Goodbye for Now

Saying goodbyes is a rough subject for most people...especially for teachers. Teaching is such a magical job where they get to teach a set of students for the majority of the year, they build a relationship with them, bond over engaging experiences, and watch there students grow. Teachers must learn to say goodbye for now, not forever. This is the same for this class. 
This semester flew by! There were times where the work load was overwhelming, but there were opposite times where the engaging activities were exciting for even college students. 

Technology is where I will start! I was always hesitant of technology and strayed away from foreign technological ideas besides the basics. This semester really put this hesitation on the front and altered my viewpoints. There are websites I learned about I will gladly use in my future classroom. Websites like Kahoot!, Voki, and Glogster all will be great and engaging websites to use in my future classroom. Kahoot! is the virtual quiz website. This website was the most engaging; yet, stressful in a competitive and fun way. 

Fieldwork is my next stop. Fieldwork was by far one of the most influential experiences I have had at this school. This fieldwork has really prepared myself for my future years as a teacher. The structure of teaching in front of an entire classroom is rewarding in itself, but it allows me to see what my career will be like. In the past, I have never had this experience and this methods class was so helpful to see what I need to work on and why I want to become a teacher. 

Reflections will be another stop. Reflections are always a challenge when one must reflect themselves. It is always easier to reflect on others. Psychologically, people build inner subconscious walls. Personally, I try to tear those walls down to allow myself to become the best teacher I can be. We not only had to reflect on ourselves but professionally reflect on others as well. I loved the reflection for others with three likes and one wish. This allows the other teacher candidate to feel accomplished, but still strive to become better. Personally this helped too-I got to see what my peers thought of my work and what I could improve on. The blogs were great too because they were a source to relieve some reflection on either a topic or a class. 

Another stop will be class time. Class time was not set up like a normal college class. It was hands-on, student centered, and education geared. This created the best possible scenario for myself. Personally, I love hands-on activities-I learn the best through that. Teaching should never be lectures, it should be accomplished in a variety of methods. This class was all of those varieties. We learned through our professor, we learned through our peers, and we learned through ourselves. 

So this post marks my goodbye for now, never goodbye forever! 

The 5 Elements of Social Studies!

Social Studies is unique because it teaches lessons of historical pasts through five elements: meaningful, integrative, value based, challenging, and active. All of these elements of a well-taught Social Studies lesson. 

• Meaningful means the Social Studies must have a reason to be taught. The lesson has to connect and relate back to the student, often connecting on previous connections too help remember the lesson. 
• Integrative means combining lessons to achieve an overarching goal or lesson. This too connects previously learned lessons and information with future lessons to help the student. 
• Value based is students will be required to think critically and make decisions based on their values. Each student has individual values and these will help structure the lesson in a classroom. 
• Challenging is making sure each lesson pushes the students to learn more than they already do-if the student is not challenged either nothing gets learned or very little. 
• Lastly, active is very important, direct lectures will not motivate and engage the student; lessons that are active will be most powerful and engaging for the student to remember.

All five of these elements combine to create one engaging lesson or unit that the students will be able to remember, use in the future, and will help them in the future! 

While this picture does not state the five elements of Social Studies, it does express teaching skills based off of those five elements.

Glogster

Introductions are key to first impressions. First impressions are key to human nature. Whether or not people notice them, subconsciously, everyone notices first impressions and everyone makes mental notes of them. My first impression for the rest of the class was with a website that features a modern technology called  Glosgter. Glogster is a website that allows the person to create a webpage. These can include a collage, a timeline, or a fact page. I could have easily introduced myself vocally or by writing something down. However, that is not as engaging as a newer technological website such as Glogster. Everyone in this class got assigned a different website. This is the one I worked with. This is a great website for Social Studies! Timelines are available for this website and students can create a timeline for a historical event, like a war, create a timeline of a persons life, like a timeline of President George Washington, or even a timeline of America, from Colonies to today. Another resource for this website would be the collage. A student can make a collage instead of a end of the unit test. For example, after learning about the Native Americans, the students can create a historical collage to be submitted for grading.

My introduction, using this Glogster website, was a timeline. This timeline was from birth to today and hit on several key points of my life. Some key points are: my sister's birth, my trip to California and the professional development workshop I attended, and where I am today-MSMC.
This website, students can use videos, pictures, fonts, clipart, color, styles, backgrounds, and so much more. The website pretty much allows the student to create any creative design they want to. This is a wonderful addition to an introduction that will make it memorable, one that looks very complicated and fancy; yet, is easy to finish, and informative.

Interviews

Friday in class four of us students, including myself, became principals of the school. The rest of the class was the teachers seeking jobs in our school. The school I worked at was strictly direst instruction and behaviorist. This means that our teachers strive to teach and provide confidence in our students. We do not believe in a lot of group work and we do not believe in having them work together to figure the information out-the job of a teacher in this school is to teach. 
The questions that I asked the candidates were: 

Warm up:  How was your childhood enhanced your career in teaching?  

1.  What will you do if you believe in CL and my school is all about direct instruction?

2. If I were to walk into your class at 11:15 AM what will be taking place? (e.g., I finished the Anticipatory set and started I DO part - explaining, modeling, demonstrating)

3. What are you looking to achieve in your classroom

How these questions worked was I asked the first question to both candidates, while they were answering, I glanced over their resume. Then I asked one person question number 2. Then I asked the second candidate question number 3. The last question was again for both teachers. After these questions were answered, I had the opportunity to answer any questions the teachers might have.

In the end, we scored up everyone's interview and each had the opportunity hire someone. I chose someone who was confident, answered strongly, was wise about our school, dressed professionally, and would be a great asset in our classroom. 

Three other candidates were hired then. 

What I learned from this experience was that to maintain a wonderful interview, eye contact is a key! Also, providing a handshake either at the beginning, the end, or both is a great connection between the interviewer and the interviewee. I notices some interviewees did not look into our schools and the types they were so they struggled with some answers. They did not know exactly was the right thing to say. This is very unprofessional and is not a good idea-before every interview, the interviewee should do research into the job or school and bring it into the interview. Show the interviewer that you did your homework and that you are excited and engaged to be part of that school in the future.

Iroquois

The Iroquois were a Native American tribe from New York and other NorthEastern states. They were big on farming and hunting the natural life around these areas. They lived in Longhouses and lived together with their tribe. This could get pretty crowded! It was possible to live with 60 other members of the tribe! That's pretty crazy in today's world! They had cultural powwows where they reflected on their farms and produce! These were big events with drums, songs, and dances! The information I learned about was very interesting. It is pretty neat to think about the ground we walk on today is the same ground the Iroquois walked on many decades ago! 
Our group worked well together and presented very well together! We had a picture of an Iroqoius member on the "What do you see" page and got people's first opinions. These opinions were very similar to what we as a group were expecting: they seemed to mae reference to their garments and how typical it looked. Their garments looked very similar to the mental image many of us had of Native Americans! 

Why did I want to be a teacher!

Everyone has a dream of what they want to be when they grow up-some still dream about it. Now, surprisingly, I did not dream about becoming a teacher until late High School. My dream about being a famous Broadway actor with my name in bright, yellow, flashing lights. This all changed summer of my junior year of High School. 

My mother has always been a teacher. She started out in Special Education and now teaches preschool. Being my mother, teaching has always been in my life. I honestly never even thought about becoming a teacher because it was my mother's job. I should also state that my mother is my best friend! 

About the middle of sophomore year, she really wanted to go to this professional development in California for preschool teachers at a preschool called Roseville Community Preschool. This conference was three days long, and taught how important preschool to be hands on! The director, head teacher, and conference leader was by Bev Bos. She has written a multitude of books on how to effectively teach preschool! She loves the idea of hands on activities! Well ,my mother really wanted to go and her preschool paid for her to go. She did not want to go alone, and seeing a spark in myself, invited me to go with her. I saw this as a beach, tanning, relaxing vacation. This turned into a life changing event. This conference was called "Good Stuff For Kids!" and was run by Bev Bos, and the rest of her school staff. 

We went in the middle of July, just my mother and I. We met people from around the world! There was people from Texas, people from Canada, and even people from New York like my mother and I. I learned philosophies of teaching, what is vital in a classroom, activities that are engaging and developmentally appropriate, and so much more. At this time, I did not realize the impact it would have on me. I took this all with a grain of salt. These three days were long, non-stop, and fun! I got to make a fish print from a real fish I painted, have real snails race each other, sing songs and incorporate hand movements, and other preschool activities.

This is was when I realized teaching was the career for me! 

Looking back, it was not just a great memory with my mother that I will always cherish, it was not just a great learning vacation, it was what changed the future of my life! 

I wish I could go back and take more notes and remember more now that  I will use it, but what I do have and do remember will allow myself to become the best possible teacher I can be!  

E-Folio

As a teacher is this day and age, to become a teacher, there are a numerous amounts of steps they have to go through before they get their licensee. This is challenging and stressful, but rightfully so. A teacher is one of the most challenging, but rewarding jobs in the world! They create students to be confident, independent, and creative dreamers. 

One of the steps to achieve a teaching license is edTPA. For our Social Studies Methods class-we created a unit plan to use in this portfolio. We have been currently working on a practice portfolio. This is a wonderful opportunity to see how much time we will need in the future when we are applying for edTPA. 

We, as groups, created lessons to teach to second grade, from a unit. There were four groups and there were four units. This opportunity, to teach a full unit with three different types of lessons, was rewarding and very fulfilling. We have to include this in our practice portfolio. 
Another element of edTPA is to determine our philosophy of teaching. For myself, I learned I was a humanism type of teacher. What a humanism strives to learn from the perspective of human potential growth. This does change for each student. The bigger outcome will allow the world to be a better, responsible world. 

Another element of this practice portfolio is video upload. We recorded myself teaching our units and will upload them to this portfolio. Our professor will then watch our videos, as well as myself and my group members. 

EdTPA may be stressful and may be tricky, but I do think it is important for teachers to be able to write a lesson, teach it, go back and reflect on it. That last piece-reflection- is super important to be able to reflect on our own lessons and see what worked for the future and what did not work. This is vital for every teacher, old, new, any grade, and any subject.