Where did the time go!

My Semester has come to an end!

The fall semester has finally come to an end and i have truly learned so much. Social Studies Methods was a course in which I learned how to do so much. I have learned methods to teach Social Studies, learned about the different types of lesson plans (direct, indirect, cooperative), I have about how to instruct a class, and most importantly I have gained an enormous amount of knowledge about technology. 

This methods class was different from the other ones that I had taken in the past. This class had a major emphasis on technology an area I was very limited in and it would also be the first time I would have the chance to teach in front of a full classroom. Though I was originally very nervous, I quickly began to adjust. 

This class has been such a wonderful learning experience for me. I have learned how amazing technology is and there is so many things out there that can be used in the classroom to make lessons more fun and engaging for the students in your class. Programs such as, wordle, voki,and prezi are just a glimpse at the great free programs available online that work great in the classroom.  I now know more about the many resource that are out there and can't wait to use them in the future. I have also taken this new knowledge on technology and applied it in my other classes. One of my favorite things I have learned about is Google docs. This semester is the first time I have ever used the program and have grown to love it. I now use it for all my class especially when I have to work with other classmates on an assignment. I am so happy that I finally had the chance to learn and experience all of the great things that technology can offer. 

One other great experience I had during this class was my hours of fieldwork. Like I mentioned this was the first time I would be teaching a full classroom. I work with 4 other girls to create three lessons on the topic of goods and services in the community. Though this was a stressful time getting prepare, it was great to finally be in front of the class. My group did struggle at first when we were planning our lessons, but in the end I feel that we did a great job. Being able to hear so much feedback from our professor and classmates really helped to strengthen and improve all of our lessons. Also being able to watch as the other groups in our class taught helped me to see the things that my group could have done. For example my group struggled when we did our indirect lesson, but after watching the other three groups do the indirect lesson I feel more confident for the next time I need to do one. 

Lastly, this class has helped me think about the type of classroom I want to create for my students in the future. I want my students to be able to work together and share their thoughts. I want to encourage them to share their thoughts and opinions. I want to make sure that all my students feel comfortable and confident in the classroom. Most importantly, I also want to encourage students to use technology and explore the numerous possibilities. I want to show them early on how helpful and powerful technology can really be. 

Current Events in the Classroom!

Current Events!

During my time in elementary school my teachers did not emphasize the importance of current events. Teachers would sometimes send home Time For Kids magazines, but they would go home with students and then just be thrown away. It was not until I was in the high school that I had a teacher who wanted us to do current events, but even then these current events were made optional for extra credit. After looking at some websites provided by my Social Studies Methods professor, I now see how easy it could have been for my teachers to expose me and the rest of the students in my classes to current events. 

Here is the first website I looked at. This one was my favorite because it had a lot of Social Studies related links that would work well in the classroom. Right on this website it had links for two different current event website, one of them being the popular Times For Kids page. Here you are given recent events that are very appropriate for elementary students. It would be very easy for a teacher to pull up this article and read it to the students and have them write down one or two thought about the article. This would be an easy way to start opening the students eyes to current events. One other aspect of this website that I really enjoyed was the link This Day in History. You are able to click on it and then you will be given a list of events that occurred on this day in history. This website is really a great resource to have!

Here is another website that I viewed. This was another great website, that included various activities that teachers can do with students to get them interested in current events. One of the activities that I thought would be great for a classroom was News Mapping. This is a an activity where the teacher posts a map (a community, state, U.S., or world map, depending on the focus of your current events curriculum) on a bulletin board. Then students post stories around the map and string yarn from each story to the location on the map where the story takes place. This was just one of the many great ideas given. The activities can be used for a wide range of students. 

Here is the final website I viewed, it is actually link for another blog. This blog has several links to different online resource that can help get students interested in current events. One of the links is called Newspaper Map it is a tool for locating and reading newspapers from locations all around the world. Newspaper Map claims to have geolocated 10,000 newspapers. To find a newspaper you can browse the map then click on a placemark to open the link within to read a newspaper. You can also locate newspapers by using the search boxes to locate a newspaper by title or location. Along with links to the newspapers, Newspapers Map provides links to translate the newspapers you find on the map. This will allow students to see current events from all over the world. 

These are just a few of the resources on the internet that can help when teaching current events. Obviously depending on the grade level of the students activities will vary. For example the Times For Kids articles will be better suited for 1-3 grade students. Whereas the Newspaper Map would be more acceptable for 4-6 graders. These were all wonderful tools that I will be using in my future classroom. I feel like current event activities should be done at least once a week in the classroom, I think it will be very beneficial to expose students to some of the events occurring in the world. 

Who knew there were so many tribes?

Native Americans

During class we spent a few days doing a jigsaw project with the different Native American tribes. The class was broken into 4 base groups. Every group member had a number 1-6, this number determined what tribe you would be researching. For example all the ones would get together and research one tribe. Once all number groups finished researching their tribes and creating a PowerPoint we went back to our original base groups where we shared all we had learned. 

I researched the Seneca tribe. Prior to this project I really had little background knowledge on the different Native American tribes. This was not something I remember learning a lot about during my time in school. This lesson was for me like a crash course on Native American tribes. In a short amount of time I was able to learn a lot about the different tribes. I learned that many of the tribes had things in common, such as the way they dressed. Native American men generally wore breech cloths with leggings whereas women generally wore wraparound skirts with shorter leggings. Men and women also both wore moccasins on their feet. Another similarity between the tribes was that most of them lived in long house, which held up to 60 people. I now can say I have a better understanding of the Native American tribes. Since each group was given a tribe and then we all shared our information, I was able to learn about 6 tribes, but only had to spend time researching 1. Having each group make a PowerPoint really did help when presenting the information and I think it was a great tool to use. 

From this project I learned how easy it could be to teach the topic of Native Americans. Using the jigsaw method everybody becomes an expert and have the chance to learn about different things. This lesson was done in college class, but it could easily be done with students at the elementary level. To adapt it I might only assign students to one group and they will become experts on the tribe and then present to the whole class, instead of having both expert groups and base groups. Also in our college classroom we had the luxury of having many computers available to us, this may not be the case in elementary classrooms. To adapt this project further, I would allow students some computer time to research, but I would also have many different books for them to look at and find more information. Then instead of having them do a PowerPoint they could make posters to present their work. 

This really is a great lesson and the jigsaw idea could be used in various ways not just with Native American tribes. This is definitely a lesson that will be used in my future classroom!

For more information about the Seneca tribe recommend looking at the following two websites. They were very helpful! 

Click Here

Click Here

Power, Democracy and Governance

Democracy Education in Elementary Schools

I recently read an article about the importance of teaching democracy in the classroom. I really think that this article was great! I agree with the author of the article that it is very important to teach students about democracy at a young age. It is important that they understand how our government works and how it varies from other types of governments. Democracy is an abstract concept for elementary education students, so they need to be able to experience it in the classroom. The article included several different methods of this can be done. Below are the methods described in the article. 

Student-centered education

This is a away for teachers to show their students that they have choices. It is also giving them responsibility to make their own choices and follow through with them.

Democratic classroom management

This is a technique that allows for the teacher to set up democracy in the classroom. This can be done by allowing students to help come up with classroom rules and vote on things. This gives the students a sense of power that is important.

Effective teacher guidance 

Teachers can set up classroom governments to show students how a government is set up and how it works. The class can vote on who they think would be best at representing the class. Teachers can also encourage this type of set up in after school activities. 

Giving value to different ideas

This is an important concept that students need to be familiar with. Students need to learn that everybody has different opinions and it is okay to disagree. Not everybody thinks the same and that it what makes all people different.

Democracy by means of games in the classroom

Games are always a great way to capture the attention of students. Since democracy is very abstract having students act out different roles and show how democracy works could be very beneficial for the whole class. 

If you want to learn more about the topic of democracy then I encourage you to view this article! Enjoy!

Last Day!

Group 4 - Cooperative Lesson

For their final lesson Group 4 each group of students were given a secret mission. This idea really caught the students attention. They were eager to get started and see what they would need too do. This lesson was very well done and there were several aspects that I really enjoyed.

One aspect of the lesson that I thought was a great idea was they came up with an acronym for the word team. This was a great way to get students in the mind set of working together as a team. It also helped them to see some of the main characteristics of being part of a team. 

Another aspect that I enjoyed was that the lesson that I really enjoyed was that each group was given a different mission. This made the lesson more exciting for the students. Each group had a different format in which they would present their mission to the rest of the class. The formats used were a play, a letter, a commercial, a collage, and a music album. This made students more excited about listening to their classmates present. 

One final aspect of the lesson that I thought was done well was they had their groups practice before they had to go up and present their final project to the class. This helped make the presentation go a bit smoother and students knew what they were talking about. They also helped the students keep their posters well organized and neat. 

If I had to change one aspect of the lesson I would have had them assigned jobs to the students. I did notice that at some points their were students who seemed left out or just not focused on the projects that were being done. 

Overall I thought that Group 4 really did a great job! All of the lessons were exciting and for the most part all students seemed interested and involved! Great job Group 4 I really enjoyed observing all of your lessons. 

Almost Done!

Group 4 - Indirect Lesson

Again this was another good lesson put together by group 4, especially working with some undesirable conditions. During this lesson the 2nd grade teacher informed the group that there was going to be a fire drill about 15 minutes into the lesson. Knowing this the group started a little bit early to make up for possible loss of time. Though there did not end up being a fire drill, the group did a great job working during the stressful situation. Again their were several parts of this lesson that I really enjoyed.

One aspect of the lesson that I thought was done well was during their presentation the projector overheated. This was very inconveniencing because their lesson was all on a PowerPoint, but this did not stop them. Group 4 simply went on with lesson and taught from memory. They made sure to give students all the information they needed to move on with the lesson. 

Another aspect of the lesson that I really enjoyed was that they used the artifact bag activity that we had learned about in class earlier in the semester. I liked being able to see this method done in an elementary setting. I thought it was great that all groups had different artifacts in their bags, but they all related back to the idea of Native Americans and how they used these items and how the item they had could be traded. I really think the students were very excited about this activity. 

One final aspect of the lesson that I thought was done well was students were given jobs and told exactly what they needed to do. For the most part I feel like the students stuck with their jobs and at the end the final product turned out nicely. 

If I had to change one aspect of this lesson I might not have used the SOAPS idea or might have focused more time on teaching it to the students. This idea seemed hard for many students to understand and they really did not fully understand what it was used for. I do think that it would work much better in a classroom with slightly older students, because I do think it is a good tool that could be very beneficial. 

Final Group!

Group 4 - Direct Lesson

Group 4 had the topic of trading and transporting goods. I think they did a wonderful job teaching. Being the last group they had a lot of time to prepare and were able to listen and use the feedback that was given to the previous groups. This group really gave off a great energy and really put together some great lessons. There were several aspects of the lesson that I really enjoyed. 

One aspect that I really enjoyed was that the group gave the students a story to go with. They called themselves the Happy Traders and they were a band that had been on tour. I think this was a great way to grab the students attention.

I also liked how the group made and sang a song for the students. The song was all about trading and it was easy for students to join in and sing. 

One final aspect of the lesson that I thought was done very well was the vocabulary was taught and reviewed a lot. Students were given definitions, examples, and were asked to repeat definitions. This really helped to reinforce the new vocabulary and I really think it helped the students remember the new words and there meanings. 

If I had to change one aspect of the lesson I would not have given the students the Popsicle sticks. Each student was given a Popsicle stick with form of transportation on it. They were used to identify the groups and for students to use when they agreed or disagreed with something. I noticed that these sticks were very distracting for most students. They were playing with the sticks instead of focusing on the lesson. 

Overall Group 4 did a great job! I really enjoyed the lesson and look forward to observing their indirect lesson.