Semester Reflection

Throughout this semester I have been blogging about my experiences in my social studies methods class. In the beginning of the semester I was finding it difficult to remember to blog.  When I did blog it did not feel natural for me.  I felt awkward writing out how I felt about activities and classes.  However, as I started doing it more often, it became more natural for me.  I got in the habit of blogging out class, fieldwork, assignments, and even adding pictures and quotes that I came across.  I found myself actually liking blogging.  I can definitely see myself blogging more as I gain new experiences and learn more about teaching.  The class itself was a learning experience for me as well.  I started this semester not confident of my technology skills at all.  Therefore I was intimidated hearing that the whole class was online.  However, somehow it seems that I am not intimidated by new technology anymore.  I was able to figure out or find help for every technological problem I ran into this semester.  As for fieldwork in my social studies methods class I had never done group teaching before.  The planning process was very different than what I was used to.  It was difficult at times to agree on parts of the lessons and find time to meet up.  In the end however it was a learning experience and it helped me build a skill that as a teacher I am going to need.  Teachers collaborate with other teachers and educators on a daily basis.  Which means that working with peers is a necessary skill to be an effective teacher.  overall I found this semester to be very beneficial when it comes to expanding my personal knowledge of teaching and my overall knowledge of social studies.  I am now more aware of all the different elements of social studies and how to gear my lessons toward each one.  I am glad that I took this course and am going to use what I learned in the future as a teacher.

Teaching Panel Mock Interviews

Today in class I had another new experience!  My professor set up a panel where four of my peers played the role of administrators and the rest of us were potential teacher candidates looking for jobs.  We broke up into our fieldwork groups and the administrators would come around and ask us each questions.  Prior to breaking up into our groups the administrators sat in front of the classroom and introduced themselves.  They gave a brief introduction of themselves.  This included: their name, schooling, current job and work environment, and the open job position.  When we broke up into groups and the administrators came to our group some of them shook our hands, while others just sat down and got right to the questions.  It was set up as a group interview. One of the questions that I liked the most was one of the more thought provoking questions.  It was, if you could go back to any historic moment in history what would it be and why?  The reason I liked this question is because it was not just about teaching strategies, but at the same time you can tell a lot about a person by their answer.  You can tell what interests them or perhaps an issue that means a lot to them.  I was also somewhat surprised by how challenging some of the questions were.  While I was able to form answers for all of them, it was an eye opener at how much I should prepare before a real interview.  Overall I thought the experience was very beneficial.  I enjoyed being able to see how I would do in an interview without the pressure of actually attempting to get the job.  It was a worthwhile learning experience and I would definitely do it again.

Economics in Elementary Classes

Happy December my fellow bloggers!  I am writing to share with you the experience I had in my social studies methods class learning to teach economics.  My classmates and I were divided up into groups and assigned a specific aspect of teaching and learning about economics in elementary classrooms.  The topic i was assigned was "Identify and illustrate ways in which economic education is integrated into the social studies curriculum through such topics as career education, geography, history, community studies, and consumer education." My partner and I researched and added two slides to the class power point on our topic. Here is the link to this power point.  Our slides are number 33 and 34, although the whole slideshow is helpful when learning to teach economics!  After doing this assignment I realized that I was not as familiar with economics as I thought I was.  There are different types of economics and several ways to integrate it into your social studies lessons.  I am glad I now have this power point as a reference for when I have a classroom of my own.  I was surprised to see how well the class worked together to organize and fill out this power point.  It was confusing for me at first when I saw that we all would be editing the same document, but in the end the slideshow came out great.  I thought it was nice how each group was an expert on their topic, because they were able to effectively teach what they learned to us instead of everyone trying to learn everything about economics.