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.