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!