See You Later Not Goodbye

The semester is now over and I just wanted to write a final closing blog for now. This class has taught me so much and opened my eyes and mind up to different techniques and practices for my future classroom. This class was definitely not easy. You need to put in long hours and pace yourself if you wish to succeed. As I wrap up this semester I want to thank my colleagues and Dr. Smirnova for all of the things you taught me. Now when I look at a group of students I will always hear in my head "do not say guys" and thus I will be more professional. To future students taking this class good luck and just know it will all be worth it in the end. Until next time bloggers!

Interview

Today in class we had a mock interview. My colleagues acted as principals from four different elementary schools seeking to hire new teachers from our Social Studies Methods class. Each school had it's own values and specific style of teaching. At first I was very nervous with the first principal, but once I let the nerves out the rest of the interviewing process wasn't that bad. I learned to be more confident when responding to the principal candidates. I have always been soft spoken and I quickly learned when having an interview within a group that I need to speak up or I will get talked over. Having the interview within a group is one aspect I did not like. I think that this was unrealistic and certain group members spoke for longer not giving everyone else enough time to talk. I enjoyed the open-ended questions asked by the principal candidates because it gave me the opportunity to express my opinion on the topic. I think that my colleague Erin was the most professional principal candidate within the group. She made the interview process authentic and serious. As I quickly learned to answer questions right away and not look as if I was confused the process went much smoother. I liked the question one principal asked "What color comes to mind when you think of Differentiated Instruction" I immediately answered with a rainbow. The reason I chose a rainbow is because every student is different just like a rainbow. Therefore differentiated instruction assists every student in the classroom in its own unique way. This interview process prepared me for whats to come in my future. 

& That's a Wrap

So it's the last week of class and all we have done for it seems like is work on our e-folios. I actually really enjoy having time in class to work on mine because Dr. Smirnova is right there when ever I have a question about anything she ALWAYS has the right answer. Knowing that there are only two classes left is bittersweet. This class has taught me a lot and I think together we grew and became better teachers. Although I still have a lot to learn before student teaching this class will always remain near and dear to my heart. I learned so many new technology tools for teaching that I never even knew existed. I created an entire unit plan and an e-folio to present at future job interviews that I know will wow my employers. Last, but certainly not least, I was introduced to edTPA. This is one of the hardest things I hear about from upperclassmen, but now that I have practiced it I feel much more confident. I know that when student teaching comes I will be fully prepared to take on edTPA without a scare. Thank you Dr. Smirnova and class for everything you have taught me in such a short amount of time! 

Discovery Through an Artifact Bag

An artifact bag is an interactive lesson that can be implemented with any subject across all grades. Artifact bags engage students and give them something to take pride in as they discover the evidence within the bags. Allowing the students to take charge and be a “historian” for a day will make their day, along with learning new content.  In Mollie Moore’s article (2013) she states, “…the brightening in every kid's eyes when you tell them that the artifact you've been holding in front of the class is going to be passed around. It's even better if you've been handling it, explaining it, giving it the care any historical relic deserves. There's just something about holding it, respecting it; first graders can take pride in this just as much as high school seniors. So, what’s stopping us from doing this more often in the classroom?” (p.1.) Artifact bags interest students and make them eager to learn about a new era or topic. Artifacts can be used in the beginning, middle, and end of a unit. 

During an artifact bag lesson, students should be "actively engaged in reading, writing and researching to find answers to questions generated by an authentic historical artifact and their resulting curiosity.” Students will work in groups as a method of indirect instruction, encouraging students to talk and work cooperatively. Before the lesson begins, students will be asked to make a prediction hypothesis, one of the research-teaching strategies by simply using the outside of the bag for clues (Fuhler, 2006). An example of this step would be "If the bag has a compass on it, then the mystery explorer must be Henry Hudson." As a teacher you will need to remind students of the inquiry process. Make this process as clear as possible so the lesson runs smoothly. The teacher should model a mock artifact bag and explain her thought process for each step out loud. Show students that for each item they should ask the questions: Who/What? When? Where? Why? and How? (the 5Ws). Model for students how to record their answers on a data organizer. Modeling is very important when teaching students, it clarifies any confusion before the lesson begins. Then it's time for the students to go, but this does not mean your job teaching is over. As a teacher you must walk around the classroom assisting groups that may be stuck. This is very important to make sure no students are not understanding or have trouble making connections between the artifacts. Make sure students are writing down the information they are unfolding. Once students have examined all artifacts, have them make another hypothesis. This hypothesis should have more information and evidence included then the previous one. After hypotheses are made hand out QR codes to have students scan and find out their mystery explorer. After this lesson you could have the students write a letter to another classroom explaining what they learned and different information about the artifacts they discovered.

In class this week we were each assigned to create our own artifact bag lesson based on a person from our unit plan topic. My unit plan topic is Early Travelers, so I immediately thought of doing Christopher Columbus. For this project we were required to use technology. Therefore, I created an Artifact Bag Presentation to teach students the basics when using an artifact bag. Deciding what artifacts I wanted to include in my bag was the most difficult process. I kept thinking of different objects and then I would think of an even better one to use. I decided to use a map, a globe, 3 ships and a pin. This lesson excites me to become a teacher and teach a lesson just like this one!


The Map
I chose to do a map because my theme is Early Travelers and every explorer needs a map. The trick was where is this a map of? The students would be required to examine the entire map, notice that some information is in a different language hinting towards the place. This is a map of Hispaniola. Hispaniola is the first European settlement in the Americas founded by Christopher Columbus on his voyages. I burned the edges of the map and a spot in the middle to make it look more authentic and realistic for the students.


The Globe
The next artifact I chose was a foam globe. During the age of exploration no one knew the Earth was round, they thought it was flat and to travel West would lead to falling off the face of Earth. Christopher Columbus thought differently. He thought that by traveling West he would find a quicker trade rout to Asia. Although he was right that the Earth was round and not flat, he soon realized there was more land than just the European, African and Asian continents. This globe has an arrow from Spain to the Caribbean, because that is where Columbus departed and landed on his voyages.


The Three Ships
I chose to do three ship artifacts because Christopher Columbus traveled on three ships. His three ships were the Niña, the Pinta and the Santa María. Students know this fact about Columbus so I though having the three ships would be a helpful piece of information to decode their explorer.



The Pin
This pin has two flags, the Italian flag and the Spanish flag. This pin symbolizes Christopher Columbus' home country and the country that gave him the opportunity to fulfill his dream of sailing West. This pin is made out of card stock with a pin glued to the back. Students should be able to make the connection between the flags and realize that their explorer is Christopher Columbus. If students do not know the two flags shown they will be encouraged to look them up on a computer.

In addition to the artifacts I included two other sources of information for my students. The first source was a website. This website has information about many different early travelers and explorers. The website encourages students to search for the pieces of evidence they have to match up with the correct explorer. I decided to use a website about many different explorers rather than just one because I thought that would be more of a challenge. This reasoning also applies for the book I chose. This book is filled with information and stories about explorers, but not too difficult for students to read. Each chapter is designated to an explorer with tons of information about his journeys. This book is "Around the World in a Hundred Years: From Henry the Navigator to Magellan" by Jean Fritz.

Sources

Creating Historians Part Two: The Grab Bag. (n.d.). Retrieved April 16, 2015, from http://community.lessonplanet.com/t/creating-historians-part-two-the-grab-bag/136

Farris, P. J., & Nelson, P. A. (2006). Building literacy skills across the curriculum: Forging connections with the past through artifacts. In C. J. Fuhler (Author), The Reading Teacher (Vol. 59, Ser. 7, pp. 646-659).

Why use Sources?

Using both primary and secondary sources as a teacher is useful and can help students learn about the past. Teachers should make sure to implement both types of sources into their lessons daily. Any and every history lesson can be taught using primary and secondary sources, it's the teachers job to provide students with the resources to find the sources and provide sources for students.

What is a primary source?
Primary sources are materials directly related to a topic by time or participation. Often times people think primary sources are only personal letters, diaries, records or other documents created during the period under study, but they can also be photographs, jewelry, works of art, architecture, literature, music, clothing, and other artifacts (Otis College of Art and Design). These different objects and documents were created during the time period you are researching. To introduce primary sources to students you can start by analyzing materials that the students or yourself possess (birth certificates, social security cards, drivers license, passports). You can ask students different questions how people could use these sources to find out information. The next step would be to show students primary sources that relate to what they are learning about in Social Studies. As a class model to your students how to examine the primary sources to find out important information. When working with primary sources promote student inquiry. 

What is a secondary source? 

Secondary sources are works of combination and interpretation based upon primary sources and the work of other authors. These sources are written ABOUT events in the past. encyclopedias, special historical dictionaries, and historical atlases, popular magazines, history textbooks and journal articles are all examples of secondary sources. It is important to emphasize to students that secondary sources were not written during the time of the event it is written about. 

A fun way to teach about both sources! 

Take your class on a field trip to an art gallery and have them look at an original painting. The painting gives students an example of a primary source as does the information about the painting written by the artist. At the gallery there will also be information about the author written and articles about the painting or a podcast which are all examples of secondary sources. The students can examine the difference and give their opinion on which type of source gives them more information.

Works Cited

Using Primary and Secondary Sources. (n.d.). Retrieved April 13, 2016, from http://www.otis.edu/library/using-primary-secondary-sources

History in the Raw. (n.d.). Retrieved April 13, 2016, from http://www.archives.gov/education/research/history-in-the-raw.html

Teaching History.org, home of the National History Education Clearinghouse. (n.d.). Retrieved April 13, 2016, from http://teachinghistory.org/best-practices/using-primary-sources/19080

Using Primary Sources. (n.d.). Retrieved April 13, 2016, from http://www.loc.gov/teachers/usingprimarysources/

Teaching Current Events

Last week my group and I presented a current events lesson to my fellow colleagues. We decided with the help of our teacher to do a debate as our lesson. A debate is an example of interactive instruction which involves two-way communication and rely heavily on discussion and sharing among participants allowing for a range of groupings. According to the New York State K-12 Social Studies Field Guide "As students discuss their findings and debate potential responses to compelling questions, they have the opportunity to speak and listen in the context of the social sciences," this enhances students' conceptual knowledge within social studies. Debates also encourage students to think critically and build presentation skills.  

First we had to decide what current event we wanted to class to debate. Finding the perfect article took a lot of time. With the help of Dr. Smirnova, we chose the article "PRO/CON: The world's getting warmer, can nuclear power help us?." This article is good because it is only 2 months old and is a hot topic in politics. We had our classmates read the article before coming to class so that they were already familiar with the topic. We also designated our colleagues to either side of the argument, that way they could take notes on which side they would be defending. Once we had our topic it was time to create a presentation for our class. The presentation can be viewed here. We included questions to access prior knowledge and see what they already knew about debates. Then we included rules so that they knew what behaviors we were expecting from them. Adding a slide for the parts of a debate helped because the groups were able to organize their ideas accordingly. On this same slide we gave an example of a debate so that they were able to see an actual debate modeled for them. At the end of the presentation we attached a link to our evaluation sheet which we created with google forms. We wanted to know what our classmates took away from our lesson and if they would use this method in their own classroom one day. 

We gave the teams a brief 2 minutes to collect all of their thoughts and put them into order. Each team chose a candidate to present the statements. Once we realized this we encouraged other colleagues to take a turn as well. This gave everyone the opportunity to participate which we believe is very important when working with elementary students. Our class went back and fourth battling to prove their argument. After the debate, we had the class vote as if they were viewing this debate on television. The results can be seen here.  One thing that I would do differently if I was teaching a debate lesson to younger students is to have more then one argument with smaller group sizes that way you can guarantee everyone's participation. Also, as two groups are debating I would have the rest of the students evaluating them on their performance. Overall, I think our lesson was very effective and my colleagues enjoyed it.

Let's Teach Geography!

In class we have been learning all about geography! One activity we did as a class was called "Hug the Earth." To do this activity you need to have your class stand up in a spread out circle. Then with a plush or blow up Earth have students pass it to one another first giving the Earth a big squeeze and then explaining how they can help the Earth or in our case how we can teach geography. This activity was engaging and let my classmates express their own ideas on teaching geography. Some of the ideas I will be "borrowing" for my own classroom one day!

Many of the ideas and examples of how we can teach geography were from the presentation "103 Creative Simple Ways to Teach Geography." I definitely had my fair share of favorites from this slide show, but agree that there are so many different ways to teach geography and all 103 are great! Below I will describe my favorites and how I would implement them into my social studies classroom.

Google Earth Trip
This is just simply a box or other container filled with different destinations across the globe in which students can pick a slip and then together as a class we can fly to our new stop! I like this idea because it is random and gives students the chance to experience places they probably have never even heard of. Also on Google Earth there is a new feature in which you can take a tour or major cities and it shows the different landmarks and attractions at these cities. After you take a trip to your destination you can have students separate into groups to do research on different topics for the place. Students can come back together as a whole and discuss their findings. I think it would be an interesting idea to make paper passports for each student, so that when they travel to a different destination that day they can get a new stamp in their passport. This is something I could relate to other subjects and have done once a week. 

Go Local
This activity can be given as a weekend homework assignment or small project. Just ask students to walk for five minutes in different directions from their homes and take a picture of what they can see at their 'destination'. On the following monday students can produce a simple photomontage and have them explain what they saw and where it was. Students will be able to relate their photos with their classmates to see nay similarities or differences!

Wordle Stereotypes
Before teaching a topic use wordle or another word cloud creating tool to gather views on a place, group of people, company or organization. Have each student contribute one or two words that come to mind when they hear the given topic. Afterwards, you can display the word cloud for students to look back on when they have learned more information. This is a way to pre-assess students' knowledge.

Before, Before, After, After
This activity will encourage students to use their imagination and prediction skills. Choose an image and ask pupils to consider what happened before the picture was taken and what will happen in the future. This image can be one after a natural disaster or over a long period of time. This can be linked to ELA and students can write their own stories about the image.

Flat Stanley 
This idea was not given in the slideshow presentation, but one that I remember from elementary school myself and thought it would be a good idea to share with you all! Flat Stanley is a way to get students and families involved all year long! Flat Stanley is a cardboard cutout of a boy who will be asked to travel to many different places. A student will send or give Flat Stanley and his travel log to a family or friend who does not live with him or her.  Flat Stanley will spend a short amount of time with them.  They will record where Flat Stanley went and what he saw. The child will bring it back to school and share it with the class.  Then, have the child choose someone else to send it to.  Each time you get a response, mark it on a classroom map to see what towns, cities, states, and countries Flat Stanley visits throughout the year! Pictures of Flat Stanley on his adventures are encouraged and give students great visuals and connections to different places.

Get Jiggy!

This week in class we did a jigsaw activity. Until now I have never heard of a jigsaw activity, but i'm glad now that I know. This activity is good for breaking up a broad topic. Each classmate is put into a group and this is called a base group. From the base group, each group member is given another group to work in called their expert group. The expert groups are separated by subtopics to split up the work. The expert group works together on their given topic to learn as much as they can. Once they feel that they have mastered the topic, each classmate returns to their base group to teach them about their expertise. In our class, the main topic was cooperative learning. Each expert group had a different aspect of one of the 5 PIGS of cooperative learning.

I really enjoyed this activity because it taught me the information I needed to know without being overloaded and having to go in-depth for each subtopic. Every group did a great job teaching the class about their expertise and some groups used great online tools that I will definitely be using in my future classroom.  One of these tools was Socrative. This is an online tool to assess students, there are many different forms that include competitive and noncompetitive assessments. The best part is that it's FREE and EASY to use! Another tool that I was unfamiliar with is ClassTools. This website allows teachers to create many different projects that are easy enough for students to do as well. There are FREE games, quizzes, diagrams and so much more on this great website! I need to start checking out more technological games to impress my colleagues the way they impressed me this week!

Little Pigs Have Mud Races

What is geography?

Geography is the study of the physical features of the Earth, including how humans affect the Earth and are affected by it. 


Geography is composed of so many different topics therefore it is split into 5 themes. The 5 themes of geography are location, place, human-environment interaction, movement, and region. I'm sure you're thinking that its a lot to remember, but i'll let you in on my secret to how I have learned to remember these 5 themes. Little Pigs Have Mud Races! This is the mnemonic I came up with to easily remember the 5 themes of geography. It has worked for me and I hope it sticks with you too! Now let's learn a little more about each theme


Location 
The place where a particular point or object exists. This can be an absolute location which is commonly given in the terms of longitude and latitude (ex. Mount Saint Mary College is 41° North and 74° West). Or it can be a relative location which is description of how a place is related to other places (ex. Mount Saint Mary College is 6 blocks away from  Orange County Community College). 

Place
The physical and human characteristics of a given location. This involve describing the mountains, valleys, and the living organisms that inhabit it, infrastructure, and communications.

Human-environment interaction
The study of how humans affect the environment and how the environment affects humans. This human affect can either be positive or negative and is often debatable.

Movement
The effects of anything that moves across Earth. This can include humans, goods, services, immigration and the migration of animals.

Region
The classification of different parts of the world. How the land is split up into continents, regions, countries, counties, states, and cities.

Great introductory video for geography!

Let's Test & Assess!

 One requirement from our teacher and the second grade teacher was to make a pre and post test as a form of assessment for the students.  We created this test by using Google Forms. I was never aware that tests can be created using a Google software. I have never used this tool but it was awesome! Everyone from my class was able to collaborate to create the assessments for our students. Each group was in charge of their own subject, my subject was Early Explorers. I am not a big fan of written tests as a form of assessment, but the process of creating one was very interesting and informative. 

For the Pre-Test, we looked in the textbook for the first grade social studies curriculum and tried to connect it to what they would be learning this year. This was a way for us as teachers to access the students' prior knowledge on early travelers. We wanted to make sure that all of the students understood the previous material. My group outlined this pre-test to have a higher order of thinking and allow students to use their recalling skills through the cognitive lens. As you can see through the link some of the questions are short answer and the rest are multiple choice. This gives students an opportunity to see what they will learning in each section. I liked creating the short answer questions because there could be more than one correct answer. The pre-test was definitely harder to create because we didn't teach the students when they were in first grade. After creating the pre-test it was much easier for my group to figure out exactly what we needed and wanted to teach our students. 

Just last week my class created the Post-Test. As a group, we decided to keep some of the same questions as the pre-test and make changes to the rest. These questions are to see if the students understood the material and stored it into their long-term memory. The post test shows us as teachers what the students learned and how well they learned it. This test was much easier to create because we asked many questions in our direct lesson that we used as questions in the pre-test. According to Bloom's Taxonomy we wanted to see the students reach a higher order of thinking, therefore we gave the students more short answer questions. This required students to apply their knowledge based on what they learned not what they already knew. This allows the students to think deeper and evaluate themselves on the thinking process. The results from the post-test make me nervous because I hope as a teacher I did a good job teaching them the necessary material.

Learning a Lesson While Teaching One

Although fieldwork is ending, the many tools I have learned from the experience are just beginning. The past 5 weeks teaching the second grade class at BDMS have taught me many aspects of teaching I never knew until standing in front of a class. I enjoyed fieldwork this semester because it was different than the fieldwork I have done in my previous classes. You don't feel like a real teacher until you teach to an entire class, front and center. One thing I gained throughout my fieldwork experience was confidence. I learned that every student is different and it is my job as a teacher to accommodate these differences. 

I learned how to create three different lesson plans and the necessary elements required for each. The direct instruction lesson plan requires much more detail and step by step instruction for what is going to be said by the teacher than the other two lesson plans. After teaching the direct instruction lesson plan I was able to go back and make minor changes to make it even better. There was not much that needed to be changed because my group members and I worked very hard on this first lesson plan. The next lesson we taught as a group was the inquiry lesson. The inquiry lesson plan requires students to go through the inquiry process on their own to solve a problem. Before this class I never saw an inquiry lesson implemented in a classroom. I was very excited to carryout our inquiry lesson because it was engaging and technology based. My group created a Webquest for the students to explore in order to solve the problem given to them. I think this lesson went very smoothly and the students were excited and engaged the entire time. When I looked back at the lesson plan to make changes, there were only a few minor things that needed tweaking. One thing I wish my group had done was physically modeled the process using a tablet instead of showing them on the SmartBoard.  I would have verbalized my thought process throughout the exploration. Other than that I think the lesson plan was written great and the lesson was taught phenomenally by my fellow group members and myself. The last and final lesson my group taught was the cooperative learning lesson. A cooperative lesson requires students to work together to create a common goal. Our students were required to make a poster portraying the explorer they discovered in the inquiry lesson. The students had a really great time having roles and working amongst their classmates. This lesson plan only needed simple changes like the inquiry. I needed to change the lesson objectives because I did not provide a performance goal required for the students. 

Here are my final lesson plans:

Direct Instruction

Inquiry

Cooperative Learning 

Overall teaching in front of a class was an amazing experience. I need to thank my colleagues for the great group effort and collaboration that made this fieldwork experience possible. We all worked really hard this first half of the semester. I look forward to teaching my own classroom in the future because of the experiences I've had so far. 

Let's Go To Finland!

I have recently read the article "How Finland broke every rule - and created a top school system" and it has changed my views on American education. This article talks about how the Finnish school system is basically the complete opposite of that in America. The only problem with this is that educators in Finland are doing everything the right way. 

"Instead of control, competition, stress, standardized testing, screen-based schools and loosened teacher qualifications, try warmth, collaboration, and highly professionalized, teacher-led encouragement and assessment." 

This quote from the article portrays how America is doing education versus how they should be doing it. In America education focuses too much on drilling and discipline than encouraging and collaboration. This is why students in America often do not want to attend school even at early ages. In Finland, school is something children see as fun. Teachers tend to start off as energetic and creative, but somewhere down the line they burnout. This burnout is something that should not be happening to teachers. 

"Children at Finnish public schools are given not only basic subject instruction in math, language and science, but learning-through-play-based preschools and kindergartens, training in second languages, arts, crafts, music, physical education, ethics, and, amazingly, as many as four outdoor free-play breaks per day, each lasting 15 minutes between classes, no matter how cold or wet the weather is."

This quote shows how students become diverse in Finland and are able to learn at their own pace with time in between. Children typically can attend to one activity that is interesting to them for around 10-15 minutes. How can we expect American students to be any different? Children need change to keep them interested, something that Finland is doing that we are not. 

Morgan Spurlock has recently done a video of himself experiencing school in Finland, which verifies this article in so many way. The video can be seen here. It is the last video on the page. 

In America children and adults do not take education seriously. In Finland teaching is the most admired job next to medical doctors. I'm sure many of you have hear the famous line "Those who can't do, teach" and this is the American view of teaching. We put so much time into lashing teachers than we do respecting them. Teaching is not an easy profession and maybe if more Americans realized that, the education system wouldn't be the way it is.