15 weeks ago

As this semester comes to a close, I find myself reflecting on my past experiences and how far I have come from 15 weeks ago. When I write 15 weeks I think how long that seems, but honestly that 15 weeks has come and gone faster then expected. I remember 15 weeks ago entering this classroom and not even being registered for it, but something stuck out to me and I wanted in. I called the registrar and they put me in Social Studies Methods, and it was the hardest and best decision I made all semester. As I reflect on the time I have spent in Social Studies Methods the first thing I think about is the letters we read at the beginning of the semester, the insight from the past students telling us how difficult this class was going to be, but how great Dr. Smirnova is and how everyone gets through it. Now I am one of those past students that can give some insight on the students that are going to enter Dr. Smirnova's class in the fall. I learned about so many different resources and engaging ways to teach social studies that I never would have thought about before. I learned how to time manage like I never thought I could because I had no other choice, which in college is a great accomplishment. I was able to teach a whole class and gain experience on how to create a unit plan and fun activities that students really enjoyed. I love the idea of an interactive social studies classroom in the future, especially for elementary students. Technology is the way of the world and students need to learn that they have access to everything on this earth at their finger tips. By teaching with technology it allows students to be engaged in a way that lets them learn in an interactive and engaging way. I have gained so much knowledge about teaching and the resources that are available to me that I have to thank Dr. Smirnova, for transferring her knowledge onto all of us. And allowing everyone in our class to grow and having the patients to deal with the dozens of emails at all hours of the day and night, you are truly an amazing educator and I thank you for your knowledge and guidance through this semester.

You're Hired!

So today was interview day, we all dressed in our best and everyone got into their fieldwork groups. As an administrator for the day I sat with my other administrator collages and we each stood up and introduced ourselves and gave background information on ourselves and the schools we were representing. I was an administrator at Happy Feet Elementary school where I was principle since 2008. After our introductions we started at one group and rotated around to each of the other 3 groups. I started with a warm up question about why each person wanted to become a teacher, and what there teaching philosophy was. With this warm up question we were able to see who might be the leader in the group and answer the question first. After the warm up question I asked each person a different question and enjoyed hearing how each person responded differently from each group. Some of the responses I got were similar to how I interpreted the question. One question I asked was along the lines of, independent practice is very important to a child's understanding of the direct instruction lesson, how would you approach a situation where the parents were overstepping the boundaries and doing the independent practice for them. The answer I agreed with most was along the lines of calling the parents and staying in contact with them so they understand that it is important for their children to succeed by doing the work themselves, by parents doing the work it enables the children to succeed and for us to evaluate them effectively. Also, as teacher we are able to see what a student understands themselves and what might be done for them at home. Once we had gone through each group the administrators had a meeting to decide who we would hire from the interview. It was unanimous that Susan and Julia would get the jobs. We appreciated their enthusiasm and their answers stuck out to each of us. Even though it was a mock interview we were able to tell that there answers came from the heart and what they truly believed. So congratulations Julia and Susan...

  

Get ready to be Interviewed !

So, in order to prepare for our future as teacher, and facing the scary interview process. Dr. Smirnova has required that each fieldwork group select a president. I am lucky enough to be one of them. Being  president requires that we come up with a story based on our lives or what we might hope to accomplish in the future, and four to five interview questions to ask the groups. The presidents are broken down into, direct lesson, inquiry, cooperative and social studies based. I will be asking questions based on the direct lesson plan format of teaching. In doing so I will see how my perspective teachers answer the questions I have come up with, how confident they are in the answers that they give, and if I believe they can be a suitable teacher in my elementary school. I personally think this is an awesome way to end the semester, rather then a final exam. I know I do better telling someone about what I know, rather than writing it all down. It gives us a chance to think about what questions we might be asked in the future and allows us to see how much we have really retained over the course of the semester. It also gives our classmates the opportunity to get a feel for what an interview is like but not having the pressure of an adult who is truly judging them on what is being asked of them. Even though I am a president during this session, I am at the same level as everyone else in my classroom. It is important to get as much real world experience as we can in college, this is the time to do so, once we are thrown into the real world; there is no getting this time back.

Here is the link to our google docs which provides the questions we will be asking the class.

It's your time to shine! Find your own Current Event !

Current events have always been something I did in school. It was a fun way to learn about what was going on in the world rather than reading the history books. I know for me, I like what is current. I enjoy learning about the NOW, because lets face it history repeats itself. So in my opinion, if we all learn about what is happening in the world around us today, it can save us a lot of trouble when the same situation happens years down the road.

When I graduate from college, I am going to be a young teacher. That has its advantages, and one of them is being able to enlighten my future  students with interesting activities to keep them engaged. Instead of learning history through a textbook why not learn history through current events. Of course there has to be a mix of both, but we can keep it at a happy medium. 

Ive learned that teaching current event articles, doesn't have to be the typical sitting and reading from a newspaper clipping or printed out news article. It can be about letting students search for themselves and find something that THEY find interesting. The use of current events can be used in many ways, of course you can provide your students with an article pertaining to what you're teaching, but you can make it fun. For example, as teachers we can place articles around our global map in our classroom, assign an article to each student and have them connect their news article to the place it occurred on the map with string and tape. Students will be able to see how news articles occur all over the globe. Or you can even incorporate different subject matter into your current even project. This idea comes from a website that was provided to us from Dr. Smirnova,"News Scavenger Hunts: Provide students with a list of things to find on the front page of today's newspaper. Students might hunt in the paper for math-related words and terms (a percent, a measurement of distance, a cost, an address, and a fraction) or grammar-related terms (a present-tense verb, a past-tense verb, a proper noun, an abbreviation, a colon, and a list separated by commas). Or students might scavenge the main sports page for a list of sports-related terms. Or you might let students work in small groups to hunt for as many nouns (or proper nouns, or verbs) as they can find in a story or on the front page. The group that finds the most is the winner!" By doing this in your classroom, you are allowing students to go further than social studies and allow them to see how each subject works within each other to teach. 

The current event I presented to my collages allowed students to search for themselves for different current events. I broke my class up into four groups, National, World, State, and Educational. Each group of students had to search for a current event that pertained to the list above. I thought this was such a great idea, instead of just reading an article you are given now the class had to do something they haven't been introduced to before. I got the idea from Dr. Smirnova and I quickly listened to the suggestions she had given me on how to go about this. I posted the assignment on our form and assigned the groups before hand so they would come to class Friday prepared to discuss the article they have chosen. However, I knew it would be difficult if my students did not prepare for the class ahead of time, so incase that happened we allowed some time IN class to prepare for the discussion (always have a backup plan). 

When it was time to present the current even project on friday I was eager to see what my classmates chose... but no one was prepared. I allowed them 5 minutes to get their articles together and quickly read what they were about. After we got the ball moving I was impressed with how everyone jumped in to participate. Everyone seemed to like the idea of finding their own article and they were able to learn what was happening, in the world, in the state, locally, and in education all within the same time period. The feedback we received from our classmates was great, and I enjoyed that they enjoyed the activity so much. 

In the form post, I suggested some websites that would be useful. Those websites were geared towards 6th graders, so I would do this same activity in my 6th grade classroom. But, if I were doing a current event activity in a first grade classroom I would use articles from children magazines, like TIMES. I would separate the class into groups and give them different articles just like 6th grade, the first graders would still discuss the same questions and find their own opinions about the articles but it is done in an appropriate way for a first grade class. By using the TIMES magazines, it also provides students with questions that they need to focus on in the article, it helps them to follow directions and read to find the answer to questions. 

In my classroom I think I will try to do current events every week. I will try to allow my students to use any source they choose as long as it is something to do with education or the world around us. Facebook has become huge for sharing articles and interesting topics, if they find something on Facebook I want them to know that it is something happening in the world and can be used as a current event. Instead of holding my students back from the technology sources they have access to, it is important for them to know how to use them in the correct way and for useful things. The difference between having the freedom in a 6th grade classroom as opposed to a 1st grade classroom, is that 6th graders are able to distinguish the difference between what is a legitimate news article, and what might be a fake story. So, 1st graders have to be more monitored when it comes to searching news articles on the web. I personally would prefer to stick to paper articles for 1st graders because I know it is the raw current event news that first graders can understand.

Current events can be taught in all different age groups, it is a fun way to teach social studies and make sure that your students are well aware of what is going on within the world around them. If we teach them to be informed early on in their lives, they are more likely to stay informed. It is important for children to understand and be aware of their world because they are going to be running it one day! 

BizMovie !

I know as a future teacher I am always thinking of ways to keep students interested in topics that I am going to be teaching. I know for me growing up I loved the different projects we would do in class and the group work that would take up a few class days. Then at the end seeing the finished product that we all worked so hard to put together. Over a few class sessions my group and I worked hard to understand Bizmovie! A interactive way to teach students economics in the classroom, while getting real life experience. Going into this I had no idea what BizMovie even was. Dr. Smrinova handed us a booklet on it and my group and I looked at it with such confusion. But, after reading about it and researching it online we quickly started to understand what it was all about. BizMovie is an interactive student based project that allows students to create their own production company. My group and I put together a video debate using Go-Animate-4 Schools, we created the video but found out we could not save it longer then 30 seconds. We were able to put together the full seven minute video but we were not able to save it. So for our project we decided to make three 30 second videos.

This is the introduction to the debaters, one will debating for lectures in the classroom while the women is debating for Bizmovie in the classroom. 

This is a clip of the debaters starting to discuss the differences between biz movie and lectures in the classroom 

This is the narrator sharing with everyone how much he loves biz movie and how it can be utilized successfully in the classroom.

It was disappointing not being able to put together the whole go-animate movie, since it seemed like a really awesome website to use. I wish it could have been used for a trial for a certain amount of time instead of just having to buy it. Teachers try to utilize all the resources they can at any point, So i wish i could have shown my class the finished product, so they might want to use it in the future as well. 

lets learn about economics

I haven't learned about economics since i was a senior in high school, which was about three years ago. So, it was nice to get a little review on economics and my fellow classmates gave me some great ideas on how to teach economics in the classroom for younger children. We each were assigned a question that we had to do research into. So, some of my classmates showed us some websites to use in the classroom, while other classmates taught us ways to teach younger students how to budget and manage money starting at a young age. I think it is so important to teach students to manage money and what the value of a dollar really is because they are our future. They are the future business leaders in our country and one day they will be taking over, we want them to have something to take over and we want them to all be successful. My favorite way to teach economics had to have been the interactive ways using the computer. They were able to compare and contrast different pizza places and who offered what and who had the best prices to see which better pizza they could get for the value of their money. I thought students would love something like that. I taught the difference between micro and macro economics, which was hard to relate to younger students. But, I would possibly have students learn the differences and then create their own collage with the differences between the 2. Again, I think it is so important to teach students about economics and our economy because it controls everything about their future. Students that are more aware of the economic situation in our country are able to be more insightful and more successful in their future endeavors.  

The difference between MICRO and MACRO Economics.

This week in class we started to work on how to teach economics to our future students. We each got a question to research within the chapter in the text book. I chose the question, what is the difference between micro and macro economics. I chose this question because I learned about economics my senior year of high school and i really enjoyed learning about micro and macro economics. The difference between the two is typed below. 

Microeconomics is the study of individual households, companies, and markets and how resources and prices combine to distribute wealth and products. It is based on what the price of something is now in order to figure out what the demand of the product is. The government regulates these businesses that monopolize the economics. Whereas Macroeconomics is the study of the big picture of the economy as a whole. it provides an overview of the conditions in an entire nation. It is based on the Gross national product (GNP) which is the value of all the goods and services produced in a nation in a year. unlike being regulated by the government this is regulated by person. 

Below, is a video i found on youtube that explains micro and macro economics using images as well as words, so it is easier to understand. 

   

 

Native American Tribes

Today in class we presented in our expert groups about 4 different native american tribes. I really enjoyed this activity because it was something I never really thought about. We learned about different tribes that I have never really put any thought into. Each group created a Power Point presentation and presented for about 8-10 minutes. Ive noticed that each person in our class has become so much more comfortable from the first day of the class when we were asked to introduce ourselves. We've become more enthusiastic and aren't afraid to make a mistake in front of our fellow collages and Dr Smirnova. We know that each person in that class is there to help us and we all know that we are never going to be perfect, but, the support and feedback we get from everyone will help us to not make the same mistakes more then once.

Lets teach about PIGS

So, as I spoke about in my previous blog we picked up where we left off in our jigsaw expert groups. My expert group was based on Group Processing which is also the G in P.I.G.S. Now it is my time to head back to my base groups and teach them all they need to know about Group processing in the classroom. My expert group and I created a powerpoint presentation on Group processing which you can find here. But in simpler terms, group processing is the act of members of a group reflecting on the groups work and the interaction between each other to get the work done effectively and efficiently. Students can do that by describing what members actions were helpful and making decisions on what actions to change or keep the same in order to be successful in completing a group project. It can be examined on how children work together in groups and be effective for us as teachers to ask questions in order to get a feeling about who is doing what. Group processing can be helpful because it allows students to work together rather then listen to a teacher lecture, this also teaches them social skills and helps them to understand that every person has a job and without them completing the job the work cannot get done. Group processing is usually done during the cooperative lesson and during the closure to ensure everyones work is completed and they have something to reflect upon.

Back to work !

congratulations social studies methods, we are officially done with field work for this class. I'm not sure about everyone else but that was the most challenging thing I have encountered so far! But, we all made it out alive. Now its back to work on our edTPA's, our jigsaw lessons, and everything else Dr. Smirnova has in store for us. Creating a unit plan was difficult but once my group was done we were able to sit back, enjoy and relax for some time... not anymore though.
We have picked up where we left off in our jigsaw base and expert groups. As we meet in our expert groups we review what we left off at and try to reminisce on where we found our information and re-teach ourselves what we now have to go and teach our base groups. But, at the end of class we all did all right and we able to get right back on track. Next step teaching base groups!

Group 4 inquiry lesson

Today group 4 did their inquiry lesson plan, and I think they did a great job! I could tell that group 4 has learned from each of the groups before their mistakes, and that is exactly what a great teacher should do. They had a great dialogue after their review that transitioned from the opening review to the activity they were going to be presenting. I thought they explained the hypothesis well and i loved that they gave each student a slip of paper to write down a hypothesis before they even continued with the activity. This allowed them to walk around and make sure each student understood what a hypothesis is and how to create one. The teachers kept control of the class fairly well even though when it came to tradition from one topic to the other the students got excited and started to get loud. I wasn't sure if I was going to like the big groups but their can be some pros and cons with doing it like that. Luckily for them they had the luxury of having enough teachers for each group to keep them on topic. But, when it is just one teacher it can be harder to control. As well as it being hard to control some students tend to be sitting there not interacting with their other group mates. However, group 4 did a good job with trying to keep them all on track. Even though the group ran out of time they stayed with the second graders to go over their homework so everyone would be clear on what to do, I think that was a great thing! I loved the way they burned the paper and dyed it to make it look old and rustic, it was an amazing touch and I will defiantly be using that in my future classroom ! From watching each of the 4 groups teach their lessons i have learned little things that I would do in my own classroom and ways to improve something that i once thought would be a great idea! Overall i really enjoyed watching this lesson !

Last first lesson

Today Ms. Jessica, Ms. Rachel, Ms. Julie and Mr. Kimbark taught their first lesson of the three. They are the last group to go, and boy did they do a good job! I was so impressed with how knowledgable they were about their topic. I loved how they got the children's attention and how they made sure the children knew the most important information in the lecture. I really enjoy watching my collages teach and learn from what they do and how to improve my teaching abilities. Also, watching my classmates teach helps me learn some information that I might not have remembered from years past. I can't wait to watch the rest of their lessons in the next week !

first direct lesson

Today we got to view our fellow classmates doing their first lesson ! They did an amazing job for going first and they really set the president high for the rest of the class! I loved how they used thumbs up and thumbs down to interact with the students and ask them questions without having them all speak at once. They also did a great job at reviewing the material they used and taught. I am still nervous to do my own lesson plan but watching them it makes me more confident within myself that I will do just fine.

Yayy second graders !

Today, we met all our lovely second graders at BDM. What a great class they were! We went around and talked to each group of students and found out where they were in social studies overall. They were a very smart bunch and very cooperative. A lot of them were very eager to learn and to be taught by us, I think they really enjoyed us being there. It was great to be in the classroom and start to get to know the children we will be teaching for the first time. My group asked the students about what they have learned in social studies so far, if they knew anything about colonies, what their favorite subjects are and how they feel about school. It was hard to get a feel for what they knew about social studies but it is good to know we made the pre test and can see what the children responded to. I can't wait to start teaching all these boys and girls !

Field work starts soon!

So today in Fridays class we postponed our jigsaw projects and discussed field work starting Monday. As groups we will be brainstorming Pre-test questions that will be made up of multiple choice, true false, and text questions. The best way for us to communicate and introduce our lessons would be to read them a book about the topic we will be teaching, so for my group that would be about colonies. We were introduced to the edTPA website and are to become familiar  with it and learn how to navigate and create our own to turn in our field work assessments. The rubric is broken down into five different parts, A-E. Part A is an introduction on where i will be teaching and a little background on the students, part B will be all three of our lesson plans which will include; direct, inquiry and cooperative, part C all be all of our handouts, smart bored presentations and all the material we will be using with the students, part D will be all of our assessments and the feedback we will receive, and part E will be our reflections and skills, and how we will analyze what we did during our teaching experience. 

Have Faith

It's the middle of the third week of SS methods and the weather has caused us to have virtual class. It is amazing that with this technology we can still have class even when school is closed, from the privacy of my own house ! We all got our assignments for our base groups and everyone has to put together their own presentation to teach their groups about their specific topic. We also learned how to formulate our lesson plans and how to find the information. The class seems to be getting overwhelming but I'm staying calm and keeping faith that everything will fall into place. 

Learning outcomes and resources

Today we learned about Assessment, graphic organizers, models, methods, and strategies. During the powerpoint we learned what exactly social studies was and the best ways to teach it. For elementary school students, it is best for them to work in small groups or individually. We can show them visual aids and try to take them on historical field trips so they can get hands on experience. We also learned the powerful elements of Social Studies which include; meaningful, integrated, value based, challenging and active. Meaningful - engaging students with real world situations, integrative - draws on more then one discipline, Value-based - strengthens students sense of democratic values and social responsibility. Challenging -  incorporates different perspectives, and active -  makes use of what is given and works with it in the classroom. An interesting thing I learned during this class was that students learn best by teaching others. Because if they are teaching other classmates they obviously get the material and are using their knowledge to help others. 

A New Day Has Come

So the second class has come and gone. We all presented our about me projects, it was great to get to know everyone and all the different projects that were created. The whole class also taught us how to use their specific projects in the classroom and how to use them. Who knew that you could do so much on the computer and on the internet. It really is an amazing thing, and I can't wait to use it more and get to know everything I can about it. 

Fresh start, Fresh Semester

The beginning of the semester has started and it is the first day of Social Studies Methods. We have read some letters of past students and it is scaring the crap out of me, this class seems like it is going to be the hardest one yet. It's going to be an adjustment to get use to doing everything online and learning all the different things we are going to have to do. Im going to have to get use to checking the website everyday and keeping up with all the work that is being posted.