NAT project

For the NAT project, my group members and I were given the task of researching the Lakota tribe. This was a bit difficult seeing that sometimes there was little information to be found about things such as their habitat. However, once our PowerPoint was all together, it was interesting to see all of the information we had found about this interesting tribe. I was especially interested by their dancing ceremonies and the clothes they wore. I loved hearing about all of the other tribes my classmates presented. It is amazing to learn about cultures that are so different from your own.


Here is the link to our PowerPoint!

Final Remarks--A Few Things I've learned

A few things I've learned this semester: Fall 2015-- SS Methods


1. Go out of you're comfort zone once in a while...it's not always a bad thing.

2. I need to be more comfortable using technology.

3. I need to practice interviewing.

4. Hard work WILL pay off. So as hard as it is in the moment, do it!

5. Teaching is fun! More fun than I imagined it would be.

6. Working/teaching in a group is a difficult task, but worth it in the end. 


I can't wait to teach. When i am a teacher I will look back on my journey I will remember this course, what it has taught me, and how it has prepared me to teach.

Thoughts on the Course

I can not lie...this course was challenging!! I am not tech savvy, and this class forced me out of my comfort zone of paper and pen. I was forced to use technology more than I ever would have wanted to. However, this was a good thing. I know that as a teacher, I am going to need to incorporate technology into my lessons on a daily basis. In this class i learned many ways to incorporate technology into teaching Social Studies. One of my favorites was Kahoot. An interactive online quiz where you can make up the questions and answers. Not only is this fun for Social Studies but other content areas as well. Another fun use of technology that my group used while teaching at Bishop Dunn is Voki. This allows you to create a character that can speak, and you decide what the character looks like and says. This is a fun way to introduce a topic to activity to the class. I will be using both of these when I am a teacher and I have a class of my own.

I am grateful for the experience that I have had in this class. Especially my first experience with teaching. It was even better that I got to teach with friends : )

Mock Interviews

Being involved in a mock interview today in class was very intimidating. I felt like I was in a actual interview! I was not prepared for the types of questions that I was asked. I realize that I need a lot more practice with answering questions. While my group members were quick to answer questions, I sometimes had to think about my response before answering. In a real interview, I will be expected to  answer questions quickly, and have a response at the ready. Having an immediate response presents you as more knowledgeable. 
Some of the interview questions were very fun and abstract. These, I enjoyed answering. One for example was: If you could go back to any event in time, what would it be and why?

I struggled with questions about assessment. I need to be more informed about this topic. Others, were very challenging. A few times I had to ask for the question to be repeated because I did not understand what the question, or because it was wordy.

This was a great, eye-opening experience. It put me in a position to see what my strengths and weaknesses are as far as being interviewed. 

Choosing to be Grateful

"Acting grateful can actually make you grateful."
It would never have crossed my mind that if individuals practiced being grateful they would in fact become happier. However, this makes perfect sense. I think there are so many things in life that are taken for granted. Even i am guilty of taking everyday luxuries for granted. I don;t realize how lucky I am to wake up in a bed until i see someone sleeping on the streets. Or, that I am able to eat three meals a day until I see commercials on the television(another thing) that remind me of those not so lucky who go days without food. 
there are times that remind me of how lucky I am, and I have the feeling of being grateful. But this feeling is not as frequent as it should be. I need to make it a point to enjoy the little things in my life, which when I think about it are actually big things. When I am a teacher, I hope to influence my students to be grateful for what they have.  I will remind them how lucky they are to be sitting in the classroom, and that they are lucky to have books to read. I would like to be able to do a project in which my class collects books/school supplies to be donated to countries that are not lucky enough to have classrooms and books. This will be an eye-opening experience for students and will make them feel that they are helping other children around the world. 

Artifact Bags

In class, we learned about how teachers can use Artifact Bags as a tool for teaching Social Studies. I think this is a very fun activity for students and also teachers. This activity is hands on and interactive. It allows students to work together in groups and promotes inquiry. Artifact Bags give students the opportunity to draw conclusions about a who or a what based on clues in the artifact. 
I think that this can also be used in different content areas...not just S.S. One could also use this when teaching Language Arts as an activity for figuring out a book or a character. This is an activity that could be fun for all ages. This is a great tool for elementary and adolescent teachers to have in their tool boxes! I can't wait to use artifact bags in my future classroom!!

Teaching Economics

I have discovered that there are a variety of fun ways to teach economics to students. 
I remember that I didn't really start learning about economics until I was in high school. In my senior year, I was required to take a class called "Economics." In this class, the students in the classroom made up a community. We all got assigned different jobs, which we had to apply for. I was the Tax Collector. We had to come up with each individual's salary, taxes, etc. The class was fun and this was the first time that I was actually understanding a real-life situation that I would soon be living. The fact that this was hand- on and students were the decision makers made it even more fun.This is an excellent way to teach economics to older students.
When teaching younger students, there are a number of interactive websites that can be used. Many involve students answering questions about economics in the form of a game. This way, students are learning and having fun at the same time! Another way to introduce students to the concept of money is by having a store in your classroom. Students will learn to save money for something that they want, and they will learn that money has to be earned. I will be using this idea in my future classroom!

My classmates and I created a PowerPoint presentation about teaching economics. Slides 39-46 are full of valuable resources to use for teaching economics!

Feedback on Current Events Presentation

Please leave any feedback you may have about Christina, Danielle, and Moira's current event presentation in a comment on this post!

Thank you for participating! We appreciate your comments. 


   


This presentation was a great learning experience for me. I learned that you can incorporate Language Arts into Social Studies by having students participate in a parts of speech scavenger hunt! Students can read Social studies related articles, and they can search for specific parts of speech in the srticle, whatever the teacher desires. Teachers may also have the students summarize the article, that way the teacher knows that the students are reading the contents of the article. Through this experience, i learned that NEWSELA is a great resource for finding student friendly articles on a wide range of topics. I also really enjoyed listening to my classmates' presentations and learning from them.

More on the fieldwork experience

Overall, I enjoyed the fieldwork experience. I believe that my group did a fantastic job. It was a lot of work! Hours and hours were spent preparing the lessons and PowerPoint presentations. I wish that we had more time to prepare and rehearse our lessons. We had ample time to plan and rehearse out direct instruction lesson, but no so much with our final two lessons. We had a difficult time meeting up to plan our inquiry and cooperative learning lessons. Our schedules were overlapping and other work was often getting in the way. In the end, we were able to create lessons that I believe the students enjoyed.

Our response paddles were a huge hit! The students enjoyed using them and the teacher loved them so much that our class purchased white board paddles for the teacher as a thank you gift for having us in her classroom. I hope they get good use out of them and that the teacher and students enjoy them. Response paddles are a great was for teachers to assess students, while having students be engaged and participating. After seeing how well the students took to this, I plan to use this as a method of assessment when I have my own classroom one day.

I am sad that fieldwork is over. Although it was a lot of preparation and work to teach the fifth graders, I will miss being in the classroom. I enjoy getting to know the students and seeing them engaged in learning. I am grateful for the experience and it will always have this memory of my first time teaching a class, even if it was with a group.

Discoveries and Learning in Fieldwork

Teaching with my classmates in fieldwork was a wonderful learning experience! 

A few things I learned....

• Planning lessons is hard work and very time consuming.
• Once teaching the lesson, expect the unexpected and be able to adapt.
• Seeing students engaged in learning is a beautiful sight. 
• Students will know more than you think they will.
• My group members and I work well together.

Planning took a lot longer than I thought it would. Many hours were spent with my classmates, working hard to create lesson plans for the students. I knew that planning was time consuming, but I wasn't prepared for exactly how time consuming this was.
Our lessons went smoothly, but one can never predict what will happen. We ended up not having enough time for one of our assessments during direct instruction.  



A few challenges...

I expected that the students in this classroom would be engaged in learning, and they were. Students were quick to raise their hands, answer questions, and participate in activities presented to them. Most students took on challenges with excitement. What I was not expecting was for some of the students to not participate at all. Often times, for every group, there were a few students in the class that put their heads down on their desk, or sat quietly, refusing to take part in group work. 

As much as I can say the students were engaged, there were many times when the students got off task, or were not listening to the groups teaching. I observed every group before me struggle with trying to get the students to focus again when they got off task. this was very difficult. Strategies to capture students attention would often have to be tried two or three times before it actually worked. This problem is one that I was not expecting.

Cooperative Learning

In class I have learned just how important cooperative learning is to student success. Not only does it encourage learning, but encourages social skills that students will need throughout their lives. Just remember PIGS. Positive Interdependence, Individual Accountability, Group Processing, and Social Skills. students will gain all of these things when involved in cooperative learning. There are many ways to incorporate cooperative learning into lessons.This can be:

-group/partner projects
-group/partner problem solving
-group/partner reading
-group/partner skits, songs, re-enactments

There are so many ways that group work can be done, and in any subject!
I am going to remember PIGS when I am a teacher, and be sure that I am incorporating cooperative learning frequently to benefit my students. The benefits will be long-term. Working well with others is not something you only have to do in school, but out of school also.

Fieldwork--Pre Teaching

Well, we have officially started fieldwork! I am nervous and excited at the same time. I am excited to teach these 5th grade students because they are clearly so engaged and ready to learn. This is refreshing to see. However, I am nervous to teach Social Studies. This was never my best, nor favorite subject while I was in school. I am worried that I will not be confident enough in the material by the time it is my turn to teach. Al i can do is study the material and become knowledgeable in my topic. This should help build my confidence when it comes my time to teach. The first group of teachers have already gone and I think they did a great job considering they were the first group to go. It was a lot of pressure being the first group! I am lucky to be in the last group that way I observe the other groups before me, and learn from the mistakes they have made. Making mistakes it not a bad thing in this case. This is a learning experience! we will only improve each time we do this. I can also listen to the constructive criticism that our teacher is providing, and keep it in mind for when I am developing my lesson plans. I really hope the students enjoy my groups lesson on the Thirteen Colonies and that everything goes smoothly. Update to follow!!

Creative Ways to Teach Geography (my 10 favorite)

I loved the slide show "103 Creatively Simple Ways to Teach Geography!" It was full of such fun ideas for teachers to use. Each one I read got better and better! I will most definitely be using some of these. Picking a top 10 was hard, but here it is:

Idea 8: Adopt a Rock

Idea 21: Geography Alphabet

Idea 23: Bingo!

Idea 28: Play Taboo

Idea 33: Become a Poet

Idea 36: Wordle Stereotypes

Idea 40: Describing Photos

Idea 51: Landscape in a Box

Idea 60: 10 Questions

Idea 62: Before, Before, After, After


I like the idea of incorporating games into teaching and learning. When students are playing games, they are having fun. My goal is to make learning fun for my students, and what a better way then to play games and learn at the same time! Projects such as Idea 51 allow students to show their creative side. I think this is important. Students should be able to express themselves creatively. How are they able to do this if they are always doing worksheets? They need to have hands- on projects that they can have fun with. Become a Poet will also bring out student creativity. 10 Questions, Describing Photos, and Geography Alphabet are all activities that will help students socially. Students will be in a situation to communicate and work with their peers. Cooperation and good communication among students makes for a stress free classroom environment. These activities will also get the students moving around the room. My 10 favorites are great to keep in mind not only for teaching history, but any subject. Learning should be fun. If learning is not fun, it is less memorable! 

                                       

10 tips to engage students in the classroom

Here are the ten tips from the video "10 Tips of Engaging Students in Active Learning."

1. Make the connection to real life.

2. Incorporate students interests.

3. Present in multiple formats. 

4. Offer choices.

5. Breakouts (groups).

6. Student lead activities.

7. Whole class participation.

8. Get students moving.

9. Chunk it out (break lessons into smaller sections)

10. Be enthusiastic.

I agree that all of these tips make for a successful classroom. Students will thrive in a classroom where all of the above are being practiced. Teachers are more likely to accommodate the learning styles of all students if these tips are used. It is my goal to be able to incorporate all of these tips into my teaching style. I have learned how important it is to provide a variety of activities for students and to make them feel that what they are learning is of significance. 

Animoto and Kahoot

For my project to introduce myself digitally, I created an Animoto. I think this is a great tool to use in the classroom. There are a number of ways it can be used!

• Students/teachers can introduce themselves the first week of school.
• Students/teachers can present research and information. 

I can see myself and my future students using this for many content areas. It would be a great way to incorporate technology into lessons and projects. 

 I really liked Emily's digitally me project using Kahoot. Kahoot was an interactive quiz site, and was so much fun. I would also use this in my classroom rather than just a sheet of paper to quiz my students. It's another fun way to incorporate technology into the classroom, and it will be something different for students. I believe that it is always good to change things up and keep things interesting! After all...

A Vision of K-12 Students Today

After watching the short video "A Vision of K-12 Students Today," I am forced to confront the fact that technology has become such a part of the life I live. Children in this generation spend hours of their day interacting with some form of technology. It makes sense that they are yearning for more of it in their classrooms. There does needs to be a healthy dose of technology-based teaching methods in classrooms today. It has become a great learning tool...the new chalkboard. However, there will always be some students that are not adaptive to all of the advances in technology, and would prefer to learn things "old school". Teachers need to consider all types of learners when planning lessons and activities. Finding a balance will be the challenge.