Amanda's Learning to Teach Social Studies Experience

I am so thankful that I took this class because it has given me wonderful fieldwork experiences. Not only was I able to teach a class two whole lessons but I was also able to watch my peers teach their lessons as well. I was able to receive feedback from my peers and from Dr. Smirnova. During my fieldwork experience I was able to see what it is like to manage a whole classroom. The fourth grade class was very chatty because my group was teaching a more hands on lesson. Due to this we had to control their volume. By asking the students to give us 5 we were able to control their volume and get their attention. Many times throughout the lesson we had to redirect the students to focus on the assignment. The students loved being able to reenact the whole battle because it allowed them to feel as if they were apart of the Battle of Hastings. We also provided the students with multiple props. These props got distracting at times but we told...

It is very important for our students to know what is going on today! As educators it is our job to teach the students not only what went on in history but also what is going on today all over the world. Allowing students to research current events whether it be online or in a newspaper is a great  way to do this. The article also suggests a semantic web as a way to discuss further events. By writing the topic on the board and drawing a circle/lines around it with what the students know is a great way to discuss current events. The article also suggests connecting the current events to the student curriculum. Allowing the students to debate topics are also a great way to educate students and further their knowledge. For the younger students role play is another great way to teach current events. For example allowing students to play news anchors is a great way to educate students. Assigning students projects using and having them look at websites like ...

Giving students pre assessments are extremely important. Pre-assessments are not only important for the students but for the teacher as well. Without pre-assessing students you do not know how challenging to make your lessons and assignments. We gave our students a pre-assessment. Based off of this pre-assessment we created lesson plans to teach to these children. By doing this we knew what they know and what they wanted to know. This allowed us to create lessons fit for these students. We also gave the students a post assessment . Some questions were more difficult than others. Making lessons fit to students interest is very important. For example these students were interested in learning more about the story line of the Battle of Hastings. So based off of what the students wanted to learn we based our lessons off of this. We allowed the students to reenact the whole Battle of Hastings. This gave the students an opportunity to feel like they were actually apa...

I have created a mini lesson on my artifact bag. This is a great idea because it starts out very exciting. Passing around the bag and having the students guess what is in the bag leaves the students wondering what is in this bag? What could it be? Students are forced to use their senses to figure out what is in the bag. Students get so excited to find out if their hypothesis was right or wrong. This activity also allows the students to express their thoughts on why they made that hypothesis. What clues did they use to make their guess? The artifact bag can contain artifacts that relate to what the students are learning about. This activity keeps the students engaged and eager to figure out what is in the bag. I remember Dr. Smirnova did this activity on the first day of Science methods class. Even at the college level I was eager to find out what was in the bag!