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. 

Current Events

What is a current event? This phrase is vital for each classroom across America! Current Events tie in social studies with literacy in today's classroom. Let's break it up: Current-something that is happening now  and is relevant to the age, location, and child; event- something that happened or is happening. Combined these two words are important for elementary school children to learn because it teaches about other cultures, events that happened or are currently taking place, and how it can impact a society or even themselves.

Current Events with Adjectives. 

My partner and I taught our college students about how important adjectives are on current events. We taught this lesson using a Newsela article. We started out by defining what an adjective is. We then watched a SchoolHouse Rock video on adjectives. This video was amazing to use because it was sung so it was easy to remember, had pictures, and used new adjectives. What made me really appreciate the new adjectives was that it said it, used it in a sentence, and also showed a picture. By doing the three of those, the students hopefully will learn new adjectives to use. Then we asked the students what they say in the video.


After this, we had students share examples of what adjectives were and their examples.
We then had the students read an article on Newsela. The college students were assigned to use the highlighter tool to highlight any adjective they saw. This was vital because it was more practice, and taught the students a new tool to use in the future.

We then made a simple movie about adjectives to share with our teacher peers. My partner and I decided to use the word "young" in this movie. We shared the example from the article, then we created our own example with that word. The assignment was for the students to use the website "wideo.co" and create a adjective movie too! We shared some examples from the class.

This experience was full of new experiences. My partner and I had to use that website that we never used before to create the video. Not only that, but then instruct our students to use that website and create a video. Overall, this lesson went great! I would go over the article more in the future and provide more time for the video creation, but we achieved everything we planned for and my partner and I were content with what was taught.

Other Teaching Groups

There was a total of four groups to teach our second grade class. I was in the third group, so this blog will focus on the three other groups that taught the class.

The first group, being the most difficult because they went first, they did a wonderful job. They had four perspective teachers. Their topic was goods and services. Their three lessons focused on what a good is and what a want is. They seemed to work well together and planned efficiently. What I learned from this group is how a teacher needs to fully think about everything regarding all types of students. I learned how to properly create an evaluation for group/self work. The class we were in, the students were too young to evaluate the group work, so a teacher needs to be able to identify when that is the case and change it to an appropriate way. For this class, it would be a self evaluation.

The second group also had four teachers. Their lessons were about services in our community. I really loved how their direct lesson-their first lesson, they all dressed up as different services, for example: a police officer. They separated their teaching into different elements of the lesson and it worked for each of them.

The third group was my group.

The fourth group to teach was about banks and money. They seemed to be very knowledgeable about this topic. It was interesting to see the three of them teach because they all seemed to be  different types of teachers but they worked well together. The three of them worked very well by means of assigning roles on the lesson. For each lesson, it seemed that they took the same elements for each lesson. They grew strong for their individual parts; however, I'm not sure if they did this on purpose or if that is just a coincidence!

Cooperative Learning

The third type of lesson my group and I taught was cooperative learning. This is all about each person has a specific task to all work together as a group to complete the entire task that is being asked. The way my class was taught to remember this was with an acronym of PIGS and then Face to face. This lesson the students had to work together to become a factory and create an ad. Each student was a manager and had the task of either writing the slogan, drawing, designing, creating the price, etc. The students seemed to love the creative element of this task. I did realize that assigning roles would be challenging to we let the students work together.
The students had the chance to present their ad with the class once everyone was finished and the teachers and I had the listening students guess what the factory was. They all seemed to really enjoy this element of the lesson.
My wish for the future is that as a class, we went over how to properly present and how to properly listen to a group presenting. The students, I noticed, got shy and turned away when present or spoke too quietly. While the listeners did their own work or their focus was not on the group presenting. If we had the chance to go back and had a little bit more time, I would have spoke about this.

Teaching Inquiry

For the second lesson, my group and I had to teach an inquiry lesson. This lesson I focused on writing the lesson plan. By this point, my group and I learned about each other and how each of us work. Inquiry is the idea that a problem needs to be solved. The class we were working with find group work exciting, but they can get too loud or off topic easy. My two cooperating teachers and I really tried to keep every student focused. They really seemed to enjoy working with their peers. I learned a lot from doing group work with the class because as a teacher, they must keep on top of the entire class, not just the group they are working closely with.
We used a fairly new technology to me: a Voki. A Voki is an animated figure that speaks whatever you type it to say. We created the Voki to present our problem: the truck driver needs to deliver goods and does not know where to start and finish. The students seemed to find it very funny and knew exactly what the problem is. As a backup, we printed out a letter as to what the Voki exactly said. This also was beneficial to hand out and have the students read along with the voice speaking or go back to re-read the problem.

Direct Teaching

I have finally taught in front of an entire class. While I had two partners and we worked as a team, it was quite the learning experience. Working as a group to teach a lesson is quite the challenge. All three of us have unique ideas and opportunities to fulfill our dreams. By each of us having ideas, we had the opportunity to challenge each other to see how can we create the best lesson possible. at first there were so many worksheets. Probably too many for our second graders. We decided to throw some technology into the lesson replacing two of the worksheets. One of them was a vortex Smartboard game placing phrases into two category. The other was a tic-tac-toe game.

What was great about it was it got the students so excited and involved with the lesson. The downer was when we arrive at the classroom...their technology was not up to date so all of our games would not work! Thank goodness we had backups! I knew from prior experience, not mine own,- but watching others, that when using technology...ALWAYS HAVE A BACKUP. I printed out the slides onto paper to have a manual opportunity in case this happened...thanks goodness I did because we needed that wonderful backup option. This also went really well even though the technology did not work. I learned also how loud the class gets when given the opportunity. This may just be this particular class, but it did get quite noisy when unexpected. while my first classroom experience was hopeful for an amazing, perfect lesson, reality does kick in and challenges come up. I appreciate the challenges because they will happen in the future and while I am officially a teacher. It has taught me so much more than any lecture or textbook could. I could have been told or read about challenges, but unless the situation pops up into a future lesson, le
arning can only happen when tried.

Bullying! This issue is not a new one; yet, lately it is in the spotlight! Has it been getting worse as the generations grow? Who's to say! It could be a yes, or, it could be that the spotlight has been on it to stop it. Personally, I do not understand why any human being would intentionally want to hurt someone else. Often we are told the bully acts that way because of their own insecurities or problems in their home or upbringing. That may be true! Yet, it still needs to be stopped! It is not nice, fair, and can lead to bigger cycles.
In today's world, cyber bullying is the biggest issue. It affects children all over the nation. There are a multitude  ways to cyber-bully. With our current age, technology is amazing!!! Yet, it can be a forum where people can hide behind their screens and hurt someone else!
STOP BULLYING NOW! 

Microeconomics and Macroeconomics

Microeconomics! 
"Microeconomics is the study of individual households, companies, and markets and how resources and prices combine to distribute wealth and products" (Sunal, Haas, 2011, p. 421). What this means if the prices of things vary depending on demand. In the summer, winter coats are cheapest because the majority of New York residents do not need one and the bathing suits are most expensive while in the winter the prices are the opposite because of demand. This also relates to when something new and popular arrives, the demand is high so more people want that object and the prices go up. Why do they go up? It does seem somewhat unfair to pay more when there are so many being sold, but it is because employees have to work extra hard and even over time to get this produce into the consumers hands like yourselves! The government will step in to regulate these monopolies from controlling too much or doing things that are unjust and selfish.  Then looking at different scales, the local, state, and national government officials control certain elements like roads or laws and they all work together to create the best microeconomics environment in their minds. Taxes play a part as well! They help public services update and keep up to par. 

Macroeconomics 
This is the BIG PICTURE. It looks at the economy as a whole, not broken up into different pieces. It worried about the entire nation, not just local or state wide. The GNP (gross national product) allows the values stay in-tune with other nations to keep things fair and level. The GNP allows to see the capita- the money generated by a single person to view as a capital or nation. For example, if the capita is $50, the lives are very different than a capita of let's say $4,000. They also look into jobs and timing, like the unemployment rate is lower during holidays because the need for shopping is higher so the employee need is also higher. This plays a role on inflation: the idea when all prices go up at the same time period. Monetary policy is the regulation of money in a nation's economy. Fiscal policy is the combined actions of the national government to allow money per business or person. These policies create a fair and managed economy.- or it tries to. The Unites States tends to have an option on these polices and people view them differently whether they are both needed, only one is needed, or people hate them both. 

Keep the Students Engeged with Lessons!

1) Direct Instruction:
-Looking into pictures, Students were asked questions and asked to make connections!
-Some of the questions were cause questions
-Students and teachers interact with each other
-Students were asked to put their hand on their head if they agreed.
-Students were asked to hug their arms if they disagreed.
-The teacher asked the students review questions.
-A teachers role is to repeat what was said by students too.
-Graphic organizers were passed out to the students about the war. They are great to be organized and see what students know and what  they need to know.

2) Inquiry Lessons
-This is problem solving skills
-Authentic real world situations
-Organize students to the question
-Hypothesize
-analyze data
-draw conclusion
-inform the class on the conclusion
-The teacher provided a calendar for students to see dates, time management, and a timeline of events

3) Cooperative Learning
-Group and cooperative skills are vital in this lesson and this video
-Students work together as a team and a group
-This develops social skills!
-Students work together to the tasks of the lesson
-A vital aspect of this is the teacher walking around listening to the groups working together
-Groups share what they learned with each other
-A brief review at the end to cover any last minute questions

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Artifacts

Today is class we separated into groups, our teaching groups. We each got assigned a bag and had to unravel the details about our artifacts. This activity was amazing! I really, really enjoyed it! My group and I have three objects, a porcelain holder, used mainly for caviar, teabags etc., then we had a photo of Dr. Sminrova from her Scout days. Lastly, we had a Doctorate diploma.
This was very interesting and the task at hand was harder than imagined. The photo took us the longest and until we examined the outfits, and the background (the woods), it took us long to figure out what it was. The porcelain dish was the easiest. Lastly, the diploma was also a challenge. At first we thought it was a passport. That was not true. Then I looked up the Russian alphabet and started playing around with the letters. We discovered it was a diploma. We originally thought it was a Masters diploma but we later found out it was Doctorate.
This activity was so much fun and I can see my future students enjoying it!
It used cooperative learning by having groups work to create one clear answer.
My questions are:
1) Will it have the same effect if it is not a foreign object?
2) Will my students enjoy it as much as I did?
3) I need many objects, where will I find them all?

The Examination of Conflicts

Conflicts. This is such a broad word. There are conflicts in every day life: what to wear, a friendly conflict, a feud, or even conflict in the classroom. There are conflicts ranging from historical conflicts, like wars and tension between countries, there are classroom conflicts, who was not sharing with whom, or there are so many more conflicting areas. With any study, conflict can be added in. For dramatic reenactment, conflict can be added to the "plot" to add what the historical figure felt like at that time. Another great example is diaries, letters, and artifacts can easily describe a conflicting idea or theme from primary sources. Using people as resources, the class can study what conflicts people went through and why. "What conflict did the Native American tribes have to deal with concerning the Europeans?" is a great example and relevant for our topic.
With conflict comes cooperation. Conflicts may be short lived, some may take years, but in the end, the resolution, some cooperation must take place.
It is a wise idea to properly textually define what "conflict" and "cooperation" is before you introduce any themes or facts to the class.
I have attached a Sesame Street video describing what "conflict" is.

Native American Speaker!

Today in class we had a surprising guest speaker: Evan T. Pritchard a Native American. What was so amazing was that for our class field work, we will be teaching native Americans and he gave us first hand stories and background about the Algonquin Tribe and Native Americans. He was super outgoing and was thrilled to be sharing his culture with us eager listeners. 

He made two maps that indicated Native Americans locations, trails, and history. These maps were created by studying hundreds of previously made maps and combining them. I have included a picture of both maps and him showing them to our class. 

He then went into a lecture about how our school's town has so much historical Native American history to it. We have Washington's Headquarters in our town. What was interesting about that- it used to be a trail for the Native Americans. It was very interesting to find that information out. Some of our town houses are stone and old-fashioned and Mr. Pritchard said that these homes were built around 1695-1710. Of course, the must have gotten upgrades throughout the several years in between, but the structure is originally from that time period. What is so interesting about them is that they are built on former Native American trails also! 

Then he went around and asked us each our home location. The cities and states varied but each had some connection to the Native Americans. My hometown is by water, so the Native Americans had a trail leading up to the water to collect fish and sea life. I know exactly where the water is so that was so neat to imagine Native American walking around my town to get their fish for food. 

One interesting story was about how they found a Native American blade from the Trail times a few years back. This blade was still in tact and could easily harm whatever it scrapped against. That is how sharp they were made. Not even that, but how strong they were made- they lasted all of these years with erosion. 

Then Mr. Pritchard took our a clarinet type instrument and started improvisational playing it. It was very beautiful and I have attached a picture. After, he played the drum type instrument. This some had words to it and was a welcome song. They both sounded very authentic. after he discussed his authentic attire, this coat was a prayer coat. Each five strings counts as something and every time the wind blows,it a prayer. I thought that was very interesting.

Week 1: Social Studies Learning

As our class starts, thoughts run into and out of out anxious brains: thoughts ranging from worries, stress, anxiety, and possibly even homesick. The thoughts that connect to Social Studies Methods are whether this class will be stressful, fun, helpful, etc.. All of us students start in the same place, at the beginning of a new semester, new classes, new professors, new homework, etc. Yet, we are thrilled to be back and experiencing each day at this school.
Social Studies Methods seem like a lot of work; yet it seems very informative and very helpful towards becoming a successful teacher. Dr. Smirnova seems very knowledgeable and inspirational to help us become the best teachers we can be. At the same time, this class seems like a lot of work. What makes this work manageable is that it seems to be important and reasonable. It does not seem like busy-pointless work.
I loved the first project of teaching the class about ourselves using new technology. It is not a silly icebreaker we all are so sick of, or a pointless activity. It gives us each a chance to introduce ourselves, our backgrounds, our favorite things, and why we want to be teachers. Also, introduce our technology to the class.
Technology is an amazing, yet scary thing. Technology constantly changes. When I was in elementary school, there was the best thing: overhead protector. Now, this is outdated! Technology such as Smartboards, the "elmo", I-pads, are current and all over schools. We, as future teachers, must use and get adjusted with these newer technologies to properly use them in our class! What is funny about technology is that some of our students may be wiser with how to use the newer apps or devices because of how our generations are going. Yet, that could be a learning experience. A teacher can totally give groups a different app/device and have them create a review game/recall to propose to the class. Then by a fair and just voting system, use the most popular idea to review. This uses the topic of cooperative learning also!