Kiera's Journey to Teaching Social Studies to New Generation Learners

First Visit at Bishop Dunn! Today we went into Bishop Dunn and met with the second grade class we are going to be doing fieldwork in. The class is made up of 13 kids! Overall the class seemed very energetic and super excited to work with us! While working with he class we conducted our ice breaker activities. My group's ice breaker activity involved rolling dice and answering questions. The kids seemed to enjoy this activity, Luckily another one of my classmates in my group had these question sheets written out from another method's class so not much planning was involved in this. The kids are eager to start to learn and i'm excited to start to be in the field with them!

Since some members were absent last class when we did SIM leaning within the groups the cooperative Learning lesson plan group had to teach their lesson to the entire group instead of back to their base groups. Direct instruction focuses on the content of the lesson being taught. Inquiry focusses on students' thinking and processes and reasoning skills. Cooperative learning focuses on social skills. Cooperative learning is an organized and structured way to use small groups to enhance student learning and interdependence. Students are given a task, and they work together to accomplish this task. Objectives. Within the direct instruction it should be one sentence with CBC elements (condition behavior, criteria). The formula is Given (a task or materials) the student will (a verb from Blooms Taxonomy) with (an excepted level of performance. In cooperative Learning it is written the same way as direct instruction. One academic objective, what students will know by the end of the lesso...

Another group went for a current events presentation this topic was on Climate change. I like how this group started by showing 3 different topics before they actually told us what their topic was about. Climate change is the difference in the Earth's global climate or in regional climates over time. Some examples include: Forest fires, Hurricanes, and Tsunami's. They then gave us an article on climate change and we had then a Kahoot game to play to test our knowledge on the article. I really enjoyed the game, it was a fun and interactive way to test our knowledge that was learned.

Another group did a current events presentation. This one today was on the NYC sugary drinks ban. They went about this by doing a debate within the class. The group I was with was on the for the ban of the sugary drinks. Some points we came up with it was that it leads ton obesity, not all businesses are affected by the ban. Some reasons that debates are good are because they are a great tool for engaging students and livening up classroom curriculum. Using debated in the classroom can help students grasp essential critical thinking and presentation skills. Among the skills classroom debates can foster are abstract thinking, citizenship and etiquette, clarity, organization, persuasion, public speaking, research, teamwork and cooperation.

We had another current events presentation today, on Valentines Day! This one is about Tootise Rolls. They started by  asking what are graphic organizers. They are used to find the main idea, organize your thoughts etc. Some ways to get energized is by coffee, energy drinks, candy. The group gave us an article called " Tootsie Rolls were WWII energy bars". Our main idea in our chart was "Tootsie Rolls were WWII's energy bars. Some of our supporting details were that they were baked at a low temperature for about 2 hours. Another one was that they would maintain their shape and not melt. Lastly the recipe is the same today as it was when the recipe was first created. The group concluded their lesson by handing out tootsie pops to us after we shared all of our gatherings.

Today, Valentines Day, we learned about how Valentines Day plays a role in economics. There are two forces, together that control and its called supply and demand. Some words that come to mine when thinking about economics are goods, services, increase/raise, decrease, supply, demand, and money. Goods are products made or grown. Services is the work someone does for others. Increase/ Raise is to make more. Decrease is to make less. Supply is the amount of a product or resource. Demand is the consumer's desire and willingness to pay a price for a specific good or service. Through their article provided my group was able to pick out the Goods: Hershey Kisses Services: Madacrasses all its cocoa beans in Madagascar Increase: Rise in price Decrease: Shrink packages Supply: Hershey obtains about 1/3 of its cocoa from certified and sustainable farms Demand: 1.2% to 2.2 billion pounds

Today during class, Jake, Erika and Christina gave a presentation on Economics and Economists. They told us to break up into 3 groups and each group was given one specific economists to research. While researching we had to answer the 5 W's. The 5 W's are who, what, where, when, why. The exact questions we were to answer were: Who: who is your chart about? What: what did your economist contribute to economics? Where: where did your economist do most of his work (can be more than one place)? When: when did your economist live/do his work? Why: why is your economist known as someone who changed economics? My group had the economists Karl Marx. He was a very interesting guy!

Today we discussed what we are expected when it comes to the unit plans, lesson plans, and other fun goodies! The building blocks and components of objectives are included in the lesson. It has a condition, behavior, and criteria. The condition is a setting, the task or materials. The condition starts with Given...... the behavior is the action expressed by the verb. There is only ONE behavior. The criteria is the expected performance level. The objective formula is GIVEN (a task or materials) the student will verb (from Bloom's taxonomy) with (an expected level of performance). An example of an objective is: Given a task to work in a group of 4 and the resources on the American Revolution, the student will create a poster, following the criteria of the rubric and scoring at 3/4. The unit plan design: Direct- you drill it into them, practicing and mastering the skill and knowledge Indirect (Inquiry): they are applying what they just learned in the direct while solving a probl...

Today we discussed the origins of social studies! History has a dominate discipline. Lectures, and discussions are primary teaching devices. There is homework assigned from textbooks. In elementary school social studies revolved around small groups, independent work, films, tv, integrated approaches, computers etc. Social Studies is the geography, social sciences, economics, citizenships, generalizations, world. Social Studies has powerful elements when it is meaningful, integrative, value-based, challenging and active. Meaningful is when it is engaging, connecting students with real-world situations. Integrative is drawing upon more than one discipline, subject or skill set. Value-Based teaching is strengthening students' sense of democratic values and social responsibility. Challenging is when you incorporate different perspectives and draws upon students' critical-thinking skills. Active is participatory, makes use of manipulative or physical environment. How do people...