Blog Post 3 Social Studies

Classroom Experiences:

These past few weeks have been very beneficial to me in both my clinical placement and the class i help with at Washington Elementary. I feel luck that my experiences get to be pretty varied because I get to spend time in both a 1st grade classroom and also a 5th grade classroom. I get to really see both ends of the spectrum and I am very thankful for these opportunities! Teaching in the first grade classroom has been a little bit harder for me than in the 5th grade. I think for me personally, it is harder to create a lesson with dialogue that is appropriate for 1st graders that they will truly learn from and understand than it is for a 5th grade classroom. I have been with the 5th graders in their ELA classroom for a while and I think the strategies to teach 5th graders just make more sense to me. I am still really passionate about the younger grades, I just think for me, teaching and assessing them is harder. Over the course of these clinical experiences. I have picked up on teaching techniques and strategies that I have found very interesting and beneficial. One technique I observed int he first grade classroom, was whenever the teacher assigned any type of work, whether it was a packet, morning work, or even homework, she always either checked or graded it. I think this is important because it helps the students to think of all of their work as relevant and important to do their best with. When work is assigned and then forgotten about, not collected, or not even checked, kids are going to not take it as seriously and put less effort into their work. 

Outside Research:

I saw worksheets being used in the 5th grade classroom from https://www.greatschools.org/gk/articles/5th-grade-reading-worksheets/ .
This website has some really awesome worksheets that encourage higher order thinking and can be integrated into ELA lessons that align with NC Standard Core. For my outside research, I read a book that was given to me as a gift by my grandma. It's called "Teach Like Your Hair's on Fire: The Methods and Madness Inside Room 56." This book was written by Rafe Esquith and is about a teacher in a 5th grade classroom that is populated of primarily first-generation immigrants. Rafe really stresses the importance of reading and writing. He presses how reading should be enjoyable; not a dreaded assignment & writing should allow the children to express themselves. He addresses that students aren’t defined by their standardized testing scores. This book says there are 4 main steps for academic success. 

1.    Replace Fear with Trust

2.     Teachers should be dependable

3.    Disciplinary actions must be logical

4.    Teacher is the role model

 I think this book is really just such a breath of fresh air to experience. Even if you don't read it, I suggest looking it up and reading about the author and a summary about the book. This book perfectly lines up with the NCTCS because it highlights core ways to facilitate learning, hold a role of responsibility as a teacher, and most importantly, create a safe and academically thriving diverse environment. NCTCS Standard 2 "Teachers Establish a Respectful Environment for a Diverse Population of Students. Standard 2c specifically says teachers treat students as individuals. This means that every student is important regardless of the fact that they may come from poverty. This book has a large portion of it that talks about how it is very important to take what children are learning in their classroom and transfer it to the outside world. This is exactly why field trips are such a great learning experience!!!



  I so enjoyed hearing from my professors and colleagues about the trip they took to Washington D.C. I was born and raised in the District and was so blessed to be able to take countless field trips all through grade school to the city and learn about everything that the nation's capital has to offer. Being surrounded by an area with such rich history makes it hard to imagine that some people have never seen the White House or the US Capitol Building. SSED 307 is the first class I have ever had where I have learned about virtual museums. I think it is such a great tool because today more than ever, we have so many technologies that have amazing potential to create inter-connectedness. Virtual museums can provide an experience to a child or a class where they can truly feel like they visit a location or museum without the expense of traveling or leaving the classroom. The virtual museum I am creating is not as beautiful as some I have seen on the internet, but with things like Google Cardboard, regular people can create learning experiences that might not have otherwise be possible to achieve. I think stuff like this is such an amazing advantage and privilege of being a teacher in the constantly blooming Digital Age. I will be be a big advocate for field trips and virtual field trips in my future classroom. Taking students out into the world so increases the connections they make with classroom experiences and I want to create the most well-rounded classroom I can!