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!