Nothing Worth Having Comes Easy.

This post will be regarding my WEEK ONE experiences in Social Studies Methods: 

Monday 8/26/13:

Today was my first day of Social Studies Methods. This is the one class I wasn't necessarily worried about because I am acquainted with Dr. Smirnova through KDP and have many friends in the class. I also enjoy history so I know the subject matter will be interesting to me personally. My only worry was the work load, but then again, nothing worth having comes easy.

During today’s class we focused on get to know you activities. We began by creating name cards to place on our computers. Dr. Smirnova instructed us to write the number 1-4 on the corners of our name tag. Each number correlated with a question: 1) Our most memorable history teacher and the characteristics he/she possessed, 2) our personal definition of history, 3) how do students best learn history, and 4) why is history important for students to learn. 

Above, are the two sides of my name tag. My sixth grade teacher, Mr. DeHay, was my most memorable teacher. He was charismatic and used different techniques (group work, research, field trips, primary documents, videos) to keep students engaged in the course material. To me, social studies is learning about the past to improve the future. I feel that by looking at our country and world's histories, we can make improvements for the world to come. In regards to the best way for students to learn, I feel that experience is the best teacher. The fourth question, why do we teach history, is to give students both practical and conceptual knowledge about the world around them.

We shared our answers with the person sitting next to us. Next, our partner introduced us to another pair of students. Then, a member of this newly created group was elected spokesperson. The spokesperson grouped together our ideas and noted similarities and differences. Finally, the spokesperson summarized and shared our findings with the class. This exercise not only helped us get to know one another, but it also demonstrated the importance of different groupings within a class lesson. This get to know you activity incorporated individual, pair, small group and whole class sections of work. This is definitely an effective teaching technique because it allowed us as a class to work through the steps of the lesson and then gave us time to reflect upon how effective moving from individual, to pairs, to small group, and to whole class, can be within a classroom.

Wednesday 8/28/13:

Today's class was held in the curriculum library. Dr. Smirnova believed it was important for us to be aware of the resources and tools available to us as students, and as future teachers. The presentation was extremely informative, but a bit overwhelming. There were many pieces of information that had to be covered within the short class period. The most interesting site we learned about was Kidspiration. This site allowed access to pre-made templates for varying subject area worksheets and other tools. We also learned how to access the Curtin Memorial Library's databases more efficiently. This section, in particular, will be useful to me in the future. I have had some difficulty in the past using the databases, but the presentation cleared up much of my confusion.

For homework, we had to choose a different form of technology that could be used to further introduce ourselves to the class. I chose to use a website called Thinglink. This website was particularly frustrating to figure out how to use at the beginning because no step-by-step tutorials were offered. It was a trial and error process to learn how to upload photographs and link different pictures, sounds, and videos. After I learned how to navigate the site, I was excited by the technology. 

I view Thinglink as an effective way to communicate complex ideas and concepts to students. For example, if young students were asked to begin a research assignment they might immediately become frustrated by the amount of work they would need to put into the project: finding books, gathering facts, arranging facts in a way that makes sense, checking to make sure sources are valid. Research is a tool that all students will need to become familiar with eventually, and Thinglink can simplify this difficult task. For a topic like the American Revolution, a teacher could choose a picture that exemplified this topic like a soldier or the American Flag. Then, the teacher could link different facts, such as major battles, events leading up to the war, etc., to the picture. Students could click on the different links and organize the facts found into a graphic organizer. The students could use this information to write a short essay or to create a presentation to share with the class.

Friday 8/30/13:

In class today we all presented about our chosen technology. My presentation about Thinglink went fairly well. Overall, my peers liked the images I chose and liked that I shared personal information with them to help them get to know me better. Many of my classmates wished I had demonstrated how to link different pictures, sounds or videos to a picture I had already uploaded. In hindsight, demonstrating how to use the technology would have made my presentation much fuller and more explanatory. I had planned on doing so when I was running through how I would complete my presentation from my seat, but my nerves got the better of me when I moved in front of the classroom. This is clearly something I will need to work on in the future. I work much better when I have a set of talking points or schedule of events written down for me to refer back to while I am speaking or arranging an activity. I plan to implement this type of device during my next presentation in order to calm my nerves. 

VIEW ABOUT ME PROJECTS AND FEEDBACK.

Throughout the presentations, we were instructed to post feedback (three likes and one wish) about our peers' presentation. Overall, I really enjoyed using the forum to post and view feedback from my peers. Many offered good advice and pointed to strengths and weaknesses I may not have noticed otherwise. I view collaboration and cooperation as KEY aspects of becoming a good teacher, and coworker, so this experience furthered my feeling of how important these to characteristics are. I also liked that I was exposed to so many different websites that I can use in my classroom. I plan on using Animoto and google docs powerpoints in the future.