For this observation, it was one of the first social studies lessons that I was teaching my class all year. My students were not really exposed to social studies because, and I hate to say this, but there is no standardized test in social studies. My teachers did not put a lot of focus on it during testing season because they wanted students to prepare for the reading and math tests. Students even have district quarterly checks for science, but not social studies. So social studies gets pushed aside until after testing is over. Since we were final interns and needed exposure teaching social studies, our teachers allowed us to plan for three social studies lessons a week and they could not be longer than 30 minutes. This seemed extremely difficult to do, but we were able to use our time wisely. As an introductory lesson on economics, I decided to have students tell me what they knew already about some key vocabulary words. I gave students sticky notes and I hung the words on chart paper around the room. Students would write what they knew on the sticky note and then take it to the chart paper and stick it on there. After all students were done, we watched a BrainPop video on goods and services, where students filled out a graphic organizer to take notes. I was able to complete this whole lesson with barely a minute to spare! I felt accomplished that I was able to provide my students with a social studies lesson in the time contraint given to me and hope that they were able to take something away from it.
I really love getting students background knowledge at the beginning of units to gauge their understanding. I will often times use word maps on the board but because of time, not all students would get to share with me. I like this method a little better because each student can share what they want and it gets heard. In the future, I would come up with a more organized way for students to maybe transition from each poster. I had students going back and forth all over the place and it felt a little chaotic. I might have students get up by table group to go to a poster and then switch after 30 seconds.
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AuthorDanyelle Estill Archives
April 2018
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