Jigaw Activity

Above is a video on what jigsaw activities are. This video explains the benefits of jigsaw activities and tips to teaching it. One tip is to teach students in a way that they don't know they are being taught. Such as making it into a fun game or use different interest of your students. The benefits of jigsaw activities is that it empowers students to take charge of their own learning. It also encourages peer to peer learning and socializing, his can help students retain information and makes talking to peers while learning fun.

In class completed two jigsaw activities. One was on cooperative learning. During this jigsaw we had to make two groups. In each group someone was assigned a different part of cooperative learning. Then the two people from opposite groups had to create a PowerPoint presentation on their topic and present it back to the original groups. During our second jigsaw activity we did the same thing, but instead we shared our presentation with the whole class instead of just our original groups. I really like doing projects like this because not all the responsibility is on you. You have a partner to discuss the information and presentation, two heads are better than one. Also, we were only responsible for one topic then our classmates had other topics. I feel like I learn a lot from my peers. My peers taught me about their topics as well as different ways to teach and present something.

In my future classroom I will have my students do jigsaw activities when learning a new topic. It will allow students to practice their social skills, time management skills, and research skills while always being engaged. These are all qualities that is essential for future learning.

Different Types of Lessons

         I think it is important to teach in many different ways because nobody is the same and every one learns differently from one another. I, personally, am a visual learner and need to see a model or example of something to grip the concept of something  instead of just reading or hearing about it. However, I do believe teachers should incorporate all five teaching styles into each lesson to  meet everyone's needs and to keep the lesson switching up and not being boring to a class.

         Direct teaching is when the teacher is the main focus of the lesson and is doing most of the talking. However, there are different types of lectures teachers can do such as: interactive (discussion), mastery (scaffolding), or traditional. I think direct teaching should be used when introducing a topic and while learning new information.

       Indirect teaching is the opposite of direct teaching, it is student centered; this is known as inqiry. During indirect teaching teachers can perform read-alouds and use different examples of culture traditions and values, or case studies so students can make connections to what they are learning. Also, inquiry is a good method for indirect teaching because it gives students a chance to ask questions and explore. I believe indirect teaching should be used right after a teacher taught a new topic to see how much students understood what you taught, but not in a formal way. This allows teachers to know if they need to or do not need to go back and re-teach something.

       Interactive teaching is when students can interact with peers and discuss and perform their knowledge with each other. Instead of judging people's opinions students should be open-minded and know that their is no right or wrong answer. During interactive learning students can have discussions and build on each others ideas. I think that interactive teaching should be done after teachers teach using indirect teaching because it is way to  go into deeper understanding of a topic and see what your students really know and they can also  learn from each other.

      Cooperative learning is when students work together to improve their understanding of a topic. Each person in a group is assigned a role that they are responsible to complete. Each person in a group is important and responsible for their own task. This is known as individual accountability. Students also get to socialize with one another and share opinions. This is good because it helps students prepare for group discussions. I think cooperative learning would best be done after direct instruction and inquiry to go into even deeper understanding of a topic.

     Independent learning is when students know enough about a topic and is ready to plan their study effectively. Students have their own time to focus on what they enjoy, or what they believe they need more time understanding. This is a time when students can reflect on what they have learned and can make improvements and set goals. Teachers can assign a project or paper to see if students can transfer their knowledge into words and show their skills. I think this should be done when teachers are done teaching this topic and ready to move on to a new topic.

Engaging ways to Learn Geography

         
        Geography is the study of the physical features of the Earth, including how humans affect the Earth and are affected by it. Location is a particular place or position. It is important to know where places are related to one another or an absolute location. Movement includes the movement of people or goods such as trading items or moving to a new location. Place is physical characteristics of a specific location such as rivers or mountains. Human-environment interaction shows how humans interact with the environment. For example, recycling to help stop pollution. Region is labeling the different parts of the world such as states, cities, and countries. There are thousands of different ways to teach Geography and the five themes. 

          One way I would teach geography to my future students is a mystery box. I would put a bunch of different items in a box or bag related to a topic we will be discussing and have students try to guess what the items are. This will engage students in an activity as well as use there senses to answer a question. In our science methods class we did this one of our first days of class. I really enjoyed this activity because I wanted to be right when guessing the objects. 

      Another activity that I would do with my class is have student walk five minutes in different directions than their schools, homes etc. Then have them record what they see and take a picture, Have the class share their pictures and findings and discuss. This enables students to see how different places can be that are relatively close to each other.

     The third activity I would teach in my class involves students getting artistic. I, the teacher, will read a news article to my class and have them create a picture corresponding with the article. This allows students to show their creativity while also reflecting on the article that was just read to them. As they say, a picture does speak a thousand of words. This also teaches students current events that is happening in the world today.

Cooperative Learning

       Cooperative learning is an organized way to use small groups to enhance learning by working together. However, this is different than just regular group work because it contains the 5 characteristics of cooperation. The five characteristics are- positive interdependence, individual and group accountability, interpersonal and small group skills, face-to-face promotive interaction, and group processing. All of these characteristics are essential for cooperative learning.
      Positive interdependence refers to all the positive outcomes of working in a group such as: not all the pressure is on you, have a common goal, and improves critical thinking. Positive interdependence has individual benefits too because it fosters higher critical thinking strategies, motivates students, and trust in others.
     Individual and group accountability means that each one is responsible to complete his or her own task so that one person is not left to do all the work while everyone else relaxes. When in Jigsaw groups, students rely on each other to teach and learn. This means, that jigsaw groups are cooperative lessons. This means that students take accountability for not only their work, but also their groups learning. Individual accountability teaches students to own up to their responsibilities and time management skills. To promote individual accountability teachers could assign roles to every group member, keep groups small, and check for understanding.
     Face to face interaction allows students to practice their social skills and learn how to communicate respectfully with one another. This includes hand gestures, body language and other personal appearances. This allows students to practice hearing other opinions and being open minded. Students will be solving problems and listening to one another as well. Teachers should go over the rules for group work and how to treat classmates at first so every one knows.
      Group processing is when the group reviews and evaluates each other and their own groups and decides how to make their presentations better for next time. Students work together, get feedback from teachers, and reflect off each others ideas during group processing. The four parts of group processing include: feedback, reflection, improvement goals, and celebration.
      
This is a link to my PowerPoint presentation on positive interdependence.

TThis is a video that shows positive interdependence used in the classroom.

Assessments

        Assessing students is important for students and teachers. My definition of assessing would be
different ways to test students’ knowledge by collecting data and analyzing it to see if they understand or if they do not. Also, to see if you need to change your teaching or not.
It allows students, parents, and teachers to see if they understood a topic taught. It also shows if teachers are teaching in a way that the class understands. There are so many different ways teachers can assess students besides just multiple choice test.
        There are three different types of assessments which include, diagnostic, summative, and formative. Diagnostic is a Pre-Assessment. Teachers use different tools to find out the prior knowledge of the students on a specific topic. Teachers can assess diagnostically by using: KWL charts, brainstorming, graphing, inventories, checklists, observation, self-evaluation, and questioning, etc. The purpose of a summative assessment is to ascertain how much has been learned or how well the test taker performs. They also tell the student and the teacher where the student is with respect to a comparison group or whether a specific skill or content area has been mastered. Different types of summative assessments include: unit test, standardized test, and formal test etc. Formative assessments provide information for further learning. They need to provide a finer picture of what the student does and does not understand or do correctly so that future learning can work on areas of difficulty. Some examples of formative assessments are: conferences, peer evaluation, 3 minute pause, observation, exit cards, quiz, journal entries, self-evaluations, talk around, etc.
         Each type of assessment is used at a different time while teaching a topic. There are so many different ways to assess as well. This is good because it makes students feel like they are not actually being tested all the time. It is also good for teachers because it allows teachers to see if they need to change their teaching methods or not. I would like to think of assessing more of a monitoring and evaluation rather than testing.

This is my graphic organizer on assessments:

This a link to the quiz I made up on assessments.

The Beginning of Time

         Ever since I was little, I never really enjoyed social studies. My first social studies teachers never made learning social studies fun. I felt like I just had to memorize certain facts and dates, but nothing really connected to one another.  However, once I got to high school and college social studies interested me more and more. I realized everything that we do has a reaction and leads to something else. I also realized that we need to know history so that we do not repeat our same mistakes. It is also amazing to see how far civilizations have come since the beginning of time.

           In our first class of social studies methods we did a class activity. We were to think of who our favorite social studies teacher, list qualities of a good social studies teacher, make our own definition of social studies, and recognize our goals and expectations of this course.  After we answered these questions independently  we had to share our findings with a partner and then repeat it to someone else in the class. This is a good exercise because it allows students to practice listening skills which is a very important quality to have as a teacher. Instead of just hearing what people are saying it is important to listen to others so that you really understand what they are saying.  Also after discussing all our answers with one another, we discovered that we all had the same view on what a traits make a  good social studies teacher. One quality was to use hands on materials and artifacts so that we could be intrigued and experience something instead of just reading a textbook to memorize facts. Also, setting goals and expectations the first day of class is good because it steers us in the right direction and good path for the whole semester.

      I  am really excited to see what I will learn in this course. I know that it is similar to science methods, but social studies methods we get to learn how to teach a cooperative lesson, not just direct instruction and inquiry. I also feel like I learned so much from science methods that during social studies methods I could keep practicing the skills that I learned to perfect myself. My goal of this course is to learn to make learning social studies as engaging as possible. Even though I know this course will be not be easy, I am ready and excited to conquer the challenges!

This is an example of an assignment I would have my students do, to make up a song about a specific topic including facts. Teaching students through songs is fun and an easy way to remember facts, it also allows students to be creative.

This is a link to my All About Me project.