Cassandra's Journey through Social Studies

This week consisted of creating our activities for fieldwork our first day in the 5th grade classroom.  My group and I decided we were going to do a dice game to get to know the students and get them to know what they're going to be learning about with us. One dice had questions about social studies such has "What are artifacts and how can we use them to help us learn about past life?" The other dice had questions about the students. I was very excited to begin fieldwork and get to know the students. As my group and I rotated through the the groups of 5th graders we noticed many good qualities about them. Each student put thought into their answer rather than just answering it on a whim, which was very good to see. They were all very engaged in the activities we created and seem very eager to learn. I am delighted to get to work with this group students this semester. Although I am nervous about my first full class lesson, I'm excited to get out of my comfort zo...

Jigsaw  get into base groups  split into expert groups  come together in base groups to teach what you learned I enjoyed the jigsaw activity. It was a fun and engaging activity rather than listening to a lecture. It was nice to see how the activity ran because I did it in a different way in another class. I think I retained the information more because presenting made me have to know my topic really well. It also allowed me and the rest of the class to assess where we are as future teachers and what improvements we can make as we move forward in the program. Lesson plan powerpoint design improvements: less words 20-30 in size visual and engaging  make sure technology is working and have a backup plan if necessary  ask questions, engage, post test  select video in beginning and have discussion  use same video in closure as an assessment tool                        ...

What is Social Studies?  history has dominated the discipline lectures and discussions are primary teaching devices occasional audio visual aids and field trips homework assigned from textbooks Elementary  small group and independent work manipulative, films, TV, computers integrated approaches  greater instructional variety than other subjects  Social Studies Powerful Elements  Meaningful- engaging, connects students with real world situations Integrative- draws on more than one discipline, subject or skill set Value-Based- strengthens students sense of democratic values and social responsibility  Challenging- incorporates different perspectives and draws on students critical-thinking skills Active- participatory, makes use of manipulative or physical environment  ***FIVE PRINCIPALS OF EFFECTIVE TEACHING***   How People Learn? What is Learning? Percentage of what we learn which is retained in memory  ...

  Climate Change Facts: we operate as if the earth was a closed system in regards to matter earth derives energy from nonrenewable resources  earth is an open system in regards to energy  we should derive our energy from the sun Ale Gore "must we change" but real question is "can we change" "how can we make change occur?" atmosphere is gasses around our head, when we leave we are in outer space  troposphere thin, atmosphere that we live in, concern do these conditions provide appropriate living conditions for us stratosphere gasses that are trapped above the troposphere that allow for the transfer of gases through the earth's system and provide boundary for temperature  the earth allowed enough heat in space to regulate itself   boundary between space and atmosphere thickens and warms up the earth and stops heat from leaving  we are dumping 110 million tons of manmade global warming pollution into the atmosphere every 24 hours ...

From the first class I realized that we are going to teach to digital learners . There will be no more paper used throughout this class, no hand outs, all digital. The majority of professors give many hand outs and their class is strictly pen and paper, which can get boring so I am excited to see how a digital class will work. Digital classes are more interactive and exciting especially when teaching to young students, so I am looking forward to see how to incorporate digital learning into my lessons. As far as my other classes go, they all seem to be pretty good. I'm taking a history class with a professor I had during my freshman year so I already know how his class runs. I'm taking the IEP class, which I'm very excited about because my mom works in an elementary school and is in an inclusion classroom, so I learned a lot from her but I'm excited to learn more and be able to talk to her about things in her class based on what I learn in mine. The last two classes I...