Social Studies Philosophy Statement

 The study of social studies includes a body of knowledge, concepts, skills, generalization and theories that allows us access to study and learn from the past. An effective social studies teacher will have special qualities that include, the ability to adapt to situations, clarity, consistency and will always be enthusiastic. The teacher will also demonstrate the importance of social studies to their students by using the five characteristics of powerful social studies. These five concepts include meaningful, integrative, value-based, challenging and active elements. It is important to create a learning environment that engages students to connect with real-world situations. This can be implemented every week by having the students participate in current events. Above the other elements, a meaningful social study is the most important because it gives the student the ability to connect with their community, surrounding environments and the world. I learned that having integrative social studies lessons is another way of indirectly involving the student in English, mathematics or science. I also learned that students need help developing a value-based perspective and the social studies teacher can provide the tools that the student need to develop these value-based perspectives. Having a social studies class that is challenging to the students will expand the students critical-thinking skills that are used in every day life situations. Creating an active but safe environment within the social studies classroom is key. When the students can use computers, maps, compasses, or any other item related to social studies, it gets the students actively involved in participating with his or her classmates. These are tools that need emphasis on learning how to use and understand but can only be done through making use of manipulative.

Cooperative and inquiry-based lesson plans encourages students to work together to reach a common goal. Which means the students have to interact with each other in order to complete the activity. In cooperative learning, this forces the students to expand their social skills and have face-to-face interactions. For instants, the acronym PIGS Face-to-Face Interaction teaches the students to exercise their personal skills and their group skills. They become accountable for themselves and their group members. All of this has a positive impact on the student because it forces them to become the best person that they can be. 

I took the educational philosophy self-assessment and I must say that the results were very surprising. All of my answers to the questions were very close together. My teaching philosophy assessment ended up being a tie between information processing and humanism. I scored a 24 on these two philosophies, which were actually one point away from four other types of teaching philosophies. From this, I gathered that my teaching philosophy is not strictly about one thing. In fact, I believe in a wide range and variety of ways to teaching. This is probably because I am a strong advocate for differentiated instruction. Every student deserves to have an equal chance to learn and every student learns differently. This means that their needs to be a variety of different learning techniques embedded into every lesson. Not only do these techniques need to be embedded into the lesson but also, it is the teacher's responsibility to implement these techniques. Which is why it is important to have differentiate instruction because students gain the ability to have a fair and equal chance in learning.  

According to the educational philosophy self-assessment, here are the definitions of my teaching philosophies. 

Information Processing:

For information processing theorists, the focus is on how the mind of the individual works. The mind is considered to be analogous a computer. It uses symbols to encode, process, remember, and retrieve information. It explains how a given body of information is learned and suggests strategies to improve processing and memory.

Humanism:

Humanist educators consider learning from the perspective of the human potential for growth, becoming the best one can be. The shift is to the study of affective as well as cognitive dimensions of learning. Beliefs include: human beings can control their own destiny; people are inherently good and will strive for a better world; people are free to act but must be responsible; behavior is the consequence of human choice; and people possess unlimited potential for growth and development. There is a natural tendency for people to learn, which will flourish if nourishing, encouraging environments are provided.

Don't Tread On Me!

Here are picture of my Artifact Bag:

           

The name of this artifact bag is Don’t Tread On Me! The grade level that this artifact bag will be used for is fourth grade. American Revolutionary War is the topic for the artifact bag. New York State standard that relates to this artifact bag is the first standard, SS1: the History of the United States and New York. Which indicates that the students will use a variety of intellectual skills to demonstrate their understanding of major ideas, eras, themes, developments, and turning points in the history of the United States and New York. Key idea SS1, performance indicators A, B and C can be implemented for this activity. Performance indicator A, states that students know the roots of American culture, its development from many different traditions, and the ways many people from a variety of groups and backgrounds played a role in creating it. Performance indicator B, states that the students understand the basic ideals of American democracy as explained in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and other important documents. Finally the performance indicator C indicates that students explain those values, practices, and traditions that unite all Americans.

           

            Each individual artifact and number of each artifact was picked for a specific reason. Lets begin with the bag of sugar that was wrapped up inside the red tissue paper to look like a piece of candy. This bag of sugar represented the Sugar Act of 1764. Thirteen teas bags were also items in the artifact bag that was connected by a piece of string. There were thirteen colonies during the Boston tea party and the tea act, which explains significance of using exactly thirteen tea bags. It helps the students discover a deeper meaning to the tea bags by searching for the significance of the number thirteen during this time period and not just the tea act. Inside the artifact bag there is a picture of tea during the time of the Boston tea party. The next items inside the artifact bag include stamps. One of the stamps is a modern day stamp and there are four pictures of stamps that were used during the time of the stamp act. If you observe closely, these stamps resemble the American Militia, Continental Maries, Continental Navy and Continental Army. There are two flags inside the artifact bag. One flag represents the 13 colonies flag and the second flag represents our current 50 state and 13 colonies flag. The students can discover the meaning behind both flags and why the flags changed. Then there is the picture “Join, Or Die” that is a snake cut into eight pieces. Franklin created this woodcut of a snake in 1754 during the French and Indian War. The French and Indian War cannot be forgotten when learning and discussing the American Revolutionary War. This snake represented the American ideals and society. Finally the last artifact was a carton picture of guys picketing with signs that read the “Stamp Act”, “Sugar Act” and “Tea Act”. This was put into a separate envelope that the students would open after they did their research to validate their findings.

            The book that I chose for this artifact bag is part of the magic tree house collection called, Revolutionary War On Wednesday. This book is a fantastic way for the students to relate to the American Revolutionary War. This book involves children going on an adventure back in time to the Revolutionary War. It explains the battlefields and different events that occurred during the war. At the same time this book is not as serious as the actual war. Although this book is recommended for first through third grade, it could defiantly be used for fourth grade. Reason being is that this book makes it easier for the students to understand the events in the war.

            The website that is included in the artifact bag is the history channel. It has videos and facts about the American Revolution. Any type of technology is a great way to get the students involved in the topic. These videos can show the students a little piece of the important events or people involved in the war.

http://www.history.com/topics/american-revolution

            In my opinion, the artifact bag project is not only interactive but also very remarkable. It actively involves all of the students in the class and makes them research each piece. This way they are able to discover what each individual piece represents. From this they are able to put together all of the pieces to the puzzle.

Award for chapter tests!

Today I got an email from m professor Dr. Smirnova notifying me that I have been exempt from the final exam! I had received 100% on all of my chapter tests. 

Below is a screen shot of the email that I received from Dr. Smirnova.

End to the Road of Independence

Final Blog Submission



My personal planning for fieldwork required a lot of practice. Each night before fieldwork I would re-read the lesson plan several times and practice what I had to teach. This helped me gain the ability of comfort in front of the class. Since I knew what I had to teach, I was able to relax and stay calm. For instance, I had a strong loud voice and I did not shake or have any nervous reactions. My teaching collaboration was not the best that it could be because of the planning of the lesson plans. Some of my group members did not allow me to have an input in some of the lessons. Most of the time the lesson plans were already complete before I had the time to work on it because I was in class. Besides this everything else worked out nicely. We were able to talk to each other about everything and be on the same page while we were in the classroom teaching. This was the most important part, for the reason that teachers who work collaboratively together will have an effective classroom. When we were running out of time during the lesson plans, information had to be cut out in order to complete the lessons. All that one of us had to do was make eye contact with the rest of the group and we knew that things had to be cut out of our lesson.

I contributed a lot to my fieldwork group and lesson plans. Although, as I stated before I might not have had much say in writing the lesson plan, but I did help in every possible aspect. I helped create the idea of using the Ipad for the QR reader lesson. I also helped with writing the lessons and creating the PowerPoint’s. I printed and laminated the double-sided flags and the picture with titles for the timelines, as well as providing the poster boards and Velcro. The student’s graphic organizer To help my group be successful during fieldwork I videotaped every session for us to learn what teaching skills can individually be improved. All six of the videos were uploaded to YouTube and then sent to all of my group members. I did everything that my group needed done. I prepared our group for fieldwork by having everything organized, printed and ready to go.

My learning outcomes from this fieldwork experience include the importance of using technology in the lesson plan.The students

Sequencing the Facts!

 The article source is from the website Newsela. My group's current event was about bombing asteroids to protect our world. The method that was used for our current event was sentence strips. We used sentence strips to implement sequencing the facts of the current event article. Recipes, dance moves and the scientific method were to activate the student’s prior knowledge about sequencing of events. The students were also required to give other examples of sequencing events. This was defiantly beneficial to active the student’s prior knowledge in this way because the students will have a better understanding of the task that they have to do. I learned that it would be beneficial to read the article aloud to the class first. Most of the time, students do not read the article for homework or does not comprehend what they have read. If the article is read aloud to the class then all of the students will participate in the activity.

Personally, I had a fabulous experience with this activity. Sentence strips are defiantly my favorite method to teach sequential order to the students. It is fun for all of the students involved. Several times the students take this as a challenge to beat their classmates. This current event project taught me that it is important for the students to know what is going on with the world and environment around them. 


If I had to make this for a first grade class, I would use all of the techniques that I used above. To change this lesson for the six-grade class, I would give the students time to read the article silently in class. Then they will be divided up into the groups to work on the order of the sentence strips.  

Current event write up

Current event presentation

Heritage Comes Alive

The Native American Tribe that my group and I did research on was the Mohawk Tribe. My mother's side of the family is actually from the Mohawk Tribe. My great great grandmother was 100 percent Native American so I had a pretty solid background on the Mohawk Tribe. I chose this group because I wanted to learn more about my own heritage. Before the project I knew that the Mohawk Tribe was the first Native American's founded in New York State. I also knew that they created the Mohawk hair style and look. From this project I learned that the women of the tribe elected the Chief of the tribe. The women were also the gardeners and harvested all of the food. This included the "Three Sisters" while the men went hunting for the meat. The women were basically in charge of the entire tribe.

This jigsaw project taught me how important it is to use PIGS Face-to-Face interaction because it allows all of the students to have equal opportunities while working on the project. The students also developed their personal accountability. They will also understand the concept that if they fail or do not contribute to the group project then their classmates will fail too. This gives all of the students motivation to work harder because they are not just responsible for their grades but also their team members. The jigsaw also helps the student develop their meta-cognition because they are going beyond the knowledge and comprehension levels. They advance to the evaluation level because they are solving and evaluating the jigsaw outcomes. 

If I were to teach this to the 4th grade students, I would have easier questions for the students to answer. I would defiantly have the computers already available with the information on it. Meaning that they would not have to google and research everything on their own. Instead the website and information will be there for the students. I would also have a specific worksheet made as a guideline for the students to use. Once the students are done working with their expert groups I would briefly look at their worksheets to see if they all have the same information. This way when the students get into their base groups then I know that all of the same information is being taught. During these presentations within the base groups, I would also have another worksheet for the students to fill out while they are following along. Finally, I would have a self-evaluation and peer-evaluation rubric for them to fill out. This way they are evaluating their work and their group members work. All of these adaptions are important because it breaks the work into smaller and easier pieces for every student to understand.

National Content Standard

NCSS Standards

II. Time, Continuity, and Change

Social Studies programs should include experiences that provide for the study of the ways human beings view themselves in and over time, so that the learner can:

a.   Demonstrate an understanding that different people may describe the same event or

     situation in diverse ways, citing reasons for the differences in views.

b.   Demonstrate an ability to use correctly vocabulary associated with time, such as

     past, present, future, and long ago; read and construct simple timelines; identify      

     examples of change; and recognize examples of cause and effect relationships.

c.   Compare and contrast different stories or accounts about past events, people,

                places, or situations, identifying how they contribute to our understanding of the

     past.

e.   Demonstrate an understanding that people in different times and places view the

     world differently.

VI. Power, Authority, and Governance

Social Studies programs should include experiences that provide for the study of how people create and change structures of power, authority, and governance, so that the learner can:

         c.   Give examples of how government does or does not provide for the needs and

     wants of people, establish order and security, and manage conflict.

d.   Recognize how groups and organizations encourage unity and deal with diversity to      

     maintain order and security.

h.   Recognize and give examples of the tensions between the wants and needs of

     individuals and groups, and concepts such as fairness, equity, and justice.

VII. Production, Distribution, and Consumption

Social Studies programs should include experiences that provide for the study of how people organize for the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services, so that the learner can:

         h.   Describe the relationship of price to supply and demand.

New York State Learning Standard(s):

SS1: History of the United States and New York: use a variety of intellectual skills to demonstrate their understanding of major ideas, eras, themes, developments, and turning points in the history of the United States and New York.

Key Idea: SS1.4:  The skills of historical analysis include the ability to: explain the significance of historical evidence; weigh the importance, reliability, and validity of evidence; understand the concept of multiple causation; understand the importance of changing and competing interpretations of different historical developments.

Performance Indicators:

SS1.E.4A: Students consider different interpretations of key events and/or issues in history and understand the differences in these accounts.

SS1.E.4C: Students view historic events through the eyes of those who were there, as shown in their art, writings, music, and artifacts.

Here are the links of my group's work:

Mohawk Tribe presentation
Mohawk Tribe Jigsaw

Proud Information-Processing Projects

In my social studies class, we conducted several different group assignments. Two of these group assignments were jigsaw projects and one was a current event presentation. I have learned how to implement these techniques within the classroom. The jigsaw project was very new to me and before this class I have never heard about this type of lesson. I think that the jigsaw is effective to get all of the students participate in the project. Dividing the students into their expert groups to work is a great way to ensure that every student in the classroom will obtain the same information. This is an interesting way to create an active environment within the classroom. It promotes PIGS Face-to-Face Interaction because students are naturally talking to their classmates without feeling any pressure. When the students are reunited with their base groups, they share the information that they put together with their expert groups through presenting. The students are actually teaching each other about a specific topic, which is good because some students learn by teaching their peers or from their peers teaching them.

The current event presentation helped me understand how important it is to be aware of the world around you. I learned so much about what was going on with our government during the time of the government shut down that I would have never learned on my own because I do not watch the news. It forced me to read articles that I would not normally be interested in. All of the different instructional methods that were used to teach current events were incredible. It made me think outside of the box and begin to think of the endless possibilities on how I could teach current events. My current even presentation group decided to use sentence strips to teach the students sequencing. One thing that I learned from this was that the sentences used from the sentence strips should be an exact match to the sentence in the article or story. Reason why I say this is because it was not easy for the college students to do and both groups were stumped. There was more than two wrong with each group because the sentence strips were re-worded differently than they were in the article. Sentence strips are not made to trick the students. The strips are meant to improve the students thinking skills with sequential order.

Throughout this semester, these social studies projects improved many of my skills. I learned how significant it is to use technology in every lesson plan. I have improved my skill ability to work collaboratively, communicate, using technology in lessons and so much more!

PIGS Face-to-Face Jigsaw Project 

Mohawk Tribe Jigsaw Project

Current Event Presentation

Insightful Observation

As part of my qualifications for my social studies methods class, not only was I teaching but I had to observe my classmates teaching. During fieldwork, there were two group that would teach the lesson and then alternate and reteach the session while the colleagues watched them teach. The fieldwork time was broken up into 25 minute intervals for each group to teach. I will be talking about my observations between group 3 and group 4. I observed direct instruction, inquiry and cooperative learning lesson plans from both groups. If there was one thing that I learned from these observations is to always be prepared for anything and that time restrictions are important to be aware of. Due to time restrictions, the lessons were not completely finished. There were times where the lessons went over 15 minutes. This can cause a huge back up or delay in the day's schedule. I have also learned that it is very difficult to stick with these time restraints. Every day is different in the classroom and you cannot predict what is going to happen. Now I am going to break down my observations by group to make it easier to follow.

Group 3:

Without a doubt, every time that I observed this group there was always a teacher standing in front of the projector. This was very distracting because the words were unreadable. I learned two things from this: 1. Rearrange your classroom if it is too crowded in front of the projector. 2. Never stand directly in front of the projector, when necessary, point from the side of the projector. I loved how they keeps the students involved during the direct instruction by having a worksheet for the students to follow along with. 


Group 4:

Pretty Patriots Unite!

The members in my fieldwork group are Liz, Kristen, Courtney and Christina. This week my group and I started field work at Bishop Dunn Memorial School. Our placement is in Mrs. Benfer's 4th grade classroom. Our lesson plans that we will be implementing in our class will be on the beginning of the American Revolution. The class consists of 26 students, 12 boys and 14 girls. 

Reflection on Historians

In class today, we were learning about "How Do I Engage Students in Examining History" and each classmate was assigned one question to answer in the textbook. My question is from chapter 11"Time for Reflection" page 343, I was assigned the second reflection question.

The question is:
How is it possible for an artist or a writer to create something that is accurate if he or she did not witness the event?

Answer: 

Artists and writers analyze the given facts that are available to them throughout history, which will help them make more accurate and logical interpretations of different historical events. Artists and writers are Historians, which means that they conduct excessive research in one specific area at a time. They gain the ability to create something that is accurate based off of this research. The research makes anything accurate because it validates the truth and accuracy by using facts. As long as the Historians have research to support their work then his or her work is  accurate. Analyzing facts is very important when conducting research because it will help the student or Historian create an interpretation of the event, instead of using your imagination. 

Welcome to my blog!

Welcome everyone!

My name is Brittney Lachman. This blog was created for my Social Studies Methods class at Mount Saint Mary College. My goal is to become an Early Childhood Special Education Teacher.

I hope you will enjoy my blog!

Brittney


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