The End

Now that Social Studies Methods for Childhood Education has come to an end, I can look back and see how much I have learned from this class. I walked into this class in January and immediately hated the idea that it seemed to revolve around technology. Though I still do not agree that technology should be the main focus of education, I have learned of how helpful it is in engaging learners of the 21st century. 

In this class, I also got to teach a full class for the first time ever! This was stressful, overwhelming, and and a lot of work, but it was also the biggest learning experience that I have had in college. With the combination of this class and the fieldwork portion of this class, I have been able to really see what type of teacher that I want to be in the future. 

I have now developed the following teaching philosophy thanks to the newly gained knowledge and experience that I relieved from Social Studies Methods. 

Social Studies Methods for Childhood Education was very stressful. It consisted of hours upon hours of work every week, thousands of tears, and an overwhelming amount of frustration. Social Studies Methods was also the class that gave me the most teaching experience and provided me with the constructive feedback that I needed to improve my teaching skills. Thank you to my peers and Dr. Smirnova for a wonderful class!!!

An even bigger thank you for this wonderful poem, which completely sums up all that we have learned and all that each us should hope to be in the future. 

Profiling Patriots

          Today, my group and I finalized our last activity for our unit plan on 13 Colonies, One Country. Though we did not get to actually implement this activity, it was geared towards the second grade class that we did our three lessons for during fieldwork. 

          This activity was designed to strengthen the students understanding of the people who were directly involved with the American Revolution: Paul Revere, George Washington, and Patrick Henry. The students would have been broken up into three groups, each getting assigned one of these three patriots. Before beginning the activity, we would have first gone over what the word Patriot means. 

Patriot: Colonists who wanted independence from Britain.

           Next, each group would have gone to their assigned tables, which would have biographies, a list of online resources, and reading passages about their patriot. Also on their table would be a Profiling Patriots template, where students would record all of the information that they found out about the patriot through their resources.

After 20-30 minutes, each group would present their findings to the rest of the class. By doing so, each student would get to learn more information about all three patriots. 

Overall, I think that the students would have really enjoyed this activity because they seemed to always be highly engaged when talking about any of the patriots. They would ask many questions and participate in all discussions about the patriots. I wish that we could have taught this activity, but there was not enough time. Regardless, this is definitely something that I would consider using in my classroom in the future.

The Camel Teaches

Looking back at one of my interview questions from my last class, I would really like to give my own response. The question was, "What animal comes to mind when you think of a teacher? Why?' I thought that this question was different from the typical interview questions and really required a higher though process and creativity to be answered. Overall, I was extremely impressed with the responses to the question and wanted my own shot at answering. 

Drum Role Please. . . 

ba-dum-

ba-dum-

ba-dum-

ba-dum-TSH

The animal that comes to mind when I think of a teacher is a camel.

 

I think of a camel because they are an animal that you wouldn't necessarily see as strong. When I think of  strong animals, I think of Lions, and Tigers, and Bears, Oh My! Those animals might be stronger physically, but a camel is much much stronger mentally. A camel is able to make  it through a harsh but rewarding journey that most other animals could never survive. While on this journey, they are expected to carry heavy loads through many different conditions, all while given hardly any resources. Yet, each and every time, the camel succeeds with this journey, making it to the end in an efficient amount of time and effectively helping others reach it to their end goal. This journey is and always will be a challenge, but the camel is able to make it through the harshest conditions in order to get the most beautiful reward in the end. In the camel's case, this means water,rest, and the happiness of his/ her owner. In a teachers case, this means seeing his/her students make it through the year long journey, all while growing physically, academically, socially, and emotionally. Though the school year is tough, teachers never give up on their students, and always push through to get students to the next step of their lives. 

Click on the link below to watch "The Journey of a First Year Teacher"

Principal for a Day

Today, my Social Studies Methods for Childhood Education class and I explored the interview process in order to became comfortable with being interviewed and to prepare for what is to come in the near future. Though most of us were being interviewed, I was one of the few students to take on the role of principal. 

We began by giving the entire class an overview of our own background, teaching philosophy in order to prepare everyone for who we were looking for. My introduction was the following: 

                                     

I then asked the following questions: 

 Interview Questions (Animoto Video)

Overall, I judged my applicants with the following symbols: 

 ☁ ☼ ☂ ☃

The Cloud: Excellent (not too hot, not too cold; ability to be perfect weather)

The Sun: Great (Great weather, but might need to be improved with an ice cold

iced tea or beach day)

The Rain: Okay (a little rainy, but still has the ability of being an okay day by

doing crafts, reading, or watching movies with the family)

The Snow: Not Who I am Looking for... (Too cold- looking for more neutral  

weather)

While interviewing, I payed attention to the following five questions:

1) Was the person being interviewed dressed professionally?

2) Did the person being interviewed introduce themselves in a professional manner? (i.e. smile, handshake, greet with full name)

3) Did the person being interviewed exhibit characteristics that make an efficient and effective teacher?

For example:

• Friendly
• Organized
• Well Spoken
• Leadership Skills
• Caring
• Professional
• Knowledgeable
• Creative
• Teamwork Skills
• Passionate
• Engaging
• Punctual-Good Listener
• Multitasker

4) Did the person being interviewed answer questions with good eye contact, voice projection, articulation, gestures, and within an appropriate amount of time and information?

5) Did the person being interviewed answer questions in the way that I was looking for or in a way that was different, but impressive, well thought out ,and deserving of a cloud?

Overall, the interview day went very well and I was very impressed with the level of professionalism and creativity used when my peers were in their mock interviews. There were many of them that I would definitely consider in an actual hiring process. The day was very engaging and quite the learning experience. I now feel more confident for when I go on my interviews in the near future. 

News of the Past

Today, my group and I created a different version of our Current Events lesson in order to relate our cubing concept to our chapter, Thirteen Colonies, One Country. Though this lesson was not actually implemented, it was geared towards second graders.

We would have began by having a Voki introduce us as news reporters.

Next, we would have shown pictures of the following things that are currently cool before introducing a cool new thing called cubing.

               

 Cubing: Exploring a topic from six viewpoints!

After engaging our students, we would have slit students into six groups:

Description: 

After reading this article, you will describe what the article is about.

Association:

After reading this article, you will associate what you read with something else that you have learned about, either in the news, class, or in your personal life.

 Application:

After reading this article, you will write down how you can apply the message that you learned to your own life.

We would have then modeled how to do our cubing activity with the four following steps, using the description viewpoint with a different article. 

—Step 1: Read Instructions for your viewpoint, so that you know what you are looking for when reading.

—Step 2: Read an article.

—Step 3: Write your viewpoint as a title and then compose about 3 sentence from your viewpoint.

-Step 4: Tape your paragraph to our “Super Cool Class Cube” 

My group and I to create two articles, one from the British viewpoint, called Long Live the King!, and one from the colonists viewpoint, called Long Live the Colonists! Both articles revolved around the idea of the British taxing the colonists in order to pay for war damage. 


I have provided the link to the article here: 


Long Live the Colonists!

Long Live the King!

Cubing Activity Conclusion

We would have conlcuded this activity by having students share their viewpoints as they taped them to our class cube. Next, we would have discussed how it felt to have to look at something in a different way. We would relate the topic back to school, work, social lives, and personal lives. The end goal would be to get students to understand that being able to look at things from a different perspective is very important in all aspects of life.

After doing this, we would then do a compare and contrast chart between the two articles as a class to see class understanding as a whole:

Lastly, we would have students write a journal entry to see how much they understand the concept on an individual level. 

Overall, I think that this activity would be so much fun and would have been a great add on to our unit plan for field work!

This Little Biz Went to Market

Today in Social Studies Methods for Childhood Education, my class and I continued to explore the education of economics at the elementary level. We were split into groups of 3-4, each of which received a kit for BizWorld, BizWiz, or BizMovie. Once in groups, our teacher also had us decide whether we wanted to create an animated movie from a  debate, conversation, or commercial view for our kits. My group and I were given BizWiz and chose to do this program through a conversational viewpoint. We did this by creating an animated film using GoAnimate.com. 

GoAnimate offers a variety of themes, scenes, graphics, sounds, and animations to really bring your video to life. However, you are limited to a 30 second video run time if you create a video as a free user. In order to get past this rule, I created a long draft video without saving. I then recorded the draft video using iMovie. Overall, I found GoAnimate very easy to use and think that I might buy it in the future. It is a very engaging way to teach anything, and my group and I had a blast creating a knowledge filled, humorous movie about parents being concerned with their son's teacher using BizWiz in the classroom. I hope that the video below teaches you all about BizWiz while also showing you how wonderful GoAnimate is when it comes to engaging students. ENJOY!

                                    

Engaging Economics Throughout Education

Children get introduced to the concept of money at a very early age. We give them toy cash registers and piggy banks, and allow them to play games like Monopoly. Children love money, but do not understand its limitations. They do not grasp why mommy can't buy them everything in the store or how money earned compares to money spent. This concept of monetary value is usually something that children begin to grasp in school through such topics as career education, geography, history, community studies, and consumer education.

How is Economic Education integrated throughout the Social Studies Curriculum through these topics? 

Career Education: Explores career choices by comparing the cost of a degree or certification, school time, salary, and benefits to other careers. For instant, how much money and time does it take to become a doctor? Does the salary and benefits outweigh the time, energy, and money put into creating this career for oneself? 

Geography: Promotes an understanding of how geography plays a major role in economics by providing examples of the benefits and limitations of different locations around the world. This focuses on aspects like natural resources, biodiversity, natural disasters, climate, human interactions, transportation, mobility, international trade, and globalization and how they affected the economical development of a particular area. 

History:Gives the knowledge of what life was like without money in order to get students to really understand how money facilitates production, distribution, and consumption. History also provides information on how monetary value influenced culture,religion, recreational activities, and more throughout the world. 

Community Studies: Provides examples of community, city, country, continent, and world interdependence within economics in order to understand the importance of working together in order to achieve an overall stability throughout all aspects of life.

Consumer Education: Discusses the importance of consumers by providing information of how these consumers create the economic system of a nation. Within Consumer Education, it is also discussed that the main goal is to make the consumer happy in order to ensure that they will continue to buy the products of a particular individual or company. 

Example of Economics being taught through History

                                               

Geography and Economics

Money from around the world does not hold the same value. Many different factors go into deciding the worth of money within different locations. This is known as currency. (click link for currency calculator)

Why is it that $1.00 of USA money equals $1.08 of Australian money?

Interactive Ways to Teach Economic Education 

Consumers Win Game

Interactive way of understanding how consumers win because of  the competition of producers. 

Remains of the Past

Most people think that there is no way to making Social Studies interesting at any age level. The people that think this way are sadly mistaken. Though Social Studies might not be everyone's highly taxed cup of tea, there are certainly many ways to offer a more engaging way of teaching this subject. For instance, you might want to learn about how to create artifact bags!

In order to create your own artifact bag, you must first explore some of these questions:

-What is an artifact?

Artifact: An object produced or shaped by human craft, especially a tool, weapon, or ornament of archaeological or historical interest.

-What artifacts will I put into my artifact bag?

-Do these artifacts have significant meaning to the topic that I am going to explore?

-Will my students be able to figure out the who, what, where, when, and why  for each artifact in order to come up with a conclusion for their artifact bags?

-What am I looking for in a conclusion? What is my BIG question?

A computerized version of my Artifact Bag

Artifact Bag Topic: Thirteen Colonies, One Country

BIG Question: Who am I? (Tell students before giving them the artifacts) 

Artifact List:- Students should figure this out on their own. You might want to give them books or computers to use for research. 

1) Map of Boston, Massachusetts 

2) Horse Figurine 

3) Hat 

4) "No Britain" Sign

5) Fireworks

6) Silver Teapot

WHO AM I? ... PAUL REVERE 

Justification: Paul Revere was born in Boston, Massachusetts (Artifact #1) on January 1, 1735. After his father died, he took over the family's silversmith shop (Artifact #6). After seeing how unfairly the British were treating the colonists, Paul Revere wanted to help the colonies pull away from British control (Artifact #4). He took part in the Boston Tea Party (Artifact #6 can also apply here) , where the colonists poured all of the British tea into the harbor in order to rebel against the tea tax. The British were so angry that they decided to attack the colonies, but Paul Revere rode on horseback (Artifact #2) throughout the night to warn the colonists that "The British are coming, the British are coming!" He continued to play a significant role in American independence and we were able to create an independent nation, which we celebrate with firework displays (Artifact #5) every 4th of July. (Artifact #6 can be justified in pictures or by researching colonial clothing). 

The Dynamic Diné

Today,our Social Studies methods class once again explored the idea of Cooperative Learning. We went back to our original groups and each decided which Native American tribes we wanted to research. I chose to the Diné tribe and was put into an expert group with Julie, Julia, and Jean. 

When researching our tribe, we were supposed to really put an emphasis on how geography influenced the tribe. 

A distinctive Diné, also known as Navajo, culture came into play around 1100-1500 A.D. in the four corners area of the Colorado Plateau. On this Plateau, the Diné suffered from periods of drought, and wind and water erosion. They were also hit with undependable Summer rains, which often arrived as severe thunderstorms, and undependable Winter snow, which they relied on as a water source. However, the Diné people never backed down, so we gave them the following slogan:

"When the going gets tough, we get tougher."

With such unpredictable weather, the Diné tribe heavily depended on family ties to survive. They were an extremely unified group of people, who worked together to deal with all aspects of life. Though the land did not always work to their advantage, they still held a very high value of it because it played a big role in their survival. In fact, many games and traditions have emerged from their love of the land and their attachment to it. On top of this, they also have many typed of ceremonies that are focused on land and family.




We concluded that the geography of the Diné tribe promoted a love for their land and family. Though there were often harsh conditions, it is clear that this geography led to a highly unified, traditional, and loving group of people who who knew that working together created the amount of strength needed for survival. 

After teaching our classmates about our tribe, we then tested their understanding by taking a quiz on Kahoot. This was highly engaging and interactive and I will definitely be exploring this website more in the future. 

Teach Me How to CUBE!

Today, my group and I did our ten minute Current Events lesson. Though this lesson was implemented with college students, it was geared towards fifth graders. The video below was our way of engaging our targeted audience.

After engaging our ten students, we put two students in charge of each of  five of the viewpoints. They were able to look at how to do their viewpoint on our class forum: 

Description: 

After reading this article, you will describe what the article is about.

Comparison: 

After reading this article, you will compare your findings to a time when you were praised for something that you didn't think you deserved. 

Association:

After reading this article, you will associate what you read with something else that you have learned about, either in the news, class, or in your personal life.

Analysis: 

After reading this article, you will analyze the details that you read in order to break it up into four main parts.

 Application:

After reading this article, you will write down how you can apply the message that you learned to your own life.

Argumentation:

After reading this article, argue whether you believe that Faulkner did the right thing by asking for his Purple Heart later on in life or if you think it was too late? Why?

We then modeled how to do our cubing activity with the four following steps, using the description viewpoint. 

—Step 1: Read Instructions for your viewpoint, so that you know what you are looking for when reading.

—Step 2: Read an article.

——Step 3: Write your viewpoint as a title and then compose about 3 sentence from your viewpoint.

Step 4: Tape your paragraph to our “Super Cool Class Cube” 

My group and I chose an article called, 89-year-old U.S. WWII vet Richard Faulkner, which was about a veteran who wanted to receive his Purple Heart that he had turned down many years ago. He stated that he had turned it down because he didn't feel right accepting such an award after the death of all of his friends. However, after enough time to grieve, he realized that he wanted to have his Purple Heart to pass down to his grandchildren in memory of his military service. 

I have provided the link to the article here: http://www.studentnewsdaily.com/blog/quote-of-the-week/89-year-old-u-s-wwii-vet-richard-faulkner/

Cubing Activity Completed

We concluded the lesson by having students discuss their viewpoints and how it felt to have to look at something in a different way. We also related the topic back to school, work, social lives, and personal lives. The end goal was to get students to understand that being able to look at things from a different perspective is very important in all aspects of life. I think that we succeeding in meeting this goal and that the activity a whole went very well. 

Three Likes: 

1) The students found our PowerPoint Presentation and "Super Cool Class Cube" to be engaging.

2) All of the students got to be part of this activity and got a chance to talk about their viewpoint

3) We were able to relate the ideas of viewpoints back to personal lives, school, jobs, and social lives. 

~*~*~A Wish ~*~*~

** I wish that we had more time to do this activity **