Beginning to Think About Fieldwork

As time passes by, our fieldwork is starting to finally begin!! We were assigned our groups and topics and my group is getting the opportunity to teach a 5th grade class at Bishop Dunn all about Christopher Columbus!

After meeting with my three group-members about our ice breaker activity, we came up with the conclusion for the students to pass around a globe beach ball and answer personal and Columbus related questions. We met after class in the library and came up with questions like:

1. Where have you traveled to?

2. Have you ever been out of the country?

3. Would you consider yourself an explorer?

4. Who was Christopher Columbus?

5. What year did he sail the ocean blue?

After creating the questions, we figured they would pass the globe to each other, introduce themselves and tell us where they landed on the globe when they caught it. For example, if they landed on Antartica, we gave them a specific question. Along with the globe, we created a Columbus pre-assessment to see what basics they know about Christopher Columbus before they get an entire lesson on him and his voyages. Lastly, we created map name tags for about six students, which included construction paper and a picture of a map with their name in the center, which really relates to social studies as a whole.

After meeting with my group, the day finally came!! We were able to effectively use our activity with the 5th grade class and it went extremely well! The students were separated into 4 different groups and we got to rotate to each table to share our icebreaker with each student. We began by passing the globe to each other, telling our names and then explaining how the activity will work to the students. We randomly passed the globe to one student to start and he or she said their name, where they landed and then answered the question given. We learned a lot of great things about each student! We learned that there are many explorers in the class and at such a young age, I was surprised to learn how many of them traveled all over the world! Each student seemed so excited to answer the questions whether it was about traveling, their favorite foods/hobbies, or just a random question. They had fun passing the globe to one another and last minute, I came up with the idea to have the students pass the globe to us, the teachers, and ask us questions they were dying to find out. The students really enjoyed that and asked us our age, what our majors are, when we plan on becoming a teacher, and much more! They seemed thoroughly engaged in our activity which was exciting for our group. The one thing we didn't get to do was our Columbus pre-assessment questions. We should have incorporated them into the game, rather than make them separate questions. We were pressed on time, but the kids seemed to be having so much fun with our activity that we didn't want to interrupt it. Maybe we will somehow include our Columbus questions within our lesson, but overall our ice breaker went extremely well. Many of the kids shared that they enjoyed answering our questions and like passing around the globe to one another. It was a simple, yet fun way to get to know each student. We still have many things to learn but overall, this was a great way to engage the students and now we know how excited and participated they will be in our lessons!

Social Interactive Model: Cooperative Learning

During class we discussed the five elements of Cooperative Learning:

1. Positive Interdependence
2. Individual & Group Accountability
3. Group Processing
4. Social Skills/Face-to-Face Interaction
5. CL Lesson Plan Structure

We got into groups and each picked one of the five elements above and then formed an "expert" group where we worked together to make a powerpoint presentation on our element. I chose to talk about Social Skills and Face-to-Face Interaction. When I got in my expert group, we all seemed to have a general understanding of what social skills and face-to-face interaction entailed. We each typed up a few general slides and read through the information Dr. Smirnova gave to us on this element.
Check out our presentation!! 
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1OqlgNEd2b5FHhupP04VzDYnv1UjK9TOny4DjK3xnluY/edit?usp=sharing

I learned about the 4 stages of skill development:
1. Awkward
2. Phony
3. Mechanical
4. Integrated

A lot of the information about social skills was very self-explanatory and was easy to follow. There are many traits that entails good social skills like keeping eye contact, open gestures, asking questions, leaning forward, etc.

With face-to-face interaction, students are helping, supporting, encouraging, and praising each other’s efforts to learn. This creates a mutual goal of both academic and personal support among students.
A few examples of what F 2 F looks like:

• A student orally explains how to solve a problem.
• One group member discusses a concept with others.
• A group member teaches classmates about a topic.
• Students help each other connect present and past learning.

Not only did I learn a lot about social skills & face-to-face interaction, I also learned about positive interdependence, individual & group accountability, group processing and CL Lesson Plan structure through the other expert groups' presentations. Each presentation was presented in our original groups and we all got to interact with each other and learn about the rest of the elements of Cooperative Learning. This was a great way to learn; I enjoyed it a lot!!

Origins of S.S

Origins of Social Studies

Overview

• History has dominated the discipline
• Lectures and discussions are primary teaching devices
• Homework assigned from textbooks
• Elementary
• Small group and independent work
• Manipulatives, films, TV, computers
• Integrated approaches
• Greater instructional variety than other subjects

What is S.S.?

A body of integrative knowledge, concepts, skills, generalizations and theories in the SS fields (history, economics, geography, citizenship, etc.)

Social Studies Powerful Elements..

1. Meaningful: Engaging, connects students with real-word situations
2. Integrative: Draws on more than one discipline, subject or skill set
3. Value-Based: Strengthens students' sense of democratic values and social responsibility
4. Challenging: Incorporates different perspectives and draws on students' critical-thinking skills
5. Active: Participatory, makes use of manipulative or physical environment

How People Learn? What is Learning?

Percentage of what we learn which is retained in memory:

When we read...10%

When we hear...20%

When we see...30%

When we see & hear...20%

When we discuss...50%

When we do things...75%

When we teach others...95%

Structure of Knowledge--Jerome Bruner

Bottom to Top: Facts, Concepts, Generalizations, Meta-Cognition (to be able to explain your own thinking)

Educational Philosophies:

Top to Bottom: Re-constructionism, Existentialism, Progressivism, Perennialism/Essentialism

Models of Instruction:

Bottom to Top: Behavioral, Information-Processing, Social-Interactive, Personal

Strategies of Instruction (aligned with models):

Bottom to Top: Direct, Indirect/Cognitive, Indirect/Interactive, Indirect/Individual

Methods of Instruction (aligned with models):

Bottom to Top:

Demonstration, Guided Practice, Lecture questions

Graphic Organizer, Inquiry

Jigsaw, Role Play, Discussion, Simulation

Projects

A goal is a general statement or idea for the entire unit plan--the big picture!!

An objective is more specific--placed at the end of the lesson (closure/independent practice)

Components of Objectives--Condition, Behavior & Criteria

This presentation on the origins of social studies was a great way to retain information about things that I didn't really know much about! Even though we are starting to read about this information in our textbook, it's great to learn the facts in class, as a group. There were also a lot of terms that I didn't know that I'm excited to eventually learn more about! 

Climate Change Lecture

Does the earth gain energy?

-We derive our energy from fossil fuels: coal, oil, gas...not renewable

The sun is an open system in regard to energy. We should derive our energy from the sun.

1. Must we change?--Yes
2. Can we change?

Atmosphere: Sphere of gases over our head, stops at the boundary of outer space. Has a number of layers but the most relevant ones are the troposphere (very thin and where we live, the atmosphere we actively live in) and the stratosphere (gases that are trapped above the troposphere which allow for the transfer of gases through the earth's system but also provides a boundary that addresses the issue of temperature).

Climate Change:
Earth allows enough heat to escape back into space to maintain temperatures. As gases like C02 increase, the boundary between space and the atmosphere thickens.

We are dumping 110 million tons of man made global warming pollution into the atmosphere every 24 hours!
-In the troposphere this affects our ability to breathe and causes cancer..generates a lot of heat!

The Biggest Sources of Greenhouses Gases:
Air transport, oil production, coal plants, coal mining, fertilization, land transport, industrial processes, thawing permafrost, industrial agriculture, landfills

The largest source of global warming pollution is the burning of Fossil Fuels!!!

Anomaly: unexpected deviation from the norm (getting hotter/colder than normal)

The hottest year EVER measured was 2016!!--climate change is caused by human activities

Heat of the ocean has exponentially increased..
Consequences: Bleaching out and killing coral reefs, taking away the habitat for much of the ocean life, storms (intensifies over a warmer ocean)

Water Cycle: Precipitation, Water returns to the sea, Evaporation--goes around in a constant cycle.
The same extra heat that evaporates more water from the ocean, causing bigger downpours and floods...pulls moisture even more quickly from the soil, causing longer and deeper droughts.

Hotter years typically have more fires--ex: May 3rd, 2016: Canada

October 13th, 2014-U.S. Department of Defense: Climate change "will likely lead to food and water shortages, pandemic disease, disputes over refugees and..natural disasters in regions across the globe."

"Climate Change is a Medical Emergency."

We now risk losing up to 50% of all land-based species in this century.


This lecture on Climate Change was very informative and I learned a lot of information I never thought I knew about! The presentation was very detailed and showed interesting and very relevant pictures. I enjoyed seeing all of the Hurricane Harvey pictures since it is such a new, widespread topic of our country. Presentations and lectures like these can inform us more about all of the world's issues and what we can do to help in any way possible.

Here's to the beginning!

From the first day, I realized that this class will be 100% digital, which is such a great thing! Say goodbye to paper, and say hello to the digital age! It will be exciting to see how this class will have me grow as a future teacher. Even though social studies is not my strong suit, it will be interesting to see where this class takes me. The fieldwork experience will be such an amazing one for me because it'll allow me to work with my peers in a group, while teaching children social studies material. It will be interesting to see how we, as a group, come up with different ways to teach the students digitally. If we can reduce the limit of wasting paper, that will be a two-in-one lesson!

Also, learning about blogging and other digital tools to use during class was very interesting. I never knew about these tools so it will be cool to test them all out and hopefully use them in my future classroom. I'm excited to see where this course takes me and how it'll enhance my knowledge on social studies and how to teach it to children. This will be a learning process for me and even though I'm nervous about the workload, I'm excited to see how I progress!