Social Studies Reflection

Social studies is such an important subject to teach.   Students need to understand who they are, where they come from, and the different ways people live around the world.   Social studies is a subject that can easily be integrated in other content areas.  You can begin teaching social studies when you are planning the management of your classroom.  Students can help create the classroom rules.   If each student feels important and knows that their opinion matters, this can only help a teacher to build a stronger classroom community.  I want my students to feel that they are a part of not only the classroom, but also a community, and that each of them has a voice that can be heard.  Each student has opinions, ideas, and beliefs that they can contribute to the classroom.  Social studies is a great tool to help students learn about democracy.   In my classroom, students will not only learn with a textbook, they will be actively participating in the lessons they are learning whether it be with acting out a play about different times in history, giving a presentation, dressing like a character from history, or creating class projects that has to do with our community.  Social studies seems to be a forgotten subject in most schools.  Many schools do not even require the teachers to teach social studies, even though it is part of the state standards. I feel that the students need to be involved in active learning.  They need to participate in hands on activities to help them evaluate all of the materials being discussed.  I want students to see the main idea of the important events in history and get away from rote memorization.  I want to have a culturally responsive classroom.  I want all students to be aware of the different cultures that they will one day come in contact with.   Because no matter where you go, there will always be someone from different cultures than yourself.   I really hope to integrate social studies into all the other subjects in my classroom.  I think reading stories with the students about other cultures is a good way to build on a culturally responsive classroom.  It is very easy to integrate social studies into the other subjects.  Art, music, science, language arts, math; these subjects can be modified to integrate social studies into the lessons.  This class has definitely changed my perspective of social studies and how it can be taught.  My experience with social studies during school was; take notes on the lecture, study, and take a test.  When I get into the classroom, I want to make sure the students can see that learning social studies can be fun and exciting.  I will teach to the standards but in a way that promotes active learning.  The students need to learn social studies, and as teachers it is our job to teach in a way that is beneficial to student learning.   If this can be done in a fun and exciting way, then I feel the students will learn more effectively and be more active learners.

Living History Museum

Wow!  I really enjoyed doing the living history project.  It is a very good activity to use in social studies.  While researching my character, I had so many ideas go through my head on how I could use this activity in the classroom.  It is an excellant tool that can be revised and modified to reach all learning styles and grade levels.  Plus, it is fun!

Book Talk

Using literature books  is a very good way to present social studies to students in the classroom. Using historical fiction and nonfiction books like we did during our book talk is a good way to get away from regular textbook learning. These kinds of stories are interesting to students and when they have factual information, they can be a very beneficial tool for the teacher to promote effective social studies learning.

Fact, Question, Response

The Fact Question and Response that we did over the articles is an excellant tool that teachers can use to help engage students not only with just reading articles but helping them understand what they are reading.  By doing this activity students have better comprehension of what they are reading by having to look for key terms and facts that will help them understand the article. The videos we watched in class that showed the teachers engaging with the students in reading and understanding by using the post it notes showed me an excellant way that I can teach my students to better understand what they read.

Climbing Mt Everest

The activity we did on climbing Mt Everest was a very creative way to help students learn social studies.  While in the classroom I had to do an Attitudinal Survey before teaching a lesson for Ms. Dosser.   I was integrating social studies into my lesson so one of the questions was "Do you like social studies?"  The data showed that not many students liked social studies.  This was due in part to the fact that social studies is rarely taught in this classroom.  Using story path, box city, and other interesting activities is a very good way to raise the interest level in your students.

Social Studies in the classroom

One thing I have noticed while working in the classroom with my mentoring teacher is, there is not much importance pertaining to social studies.  All the lessons I have observed have focused mainly on Math,  Language Arts, Science, and Reading.  The only time they have any instruction with social studies is when the counselor comes in, which is usually once or twice a month, and talks to them about behavior concepts.  The schools main concern seems to be focused on the TCAPS testing in the spring.  I understand that the schools are pressured into steering the students to do well on testing but I feel the students are missing out on key concepts they would learn if more emphasis was put on teaching social studies.

Observation

I had a wonderful experience yesterday while working with my mentoring teacher.  The students were collecting their backpacks to go home.  The teacher had purchased a large Magna Doodle board for her classroom.  During this time she was working with one of the special needs students assigned to her classroom.  He has Down's syndrome and is considered non verbal.  She wrote simple questions for him on the magna doodle board and it was amazing to see him answer them with yes and no answers.  She has been working with him on a daily basis, trying to get him to say words.  So far he says "yes", "no", and "mommy."  It is remarkable how just a simple game can promote learning. 

Google Earth

I became familiar with Google Earth when my husband was deployed overseas.  He told me about it so I downloaded it on my computer.  It was amazing.  I searched for his camp site and found it no problem.  It helped me become familiar with the area in which he worked.  But until we viewed it in class it never crossed my mind to use it as a learning tool in the classroom.  Now all sorts of ideas are popping into my head on how it could be incorporated into teaching geography.

Geocaching

I really enjoyed the day we went geocaching! Even though the weather was bad it was still exciting to find a cache.  This would be a great thing for the family tro do when on vacation.  They could find where the closest ones are to their vacation spot and really have a good time as a family.   This is also great for a classroom activity (depending on the age group) and teaching geography. Even if you can't actually geocache with your students, the concept would still work with something like a scavenger hunt around the school yard.

Geography

My memories of goegraphy consist of lecture, memorization, and tests.  Very boring!  The box city we are constructing in class is a very good manipulative to use to make geography fun.  Students will want to learn when teachers take a few minutes out of their time to construct lessons that are fun and interesting. 

Advocate

I had an experience in my classroom where I am doing my Field Experience.  A situation arose where a special needs student was in need of an advocate-someone to speak up on his behalf.  He is assigned an aide because of his disability.  But in this situation the aide did something that had a very negative affect on the special needs student and the whole class.  My mentoring teacher became that advocate. Even though she has only been a teacher for under three years she took control of the situation.  She was not afraid to use her voice and speak up on behalf of the students.  Kudos to her!

Critical Voice

After reading the article about critical voice I, like everyone else, became angry.  The teachers in this article seem to have a complete lack of understanding of what it really means to be a teacher.  They just did what they were told, what they had been taught, or what they themselves had experienced when they were in school.  Being a teacher is understanding that all students do not learn the same way.  As teachers, it is our job to meet the individual learning needs of each child.  Sometimes that will involve speaking up to administrators, state officials, or school boards.