"A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops." Henry Adams

Final Blog post and Fieldwork Experience

Learning Outcomes:

• I have learned how to blog
• I have learned how to incorporate more technology into my lessons
• I have learned how to make a live binder
• I have learned about and how to create Direct, Inquiry, and Cooperative lessons.

Successes:

• I succeeded at making Direct, Inquiry, and Cooperative Lessons
• I succeeded at coming prepared to all classes, and fieldwork
• I succeeded at finishing all of my work with the best of my ability

Failures:

• I failed at keeping up with my blog throughout the whole semester and had to complete it at the end
• I failed at finishing some assignments on time

How are you different?:
I am different now for a few reasons. For one, I had no idea of all the different types of technology one could incorporate into a lesson, but now I do. Also, I have become a better teacher in general. I was very limited when it came to teaching, because I and only taught to small groups of students. IN this class I had the chance to teach to a whole class, and it was such a different experience.

Insight on peer's teaching:
I was impressed with my peers and how well everyone did. I expected everyone to be so nervous on their first days, and even though I'm sure they were, no one really showed it while teaching. Some groups even had a few glitches while teaching, but never made any of it obvious. The only reason I found out about the glitches was from the group talks we would have in class later that week.

What I learned:
I learned that there are pros and cons to working with peers. Some pros are that you get different ideas that you may have never thought of and you get to see different sales of teaching that you maybe want to use one day. Some cons are that we do have different styles of teaching so sometimes when working together it's hard to agree on things and come to a conclusion on things. But overall, it's good to have your peers to help you and support you.

Essence of Direct, Inquiry and Cooperative Lessons:
Throughout the semester, we had the opportunity to create direct, inquiry and cooperative lesson plans. The direct lessons are important for teaching the students the important information that they need to know. Although, they are not my favorite to teach. I don't like just standing their lecturing the students, just as well as I'm sure they don't like sitting there being lectured. The inquiry lesson, one I much more enjoy teaching, is about presenting the students with a problem and having them solve it. The cooperative lesson, my favorite of them all, is a way for students to learn and review material, as well as practice their social skills.

Current Event Reflection!

For my current events project, I worked with Rachel and Brianna. The process began by looking at some websites that Dr. Smirnova suggested to us; Newsela and Tweentribune. To help us fin an article to use in class, Dr. Smrinova told us to look for something that had to do with what we learning in class, which was geography. She also suggested that we use a treasure hunt as our style of teaching. So, we found four interesting articles that were local, national, or international news. The four articles were:

"Robbery Attempt Preceded Ice Rink Shooting, Police Say"

"A Powerful Typhoon Speeds Across the Philippines"

"Spanish Message With One Word That Needs No Translation"

Army Suspends R.O.T.C. Closings at 13 Universities

Brianna started off the lesson by getting an understanding of what the students already knew. She asked them about the different types of news. First was global news. The students gave Brianna a variety of answers. The definition we used for it was "Global news is news that takes place in different countries and places around the world. examples- China, Europe, Philippines". The next type of news was State News. Again, Brianna received many answers and then supported the students by giving our definition: "state news is news that takes place in a certain state. examples- New York, Texas, Florida". The final type of news that Brianna discussed with the class was local news. After given different answers, she gave them the definition, which is "Local- news is news that takes place in a local area or region. example- Manhattan, Newburgh." After going over the different types of news, Brianna then went over the different types of maps that these would be found on.

When Brianna was done explaining the different types of news and the different types of maps, I discussed with the students the students the directions for the activity. We decided to split the class up into four groups. Each group was given all four articles and a sheet with a few phrases on them. The goal of the treasure hunt was to find which article your phrases were in. Each group was given about ten minutes to research their article. They were also asked to present their findings at the end. Rachel explained to them what they would have to present. We asked them to present what article they had, what it was about and whether it was local, national or international news. We also asked them to come up and point to which map the article would be found under.

The class seemed to enjoy this lesson and I enjoyed it as well. I think this is a great way to teach  a lesson and a lot of fun. The students get to become researchers and learn to both work with others but also how to research an article. After doing this project, I will definitely be using this activity in my classroom when I am a teacher. The students are definitely engaged and learning while having fun. They learn social skills as well as metacognitive skills.

"It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge." - Albert Einstein

Week 11:

Monday 11/4/13

Today was my final day teaching at Bishop Dunn. Our lesson today was a cooperative lesson on the Declaration of Independence. We were back in the regular classroom today. The lesson started off by describing the 5 parts of the Declaration: 1) the introduction, 2) the preamble, 3) the indictment, 4) the denunciation, and 5) the conclusion. We also described to the students the cooperative learning style by talking about PIGS. Some vocabulary words we went over were:rights, values, responsibility and freedom. After that, we split the class into 5 groups. Each group was assigned a different part of the Declaration to create. The students were creating a declaration to declare freedom from their parents. My group and I worked on the introduction. When very group was done, the students read their part of the declaration to the class. This was definitely a fun activity to do and the students definitely loved it. At the end, the students were given an evaluation sheet to evaluate how the other group members did. We also collected the declarations so we could put them all together and hand them out to the students at out next visit.
I think we taught our best during this lesson. We weren't as nervous and we were used to the students by now so it made it much easier to just relax, and teach. Also, this was such a fun lesson to teach. I think I was just as excited if not more excited than the students to create our own declaration!

Here are the links to:
Lesson Plan
Presentation
Declaration
Evaluation Sheet

Wednesday 11/6/13

It's amazing. Just like that, our fieldwork experience is over. Today was our last day in Mrs. Benfer's class. Instead of splitting everyone into groups, the whole fourth grade class met in the computer lab along with every group of teachers. In the start of the class, each group asked the students a few questions about what they learned just to jog their memory a bit. After that, the students all took a post-assessment test. We are all so lucky that not only Mrs. Benfer, but that Bishop Dunn allows us to come into their school and get some fieldwork experience. I learned so much from this experience. Before now, I had only worked in small groups with students. This was my first time teaching to a whole class, and it is definitely different than just with a few students. At the end of the class, when all of the students had finished their post-assessment test, the teachers all stood in the front of the classroom and we thanked all of the students for letting us come in on their classroom and for not only letting us teach them, but for all that they taught us. We also made certificates for all of the students congratulating them on their jobs well done! I'm sad the fieldwork experience is over but I am so thankful for all that I learned!

And So The teaching Begins!

Week 9:

Wednesday: 10/23/13

Today we did another current events presentation. Chrissy, Katrina and Amanda did their current events on adding thirty minutes of physical activity to the school day. They used debates to teach this presentation. The class was split into two groups, for and against the thirty minutes. I was on the side that was for the thirty minutes of physical activity. I was happy to be put on this side because I really was for the physical activity. I think it could only help students and not harm them in anyway. The next generations are heading towards obesity and we need to fix that. Also, physical activity helps motivate the students. I think the idea of debates for teaching is great. It is a great way for students to learn to work collaboratively and to learn how to give their opinion!

Week 10:

Monday 10/28/13

Today was the first day of fieldwork for my group. It was very exciting, as well as nerve-racking. I could barely sleep the night before I was so nervous. Our first lesson was a direct lesson about the causes and effects of the Declaration of Independence. We made and handed out packets for the students to follow along with and fill-in during our powerpoint presentation. We started off the lesson by pre-assessing the student's knowledge about what led up to the colonists writing the Declaration. We then presented the reasons as to why the colonists were angry (the causes). After, we discussed what a declaration is. When done with that, we explained the outcomes of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, as well as a SMARTboard activity that asked the students to decide if the statements at the bottom of the screen were a cause or an effect. We were going to also show a video about the causes of the Declaration of Independence but due to time limitations, we were not able to. Once done with the activity, we closed the lesson by recapping what the students learned that day. I think we did alright for our first day of teaching. We also handed out a quiz for the students to do for homework.  There was definitely room for improvement and hopefully for our next lesson we will improve!

Here are the links to our:
Powerpoint presentation
Lesson PLan
Worksheet
Quiz

Friday 11/1/13

Today was our second day of teaching. Today's lesson was an inquiry instructed lesson plan. This lesson was based on learning more about the authors of the Declaration of Independence. We were in the computer lab for this activity. At the start of the lesson, we went over what we learned the class before. Mrs. Benfer was not there last time, so we asked the students to share with her what they learned. We had someone from the other groups walk through the door after the students were done telling Mrs. Benfer what they learned with an envelope saying they had an important message for us. I took the letter and read aloud it aloud to the class. The letter was asking the students to help find the 5 statues missing from the museum in the American Revolution section. We first demonstrated what we wanted the students to do. We had a folder with five pictures, three hints, and a sheet to fill out. The students were split into groups and each group received a folder and worked with a teacher to figure out who their statue was. They were first asked to make a hypothesis on who they believed it was based on their three hints. Once they made their hypothesis, they did some research on the computer to see if their hypothesis was correct. After they were done with their research, and filling out their sheet, each group presented what statue they found. I really enjoyed this activity and I think the students did as well. I also think we improved a lot in our teaching this time. Part of it was probably because we had feedback from others from our first lesson and had some ideas of what to change. The other part was probably because we were working in groups. I know for me, I always feel some pressure taken off my shoulders when I get to work in small groups with children.

Here are the links to our:
Lesson PLan
Presentation
Detective Worksheet
Homework

"The teacher is the one who gets the most out of the lessons, and the true teacher is the learner" - Elbert Hubbard

Week 8

Monday October 14, 2013:

There was no fieldwork today. Bishop Dunn had off for COlumbus day, so we met in the classroom instead. We used this time in the classroom to discuss how groups one and two did on their first two lessons. We also had time to work in our groups to finish other lesson plans. We haven't taught any lessons yet, so we are still working on our first lesson, the direct lesson. I like being able to meet in the classroom because we are all there to talk about it and can talk to other groups to see if they have any advice for us. Also, by being in the classroom, Dr. Smirnova is there to help us with any questions that we need.

Wednesday October 16, 2013:

On of the assignments for this class is to do a current event activity. in groups of three, we have to teach a current event lesson to the classroom as if they are elementary school students. Kristen, Christina, and Courtney were the first to go. They sent out an article for the whole class to read before we met today. Their article was a fourth grade level article on the government shutdown. The main idea of their lesson was researching the article using the 5 w's: Who, What, Where, When, and Why. After going over the 5 w's, we were asked to fill out a worksheet based on the reading. After filling out the worksheet, we were asked to switch our paper with another classmate and write a paragraph based on the information they found. They then had a representative from each group come up and fill in a part of the worksheet on the white board. Once, everyone had written their part down, they asked the whole class if we agreed or disagreed with the answers. I really enjoyed this activity!

Friday October 18, 32013:

Today was groups one and two's final days of fieldwork. That means next time, it's my turn. Both groups did a cooperative lesson. Group one had the class split into four groups. Each group was given a vocabulary word (artisan, merchant, manor, apprentice). The group members had to come up with a definition for this vocal word. After each group had said their definition, and the teachers ad gone over social skills that should be present when working together, the groups each did a "secret presentation." The four secret presentations were a skit, a song, and acrostic poem and an advertisement. Overall, I think this was a fun activity for the students and they really worked well with each other.
For group two's cooperative lesson plan, they split the class up into four groups and gave each group a folder. Each folder had a picture from the American Revolution. The goal of the activity was to figure out what picture they had and at the end make a big timeline. The students were able to realize when their event happened in comparison with the rest of the class and were able to finish the timeline. Definitely a fun activity for the students and group two did avery good job with the lesson!

The Start of It All

Week 7:

Monday October 7, 2013

Today was our first day of fieldwork with Mrs. Benfer's 4th grade class at Bishop Dunn MemorialSchool. Groups 1 and 2 taught today. The 4th grade class was split up into two groups. One group stayed in the classroom with group 1 and the other group went into the computer lab with group 2. Each group taught for 25 minutes and then the students switched, so every student got to learn each groups lesson.

My group, group 3, first sat in on group1's lesson. Their first lesson was a direct lesson plan about Colonial New York.  They used a Prezi for their lesson. Throughout the lesson, they had the students following along with the Prezi on a packet. There were blanks in the packet so that the students could fill them in. At the end of the Prezi, the teachers had the students do a SMARTboard activity. I think the teachers did a great job. It was our first day of fieldwork so it is expected that everyone will be nervous, but group 1 did not show any hint of nervousness! 

When group 1 was done teaching their first lesson, my group and I switched to group 2 so we could watch them teach. Their first lesson was a direct lesson on the American Revolution. They started off with a Schoolhouse Rock video that the students definitely enjoyed. After the video, they had a power point presentation about the American Revolution. The teachers gave out a graphic organizer to the students so that could follow along with the powerpoint. Finally, the teachers used a vortex sort activity on the SMARTboard. The students were each given a laminated flag, one side was the colonists flag, the other the British flag. The vortex activity had statements and the students had to raise either the British flag or the Colonist flag up, which ever one they thought was the right answer.
I loved being able to sit and watch both groups teach today. I am so excited t finally teach, but I am definitely thankful that I get to watch these groups first. I have and will learn a lit from them so I can be the best teacher I can be!

Wednesday OCtober 9, 2013

Today in class we went over how groups one and two did in fieldwork on monday. By listening to what they had to say and what Dr. Smirnova had to say, I learned a lot for when I start my fieldwork.

Friday October 11, 2013

We were in Mrs. Benfer's class again today. Once again, group's one and two taught, while group three (my group) and group four observed. Today, both groups did an inquiry lesson. Group one did an artifact bag. I thought this was a great idea and the students really enjoyed it. I really liked how they first went over hat an artifact bag was and what the students could learn from it. Before starting the activity, the teachers demonstrated what the students would have to do. Once the students discovered their artifacts and did some research, they presented their findings. 

Group two did a bar code treasure hunt to help them solve a problem. They first asked the students if they were familiar with the Scientific method and showed them how it could apply not only to science but also their lesson today. They then had a voki of George Washington giving them the problem they needed to solve. The students were split up into groups to find out the what questions they had to answer after scanning the bar code. Once each group was done, the students presented their findings and helped solve the problem! I think the teachers did a great job with this lesson and I know the students definitely enjoyed it. There was a lot of time limitations for each lesson but if there wasn't I would have liked it if the teachers also demonstrated first how to do the activity. Other than that, they did great and once again I learned so much from.

Scanning Into The Future

Week 6:

Monday September 30, 2103:

Today in class we learned about this awesome app for the iPhone/iPad called "Bar Code". This app is free and extremely easy to use. It turns your phone into a scanner. We used them in the classroom as part of a treasure hunt. There were numbered folders set up all around the classroom. Each folder had a bar code inside for us to scan. When we scanned each barcode, a question appeared on our phone. The questions were based on our lesson from the previous week, cooperative learning. We were split into groups to go on a "hunt" for these questions. Each member in the groups was given a certain role to play such as time keeper, scanner, recorder and researcher. I was a researcher  There were some multiple-choice questions, some true/false and some short answer. This activity is a great way to incorporate technology into the classroom. 

I think this activity would be great to use in my own classroom because besides the technology use, children learn many things from it. They learn to work together in groups and how important each persons role is in the activity. It also teaches the students how to research things on their own in different ways.

Wednesday October 2, 2013

Today in class we separated into our fieldwork groups to work on our lesson plans. This was great because my group and I hadn't really met yet to really talk about what we were going to do. We got to talk today though and come up with some ideas of what we would for our first lesson plan, which would be a cooperative lesson plan. Working with other people I learned how we all have different ideas and how much of a better lesson we could make by putting them all together.

Friday October 4, 2013

Today was our first day of fieldwork at Bishop Dunn Memorial School and it was very exciting. We were able to get into Mrs. Benfers fourth grade class room, the classroom we will be doing all of our fieldwork in.We were able to meet all the students and get a little taste of who we will be teaching. We went around in our groups and introduced ourselves to the students. At each table, we did a little pre-assessment of the student's knowledge on the Declaration of Independence and had them write some ideas down of what they think is on the D.O.I. I was excited to find out that a good number of students actually knew a lot about the D.O.I. It was very helpful meeting with them all because we got a better understanding of who was going to have a little more trouble with the subject and it gave us an idea of how to design the lessons to help both them and the other students. I am definitely excited for when it's my groups time to teach, but in the meantime I will be excited to watch the other groups teach as well.

Constructing Powerful and meaningful Social Studies Units

We were told to read chapter 8 in our textbook, "How Are Powerful and Meaningful Social Studies units Constructed?" and create a visual map based off of it for homework. After reading this chapter, I learned that there are many different parts to making a unit plan. I made my visual map according to what I learned from the chapter. I started with the title of the chapter in the middle. from it, I had 5 different branches. the first branch is Focus. Coming from focus, I have the three different focuses when designing a unit, descriptive-focused units, thinking skills-focused units, and conceptual and thinking skills-focused units. The next branch was Units. Fro units, I had the two types of units to pick from, Theme units and Issues and problem solving units. Theme units may include topics associated with other subject areas, and issue and problem solving units attempt to solve a problem that is relevant to somebody. The third branch was Planning. The two different types of planning a unit is by using a wheel design or using a column design. The fourth branch I made was Integrated Units. From this branch, I listed the 16 steps to developing integrated units:

1. generating ideas for the topic

2. Rresearch the topic

3. Develop focus or guiding questions

4. Identify and accommodate special needs of students

5. Develop intended learning outcomes

6. Develop inteded learning outcomes as knowledge, skills and attitudes

7. Create a web

8. Develop a rationale and goals

9. Begin the KWL charts

10. Develop learning objectives

11. Develop an assessment plan

12. Develop lesson plans

13. Develop accommodations for technology

14. Implement the unit

15. Evaluate student learning

16. Reflect on the unit

My last branch was Conceptualizing. Coming from this branch i wrote "Find several different topics across subjects" and underneath that i said that this was Inquiry and problem solving.

We Are Historians

For homework, we were assigned to make our own artifact bags that were related to the subject we were assigned for fieldwork. My fieldwork group was assigned the Declaration of Independence. So, for my artifact bag, I chose to put an old copy of the Declaration of Independence, an old picture of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, and for a website, I found a YouTube video for kids all about the Declaration of Independence. We had to bring in our bags and present them to our fieldwork groups as if they were our students. I thought this was a great activity because we all got to experience both becoming the historians and teaching the historians. This is definitely an activity that I want to use in my classroom when teaching social studies. It is really good for the students to become the historians because it teaches them to explore and research on their own rather than just being given the information by the teacher. For the most part, everyone in my group got some of the same artifacts. we all had the same idea in what we wanted our students to find. These were our artifacts:

Assessing and Evaluating

Week 4

This week in class we took notes on assessments and evaluation, based on chapter 14 in our textbook, "How Do I Teach Students Multiple Assessments and Evaluation?" The five powerful elements of social studies are meaningful, integrative, value-based, challenging and active. Meaningful is engaging, connects students with real-world situations. Integrative draws on more than one discipline, subject or skill set. Value-based strengthens students' sense of democratic values and social responsibility. Challenging incorporates different perspectives and draws on students' critical-thinking skills. Active is participatory, it makes use of manipulatives or physical environment. A diagnostic assessment is on-going. It continues throughout the year. Part of this assessment is pre-assessment (finding out), formative assessment (keeping track and checking up) and summative assessment (making sure). The assessment modes are performance assessment, authentic assessment, authentic instruction, and portfolio assessment.

We also learned about selected response assessment: multiple choice, binary choice, and matching. The stem is the question or incomplete statement. The alternatives are possible answers. The Distractors are the incorrect answers. There are some advantages and disadvantages to using these types of questions. Some advantages are that there is a broad sampling of knowledge, scoring is easy and objective, practice on items for high-stake state accountability tests, and they are more reliable and have more diagnostic power. The disadvantages are that they take longer to answer than other tests, it is difficult to write good multiple choice test items, especially with good distractors, and the probability to guess the right answer.

When designing multiple choice items, you should write the stem as a clearly described question or task. There should be much more information in the stem instead of in the response. You should use complete stems and short responses. the students should have a tentative answer in mind based on the stem before reading the responses. you should try to avoid negatives in the stem. Also, avoid giving irrelevant clues in correct response and avoid making longer, more detailed, and general questions. some examples of multiple choice questions are as shown:

Binary choice assessment is when students select answers only from two response categories. some advantages to using binary choices are that the format is similar to what is asked in class, it provides for an extensive sampling of knowledge (two items in a short time - 2 or 5 items per minute), they are written in short, easy-to-understand sentences, they are easy to construct and scoring is objective and quick. A disadvantage is that they are susceptible for guessing and poorly constructed items can give clues to the correct answer. When constructing binary choice questions, avoid using long sentences. Avoid using negatives or clues to the answer. Avoid insignificant, trivial facts, and do not try to trick the students. Some examples are:

 

 

Matching items effectively and efficiently measure the extent to which students know related facts, associations, and relationships. Some advantages of matching are that they provide for an extensive sampling of knowledge, they are easily and objectively scored, and constructing matching responses is easier than multiple choice items. in a matching item, the items on the left are called the premises. In the righthand column are the reponses. the student's task is to match the correct response with each of the premises. As long as the suggestions listed next are followed, matching items are excellent for measuring knowledge that includes associations. Some examples are:

Finally Settled Into Things

Week 3

Monday September 9, 2013

We are finally settled into things in the class. It took a week or two, but I think for the most part we all have an idea of what we are doing now. We have finished the About Me projects and have gotten to know each other, and technology sources to use while teaching. Today we started off the class with some notes.

First we learned about the 5 Powerful Elements of Social Studies:
1. Meaningful - Engaging, connects students with real-world situations. Students have to understand what they are going to be learning.
2. Integrative - Subject or skill set. Draws on more than one discipline.
3. Value-Based - Strengthens students' sense of democratic values and social responsibility.
4. Challenging - Incorporates different perspectives and draws on students' critical-thinking skills.
5. Active - Participatory. Makes use of manipulatives or physical environment. 

We later took a guess of what the percentage is of what we learn which is retained in memory. Some of my guesses were way off and some were just on target. Most everyone had a good idea of what the percentages were.

My guesses were:

When we read ----------------------------------------->     15%

When we hear ----------------------------------------->      20%

When we see ------------------------------------------>      30%

When we see & hear --------------------------------->      45%

When we do things ------------------------------------>     50%

When we teach things -------------------------------->      75%

When we discuss --------------------------------------->     50%

The real answers were: 

We continued the lesson talking about the structure of knowledge. Jerome Bruner designed a pyramid that shows the different stages of learning. the bottom of the pyramid is facts. The facts are the content that is to be taught to the students. The next layer of the pyramid is concepts. The concepts refer to the Core Curriculum concepts and understandings. As a teacher, you have to decide what concepts are best to use in your lesson based on the Core Curriculum concepts. The third layer is generalizations. This refers to the key idea. What are the key ideas you want your students to pick up during your lesson? The top and final layer of the pyramid is meta-cognition. The meta-cognition layer is the learning. What are the outcomes of the lesson? 

Wednesday September 11, 2013 and Friday September 13, 2013

I'm putting these two days in one post because they are connected. In the beginning of class on Wednesday we started off with some note taking about engaging students to learn in social studies. The notes were connected with chapter 11 in the textbook that we had to read for homework. The second half of the class we modeled how to do an artifact bag activity in the classroom and experienced it ourselves. This carried on into Friday where we finished the Artifact Bag activity.

We focused on direct and indirect instruction. Direct instruction is when you're first introducing something. During a lecture, explain and develop basic skills and knowledge. For indirect instruction, give the students a problem to solve and research individually. The exploration is part of the meta-cognition. You can also split the students into groups. This will focus on the social aspect of indirect instruction.

The class split into our fieldwork groups and each group got an artifact bag. We were told to look for the 5 w's while exploring what our artifacts were. When we opened our artifacts, we found that we had a red and gold Russian diploma/award, a red, gold, and black Russian spoon called a khokhloma, and a blue and white gzhel napkin holder of a fire-bird from Russia. We didn't know what everything is right away, but we found out by doing a little research on the computer, and talking with Dr. Smirnova, who was the owner of all the items. After finding out what everything was, we found out that Dr. Smirnova got the award/diploma after graduating from the International Teaching Training Academy of Science in the year 2005. She was already living in America when she received the award. The khokhloma has been in Dr. Smirnova's family for decades. It is part of a Russian tradition to eat with this type of spoon during certain celebrations. Finally, the gzhel came into Dr. Smirnova's possession before she and her husband got married. As her brother was coming over to America from Russia, in the airport he picked up the gzhel and with a letter, he gave it to her husband. Dr. Smirnova's brother said that he was giving her husband the gzhel because it was very precious, just like his sister, and he has to keep very good care of it. The connection between all of these items was that they all belonged to Dr. Smirnova and they were all from Russia.

I thought this activity was really fun and great to use in the classroom. During this activity, we became the historians and explorers. We had to explore to find out what our artifacts were. It's better for the kids to become the historians because they are teaching themselves then, instead of the teaching just telling them the information.

 

Let's See What The Bag Has to Offer

We were asked to read anarticle by Carol J Fuhler about using artifacts in the classroom. I found the article very interesting. While reading the article, I was able to imagine how much fun students would find this activity and how much they would learn by doing it. Fuhler states, "using artifacts, from primary documents to items that can be held in one's hand, is a motivational technique that can tie readers to a variety of genres and bring a period of history to life in the process."  The best way for students to learn is to motivate them and letting them experience things for themselves. In the article, teachers modeled how to do the activity while encouraging the students to participate and answer questions, that way the students would know what to do when they did themselves and the excitement would build. Teacher modeling is a very effective way to teach.

Some tips for using Artifact Bags:

1. Build the excitement of using the artifact bags before handing them to the students.
2. Use primary sources and authentic artifacts, it helps the students really feel like they are true historians making a discovery.
3. Encourage the students to use their prior knowledge to really help them discover and investigate their artifacts.
4. Use the bags a starting point for a unit plan. Let the bags carry on into a group project, presentation, etc.
5. Discuss what the students have found at the end. You can use a big chart to have the students fill out.

Timelines In The Classroom

For homework, we were asked to read chapter 11, "How Do I Engage Students in Examining History?" in our textbook, Social Studies For The Elementary and Middle Grades. This chapter is about ways to teach history to students so it seams more meaningful to them. So many students do not realize the importance history is because it does not serve a utilitarian need. But it really is important to know about our pasts and how things used to be. The chapter gives teachers several reasons to study history, and help students become historians on their own.

After reading the chapter, each student in my class was given a number from the chapter to answer and share with the class. I was given number 7 from the chapter objectives. he question was:

Describe how timelines are used to assist in developing an understanding of time.

My answer was....

Timelines are used to assist in developing an understanding of time at a young age. In Kindergarten teachers may use a calendar or a time chart for the day in the form of a timeline. when certain events during the month or during the day have passed, the teacher can mark it on the timeline. This gives students a sense of time because it shows them that something has passed. Not only does it show them that time has passed, but it also shows them how things happen a series or order. A good way to make these timelines are with clothespins. The events are easily seen and easy access for students to ass events to. Complete timelines not only identify dates or time periods for which the events occurred, but also order them over the uniform passage of time. placing events along the timeline requires the ability to add and subtract. in the case of long periods of time, then multiplication and division are required as well. When considering events over a long period of time, students can also be asked questions linking the passage of time to generations to assist them in understanding.

Time To Learn!

Week 2

Monday September 2, 2013

LABOR DAY, NO CLASS!!!!!

Wednesday September 4, 2013

Today we finished presenting our About Me projects. Only half of the class finished presenting last class. I enjoyed watching and listening to everyone present their projects. I really learned a lot about different websites that I can apply to my classroom when I start teaching. I think everyone did a great job with their presentations and helped me think of new ways to make learning more fun for my future students.

Friday September 6, 2013

Today James presented his About Me project. James joined the class last week and became the only male in a room full of women. When he finished his presentation, we were officially done with the About Me projects. It will be good to get a male's perspective in things now. At the end of class, Dr. Smirnova showed us an adorable video about the days of the week. It was a nice class, but I was certainly glad it was the weekend!

This is the video Dr. Smirnova showed us in class :)

Where It All Starts...

Summer is officially over and the new semester has started. There's so much to experience in this upcoming semester and I am excited for every minute of it. Walking into class the first day, I didn't know what to expect. After walking out of class that day, I will admit, I was a little overwhelmed. There is so much to learn and do in this class, but it will all be worth it. Everything I learn in this class will make us become the best teacher we can be!

Week 1

Monday August 26, 2013

Today was the start of our journey through Ed 3120.02 with Dr. Smirnova. I walked in and saw so many familiar faces, and a few unfamiliar. We started off the class by making name tags. On one side we wrote our names, on the other side we answered four questions that Dr. Smirnova asked us. After, we met with a partner and discusses our answers. Finally, we met in groups of four to five and had to introduce our partner to the others in the group.  Lastly, in our groups, we summarized everyones answers and discussed them with the class. I think this was a great way for us all to learn a little about each other and our thoughts on social studies.

Wednesday August 28, 2013

We mixed things up a bit today. Instead of meeting in the classroom today, we met in the curriculum library in Hudson Hall. The librarian, Tiffany, helped us learn how to use the library website to find books and how to find books on the shelves. She taught us how to read the codes on the books to know what genre they are and how to figure out what grade level they are for. She also taught us how find articles on the databases on the computer. After that, she introduced us the world of kidspiration and inspiration. Lastly, she showed  us how to make worksheets on Microsoft Publisher. I enjoyed having class in the Curriculum Library and thought Tiffany helped us a lot in what we needed to know.


Friday August 30, 2013

Today we started presenting our About Me projects. We all had to submit them to e-class and went one by one to present them. Everyone had to use a different digital media device to introduce themselves. While someone was presenting, the rest of the class was commenting on the persons presentation on the e-class. We wrote three things we liked about the presentation and one thing we wished the person had done. For my About Me project, I wrote about myself in about.me.com. After I was done, I checked all of the comments I got. I mostly had positive feedback, which was good. The thing most people said they wished was that I had talked more about myself.

Here is my About Me out project if you would like to check it out!

A Little Taste of Who I Am

Hey All,

My name is Laura McKenna. I am a junior at Mount Saint Mary College majoring in Math. I am getting my certification in childhood education with middle school extension. Here are a few things I'd like to share about myself to let you get to know me better:

- I have two older brothers, one works in insurance, the other is a Staten Island Ferry driver
- I am 100% Irish
- I was born cross-eyed
- My favorite color is teal
- My dream is to one day travel the world

 I hope you all enjoy my blog and join me as we take this journey together to better teach the future!



This is a picture of me and my family and my brothers graduation from the United States Merchant Marine Academy Kings Point