Social Studies Methods: Blog #2

Month Two

Time is going insanely quickly and I have a feeling that it is going to keep going even quicker! February has been a great month, and I have learned so much throughout this month. We have discussed edTPA, started our experience at Washington Elementary, and got our clinical placements for the semester! I have learned so much throughout this month and I am so excited for the months to come. Next month the education department is going to D.C (SO EXCITED!!) and also we have spring and easter break! Time is going to keep flying by, and it is so crazy to think that in a year I will be student teaching! I am so excited and so ready for this journey! 

Washington Elementary

This month we started our experience at Washington Elementary! During this experience, we are able to go to this school and help out within a classroom. I am in a first-grade classroom and I love my classroom as well as my teacher! I go to the school on both Monday and Tuesday morning and I am able to really connect with the students during this experience. On Monday, I am able to lead a group during WIN (What I Need) time. During this time, I am able to lead a group through a math lesson that the teacher has planned. So far, it has been dealing with knowing what a group of ten is and knowing the difference between tens place and ones place. This has been very eye opening to be able to help those individual students that are struggling with a specific topic. For my outside learning I read an article from Vanderbilt University and Cynthia Brame  said, "The small groups are essential to this process because students are able to both be heard and to hear their peers, while in a traditional classroom setting students may spend more time listening to what the instructor says" (Brame). This shows how important this time is! On Tuesday, I am able to be a part of guided reading groups. This is another time where the students are grouped based off of ability and they are able to participate in different events. This is something that is crucial within the classroom! These students need to be able to interact and learn with students that are in the same ability as they are, this way they are reading a passage that is on the same level as everyone in the group. I love being able to see how these groups work and see how each individual student is able to do something that fits their needs. I love my experience at Washington and I am so excited to continue to learn throughout this experience. 

edTPA

During our class time this semester, we have been discussing in detail the requirements of edTPA. These conversations have been great! I love learning about the requirements that we are going to have to pass while we are student teaching. I think this is something that is SO important because we are required to do this by NC and we have to pass! I am happy to be learning and going more in-depth to each individual rubric and knowing how to get a 5 on each rubric! I think this is something that is beneficial that all incoming teachers are required to do this. I think it is important for us to formulate our thoughts into words and how to fully be able to understand why we are teaching what we are teaching. I think this deals with NCTCS 2, and I think it can go in depth to each individual substandard in NCTCS 2. I think the purpose of this is to make sure we are teaching to meet the needs of all individual students. It is important to know how to meet each and every need of the students and that I am teaching in a way that does meet this need. Each individual student is different and each individual student struggles with different skills. As a teacher, I am going to have to meet all of these individual needs within the classroom. 

Future Classroom

In my future classroom, I want to take advantage of guided reading groups and have the ability to do WIN time with my students. This is a time that each student's needs are being met and they are able to do work that is on their individual level. I also want to make sure that I am meeting the needs of all of my students. I want to make sure that every student knows that they are important and that their needs are important. I want all of my students to feel welcomed into my future classroom. During student teaching, I am going to make sure that I am aware of all of these needs so I can meet every individual need of all of my students. I am going to be aware of why I am teaching what I am teaching and have the ability to formulate that into words. I am so excited for the future and what I am going to be learning throughout the semester! 

Works Cited:

Brame, C.J. and Biel, R. (2015). Setting up and facilitating group work:
Using cooperative learning groups effectively. Retrieved [todaysdate] from http://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/setting-up-and-facilitating-group-work-using-cooperative-learning-groups-effectively/.

Social Studies Methods: January

Hey everyone! 

I haven't posted in awhile but I am now almost done with my Junior Year! I am currently taking a class called Social Studies Methods! This class mostly focuses on teaching powerful and purposeful social studies. It has been such an adventure so far during this class! We have already done so many things like an App Evaluation, Today's Learners Project, defined what a concept is, interviewed teachers and got information about social studies in their classroom, and so much more! I can not wait to see everything else that I am going to learn throughout the rest of the semester!

Concept

During class, we spent multiple days about really discussing what a concept was in social studies. I learned that how I was taught social studies (which seems really long ago when it wasn't that long) was by facts. Although this is not necessarily a bad thing, I was not taught how to take this information and apply it. This is the basis of concept based teaching. A concept is something that is very broad and can be universal. It is something that is timeless and can be transversed from place to place! When a teacher teaches by concepts, they are helping the students not only know the facts of events, people, and places; but also what to do with these facts. For example, they are taught how to analyze information and to process it and make inferences based on the facts. The students are able to get problem-solving skills and other crucial 21st century skills that we should be teaching our students. I have been reading the book called Concept-Based Curriculum and Instruction for the Thinking Classroom by H. Lynn Erickson and he states, "The conceptual mind uses facts as a tool to discern patterns, connections, and deeper, transferable understandings" (Erickson 10).  Erickson also states, "Concept-based classrooms structure learning so that students are invited to process factual material through their personal, conceptual mind. " (Erickson 98). I thought these quotes were so accurate with everything that we have learned in class. Concept-based learning does create a deeper sense of understanding because they are able to see the facts for more than just facts. The students are using different parts of their brain and are being challenged to really understand not only the facts but how to analyze those facts and be able to make decisions off of those facts. I believe this concept-based learning goes directly with NCTCS 3b and 3d. 3B states, teachers know the content appropriate to their teaching specialty and 3D states teachers make instruction relevant to students.  Obviously, I believe that teachers need to know their concepts that they are teaching, but I think this can go more in depth. I think this deals with how we are teaching these concepts. We need to know the best way to teach these concepts and so that our students will understand them. Some teachers may still use factual based teaching as their method of teaching, and I am sure the students are learning new materials. Although, I think if the teacher was teaching concepts it would be extremely more benefit for the students and for them to have the ability to really be challenged within the classroom. I also think that concept-based teaching does make it more relevant for our students. I think this is something really engages each individual student to learn more about what has happened in the past and how they can use those facts to apply it for the future. This is an infographic that Erickson created and it explains more in-depth about this concept-based instruction. 

Wisdom From Experience

During this first month, I also got the chance to interview two teachers about their experience in social studies. I interviewed a 2nd-grade teacher and a 4th-grade teacher! Both teachers have been teaching over 10+ years. The biggest thing I took away from this project was how little social studies instruction time the students are actually receiving in the classroom today. Both teachers stated that they only teach social studies two times a week and they rotate months with science. This was completely shocking to me! So for half of the months throughout the school year, the students have 0 time for social studies!! (Let that really sink in). We have discussed in all of my education classes the power of integration as a teacher, and I think that is something that is so important when it comes to social studies. Integration is key throughout elementary education! There are so many standards and simply just not enough days in the school year to teach everything. It is so crucial that we as educators are able to really integrate subjects, especially with social studies (that is not taught every day). For those students who are only receiving social studies instruction half of the year (not even every day), they need a teacher that is willing to integrate social studies into other subjects and be able to make sure that they are receiving social studies instruction. I found this great article that explained ways to incorporate social studies into a classroom, https://www.socialstudies.org/publications/socialeducation/january-february2011/an_approach_to_integrating_writing_skills_into_social_studies_classroom and I think it could be beneficial in the future! Although this was for middle or high school, I think it could easily be applied in the elementary education world if you just take it down a few levels. This was a great example of how it is possible to teach social studies to other subjects, and something that we should be striving to do on a daily basis with our students. This is directly related to NCTCS 3c, which states that teachers must recognize the interconnectedness of content areas/discipline. Again, this goes along with everything that I have said. There are simply not enough days in the year to teach everything that the students need to know. The only way to get there is through integration. 

Future Classroom

I really want to implement both integration and concept-based teaching within my future classroom. With integration, I want to really be able to focus on literacy and being able to teach every other subject (math, science, and social studies) through reading. One way to accomplish this before my student teaching is my goal for professional development this semester! I want to be able to create an online portfolio/website that is going to help me be able to incorporate literacy into my future classroom. This is going to be grade level based and subject-based so I am really making sure that I have the ability to look at this one day and be able to say "I can incorporate literacy into my 4th-grade science lesson by doing ___". I think this is a great tool that I can not wait to get started on for this semester! I think it is going to be beneficial for me in all my classes. With concept-based teaching, I am going to keep the Concept-Based Curriculum and Instruction for the Thinking Classroom with me throughout all my years of teaching. This way if I am in a school district that does not do concept-based learning I am able to use this book and try to show them how influential concept-based teaching can really be. I also will have it with me in my classroom to refer back to throughout my student teaching and future classroom so I am able to refer back to it if I have any questions about what to do during my planning for a concept based unit. I am excited to use both of these tools in my future classroom and have the ability to really be (hopefully) the best teacher I can in my classroom one day.

Thank you for reading. :)

Works Cited

Infographic on Concepts:

http://weteachchalkandslate.blogspot.com/2014/01/concept-driven-curriculum-with-lynn.html

Erickson: 

Erickson, H. L. (2007). Concept-Based Curriculum and Instruction for the Thinking Classroom. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin, A SAGE Publishing Company.