my future classroom. After completing this course I realized that I am one step closer to obtaining my goal in becoming an elementary school teacher! 

Welcome to the Real World

         Today in class we had to pretend we were having an interview. We were to dress up professionally and be prepared to answer questions as if we were going for a job interview to become a teacher for three different schools. Each school focused on one of the three methods of teaching: direct instruction, inquiry, and cooperative learning. When hearing about this assignment I was a little nervous because I did not know what to expect, but while having these interviews it was actually a lot of fun and engaging for me.


       I believe the "principals" of the schools each provided us with great questions. Most of the questions consisted of what our personal views were in teaching different types of lessons and what we would do in certain situations. These were great questions to ask because these are the questions that you need to take into consideration in your own classrooms. Out of all the schools I would want to work in a cooperative learning school because I believe students need to work together and explore and learn for themselves to retain information and carry it on with them further in life. 
        Once we were done being interviewed it was time to ask the principal about how they run the school. I think it is important that once you are done with an interview you ask questions after so that you look interested and thinking about what is going to happen. The questions that I asked were: 

1.       How do you see your school changing in the next 5 years?

2.       Why do you like working at this school?

3.       How would you describe the parent involvement in the activities and educational programs of the school? 

I     I like these questions because it is important to know what to expect from your co-workers, parents, whole school when you are applying for a job.

                  Overall, this was a great experience and prepared us for what to expect when we go on job interviews when we are ready to become teachers. However I believe it could have went better for me. I should stay away from saying "um" and "like" because it sounds unprofessional and I should think about my answers before I start talking to avoid talking in circles. The questions that were asked were very unique and different and allowed me to reflect on everything that I learned in my ED classes and apply it to what I would do in the field. I realized I have learned more than I realized and am very excited to put my knowledge to work once I can obtain my own classroom as an elementary school teacher. 

        Here is a link on some tips to keep in mind while going on interviews to become a teacher. 

        

Civics

                                         
               Civics is the study of rights and duties of citizenship. Civics is also one of the five themes in social studies along with: history, geography, economics, and culture. It includes the study of civil rights and codes and the study of government with the role of citizens. I believe that children need to be aware of what civics is and how it is used in life.
               Civics is not a main topic included in elementary school curriculum, but it should be because it is an important topic that students should be knowledgeable about. Even when I was in elementary school, middle school, and high school I was never really taught civics, but there are so many different ways to teach it. This is a link that includes different worksheets, activities and websites students can go on to get a better understanding of civics. The website is divided into different topics of civics and then provides multiple lessons for different grades on the specific topic. This is extremely useful for teachers because it gives them ideas and engaging ways to teach all grade levels about history.
             The website youthleadership.net is the number one website for civics teachers.  A program of the University of Virginia Center for Politics, develops FREE education resources designed to assist civics teachers, and encourage students to participate in the political process. It includes lesson plans, unit plans, mock elections, democracy corps, games and E-congress. 
             A great way to teach civics is using videos and DBQ, document based questions. However, students may be passive while watching videos so it is important to give students questions to ponder while watching. In the article, These Google Forums turn Video to Passive to Active Learning it describes how a teacher got her class actively learning. She states, "I took inspiration from the standard document-based question activity, or DBQ. In a DBQ, students are given an essay prompt and must use the given documents and their own knowledge to support their response. There are often specific questions following each document to help ensure understanding of the material. My own take on that, which I call video-based question, or VBQ, is a series of videos with critical thinking and higher-level questions. The novelty of this idea is that students are in control of their learning." This is a great way to get students engaged in learning activities. 
              In the article, Revitalizing Civic Learning in Our school contains many different characteristics of Effective Civic Learning Implementation. These include:

Guardian of Democracy: The Civic Mission of Schools 5 identifies six proven practices that constitute a well-rounded high-quality civic learning experience:

1. Classroom Instruction: Schools should provide direct instruction in government, history, economics, law, and democracy in ways that provoke analysis and critical thinking skills. These subjects are vital to laying the foundation for civic learning and may also contribute to young people's tendency to engage in civic and political activities over the long term. However, schools should avoid teaching only rote facts about dry procedures, which is unlikely to benefit students and may actually alienate them from politics.
2. Discussion of Current Events and Controversial Issues: Schools should incorporate discussion of current local, national, and international issues and events into the classroom, particularly those that young people view as important to their lives. Engaging students in civil dialogue about controversial issues provides opportunities to foster character and civic virtue--important civic dispositions that are the habits of the heart and mind conducive to the healthy functioning of the democratic system. Examples include civility, open-mindedness, compromise, and toleration of diversity, all of which are prerequisites of a civic life in which the American people can work out the meanings of their democratic principles and values.
3. Service-Learning: Schools should provide students with relevant and motivational opportunities to connect formal classroom instruction with the principles and processes of democratic life through practical community problem solving. With guided practice in collaborative problem solving through public policy approaches, students learn to make long-term differences that will be sustained over time. They learn firsthand about the advantages of working as a group, the influence of public policy on human lives, and the intricacies of local government and community politics. They also develop firsthand knowledge of such abstract concepts as justice, diversity, opportunity, equality, and the common good, while developing empathy and compassion for others. Most importantly, students learn that American society is "unfinished" and that they can play a key role in narrowing the disparity between our democratic ideals and the reality of daily life by registering to vote, voting in elections and influencing public policy.
4. Extracurricular Activities: Schools should provide opportunities for young people to get involved in their schools or communities outside of the classroom. Extracurricular activities provide forums for students to practice civic skills and knowledge in purposeful ways while building important collaboration and communication skills. Civic activities such as mock trial, model congress, speech and debate, and model U.N. all have positive impacts on students' civic knowledge and engagement. Students who participate in these types of extracurricular activities are more likely to remain civically engaged well beyond high school.
5. School Governance: Schools should encourage student participation in school governance. Effective student governments serve a number of important purposes in our schools. They are laboratories in which students can learn and practice essential citizenship skills, respect for human dignity, and the value of the democratic process. They provide students with effective forums for advocating new ideas and initiating school improvements. Effective student governments also provide a platform for the orderly expression of conflicting viewpoints and procedures for resolving conflicts when students disagree with policies and decisions that affect their lives.
6. Simulations of Democratic Processes: Schools should encourage students to participate in simulations of democratic processes and procedures. Simulations of voting, trials, legislative deliberation, and diplomacy in schools can lead to heightened political knowledge and interest. Students learn skills with clear applicability to both civic and non-civic contexts, such as public speaking, teamwork, close reading, analytical thinking, and the ability to argue both sides of a topic. All of these are skills that prepare students both for active citizenship and for future academic and career success.

Below is a video of an example of a teacher teaching civics to her class: 

Artifact Bag: Can you guess that time period?

              In class we were assigned to create our own artifact bag and lesson to go with our unit plan. My unit plan is on Early Americans from Columbus to the Industrial Revolution to the formation of government. This lesson focuses on the industrial revolution. If I was teaching my unit plan to a real class this would be the third lesson I teach after my Direct Instruction and Inquiry. For this lesson students are given a bag containing different primary sources/ artifacts during a specific time period. After discussing the artifacts with one another and filling out their graphic organizer they will come to a conclusion on what time period these items were from. 
               This lesson is based off of Fuhler's ideas. He explains how to teach using artifacts to students. These are the steps he tells teachers to take:

I believe these steps are very useful for students. They allow students to go through the inquiry process with their classmates. They have to use what they have in front of them (the artifacts) and then use books and websites for further research to come up with a conclusion. 
 When I taught my lesson to my teacher candidates I explained what an artifact is and what archeologist do to while looking through artifacts. I then explained that they will be archeologist today and go through the artifacts in the bag. My artifacts included:

These items each represent something during the industrial revolution. For example: 

lightbulb- electricity was invented during this time period.

map of a railroad- railroads were invented.

newspaper article on automobile- cars were invented

newspaper article on a sewing machine, button, needle, and thread- women got jobs for sewing and sewing machine made it much easier and faster

cotton- represented slaves picking cotton and using the cotton gin as well as cotton for sewing 

diary entry- many people worked long days in factories to produce and work on these new inventions. 

I also included a book on Benjamin Franklin and how he created electricity.

Here is my PowerPoint Presentation on the artifact bag containing the graphic organizer, artifacts, and sources for more information:

      Doing this project helped me get a better understanding on teaching history using primary sources. Before this project I was unaware I could get primary sources; I thought just museums and archeologist were able to access them. While researching artifacts for my topics I realized that there are many websites that contain primary sources. Here is a link you could use to access many primary sources to use in the classroom. 

       I believe having students work with primary sources makes students more interested in the lesson. Having hands on items of materials from people in the past makes students feel connected to them and the past. They could put themselves in this person's shoes and feel like they actually know that person just by reading their diary entry or holding money etc. Students will remember doing this activity because they could relate to it and it is an authentic lesson.

      This lesson could be used to teach all grades. It can apply to all standards. However the topic and difficult level will vary depending on the grade level. For example, in a 1st grade classroom I would not have any artifacts that requires reading because they will not be able to read certain words and get the full meaning of the artifact. I will include items that they could touch and are somewhat familiar with. However, if I was teaching a sixth grade class I would use written items and not such of an obvious object that they will be able to determine right away. I would want to use items that require some thought process. 

Here is a link on different ways teachers can teach using artifacts to elementary school students in different grades. 

      Overall, I believe artifacts are a great way to teach history. It is authentic to students and they will be able to connect and remember what they learned from the lesson. It will allow them to get a better understanding of history because they could see how things actually were during different time periods all around the world. 

Here is a link to my mini lesson on my artifact bag. 

All Over the World

       Technology keeps advancing over the years. It is amazing what we can accomplish and do with technology. We are able to play games, research, work collaboratively and much more. An amazing feature is being able to communicate with people from all over the world. Today in class we skyped with a 6th grade science classroom from Kansas and it was a wonderful experience.

       When we were on skype with this class I learned so much about where they live and what I could do in my future classroom. This sixth grade class was learning about biomes and had a lesson based off of biomes and they were using us. Each student would ask my class a different question pertaining to different biomes and geographic features; such as, " Does the place you live in have tall grass?" They were trying to guess what biome we lived in by process of elimination. They soon guessed what biome we lived in. We would also ask them questions about where they lived and found out they lived in Kansas.
     I believe that this is a wonderful experience. Students can connect and talk to each other from all over the world and learn from one another. Although they were in science class and their questions were mainly about science it could still connect to social studies. They can see how people have different cultures from one another depending on where they live and their geography. They shared that they have also skyped with people from Florida, England, and New York City and had a great time in all of the sessions.
     I will definitely incorporate skype or any other means of communication with people around the world in my future classroom. Students would take that experience with them forever. The teacher said that she has students reflect after each session; I think that is important because students can internalize and discover what they have learned and accomplished for themselves. In my classroom I could have students do what this teacher did on biomes and many more different lessons. For example, I could have students ask the other side questions about what a normal day would be for them so they see how people from around the world live. I could also have a professional teach the lesson or show how something works in their field. With technology the world is limitless.

Here is a link of 50 different ways teachers can use skype in their classrooms.

Above is a video of a teacher using skype in a classroom with her students to interview an author of the many books they have been reading.

Above is a video that explains why teachers use skype in their classrooms. 

Immigration Then Vs. Now (CE)

       There are many different ways to teach current events in the classroom. I wanted to make my current events lesson as engaging and authentic as I could. I brought social media into the lesson. Students were to read the article, Issue Overview: Immigration and Reform and be prepared to have a class discussion. However, before I went over the article I wanted to see if students knew what the term immigration was. I had a word wall of immigration terms and had students pick a word they recognized it and define it. Then I went over the definition of an immigrant. I also wanted to students to understand what immigrants feel like going through the process to get to the United States. I showed a virtual tour of Ellis Island and had students put themselves in their shoes. Once I saw that students got the idea of what immigrants are I went over key points in the article.
     Newsela is a great website to get articles from. It has so many features that is great for teaching. For example, you can change the reading level to make it more complex or easier depending on the grade level. There is also a a translator that translates the article to different languages if there are ESL students in your classroom. Another great feature that is great is being able to highlight in different colors and pose questions in the notes. This allows students to think while reading. You can also take the quiz that is given about the article to see if you understood it. It is very easy to navigate and a very useful tool to use while teaching current events. Below is a picture of the different options of Newsela.

     Once I went over key terms in the article and showed students how to navigate Newsela it was time for students to reflect on their learning. Students were to make their own twitter and follow my page, @immigration_123. On this twitter there was four questions students had to answer sharing their thoughts about immigration and the article. Students really enjoyed using twitter in the classroom because they are so used to using social media in their everyday lives. I followed several immigration pages and Newsela so they could see our tweets. I also had students hashtag our class code and Newsela so it is easy to find other tweets based on our topic. 

Here is a link to the many other ways teachers can use twitter in a classroom.

Below is  a picture of the twitter page with some of student's responses. 

Here is a link to my PowerPoint Presentation. 

      This lesson follows my unit plan as well as the social studies standards: CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.4.3

Explain events, procedures, ideas, or concepts in a historical, scientific, or technical text, including what happened and why, based on specific information in the text.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.4.5

Describe the overall structure (e.g., chronology, comparison, cause/effect, problem/solution) of events, ideas, concepts, or information in a text or part of a text.

Social Studies Standards

4.1 GEOGRAPHY OF NEW YORK STATE: New York State has a diverse geography. Various maps can be used to represent and examine the geography of New York State. (Standard 3).

My classmates used different methods to teach current events in the classroom. I would use their methods in my future classrooms. For example, one group used a debate on women's equal rights. They divided the class up, provided articles and a graphic organizer to be filled out as well as explain the components of a debate. I would definitely use this authentic activity for older grades. I think teachers splitting up the class themselves is a good idea so that students would not pick the side they are most comfortable with. Another group used the 5 w's which are: who, what, why, when, and where. They had students fill out the graphic organizer based on their current events article. I would use this method for the younger grades because it is simple.

Here is link of many other authentic ways to teach current events in the classroom.

Teaching Economics: Scarcity

   Here is a link to the class's PowerPoint Presentation on teaching economics. 

   Here is a link to my Thing-link on teaching scarcity in economics. 
 
        Students may think that learning about economics is confusing or boring. However, there are so many different ways teachers can make learning economics into an engaging activity that students will remember forever. There are different sections in economy such as microeconomics and macroeconomics. Economy influences people's daily lives in many different ways and students may not even realize. As a teacher it is important for students to be aware of how the economy effects them.
      I was assigned to teach about Scarcity. Scarcity is having a small amount of something needed. While researching I found many different ways I can teach scarcity to young children all the way to high school students. However, one way to teach scarcity really stuck out to me and I would definitely use it in my future classroom. This engaging activity includes students portraying scarcity in the real world. 
The activity that really stuck out to me for younger grades is as followed: 

- teach the differences between necessities and wants
- explain what producers and consumers are
- students will get to chose one lollipop from a bag one by one
- students will then raise their hand if they did not get their first choice in flavor
- students will see the people who got to chose towards the end did not get their first choice
- they will realize as more and more people are choosing an item the less there is to choose from

The activity that stuck out to me teaching older level students is: 

--Divide the students into 2 groups.

-Ask one group of students to arrange the cups so that everyone has one.

-Ask the other group of students to make enough kool-aid so that everyone gets a cup. Do not specify whether or not the cups should be full.

-.Instruct students that one group is not allowed to communicate with the other.Students will soon realize that 1/2 gallon of kool-aid is not going to be enough for everyone to get a full glass of kool-aid.

When students come to you with this problem, instruct them that they must now figure out a solution without addressing the other members of the class.

- There are two options. Either students each get a very small cup of kool-aid or a full gallon is made but is watered down so that each student gets a full cup.

When students decide on a solution and pass it out, the other students may complain or be shocked by what they were given.

- Explain to students that an issue of scarcity or a lack of resources has just been dealt with. Further explain that this is similar to the way that heads of household and government sometimes deal with scarcity

I would also show this video on Scarcity to engage my class:

Once I am finished teaching scarcity I can have my students make a song or rap about it like these students did in this video: