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!
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