Technology In the Classroom

The most effective way to exploit information is though technology. Most classrooms have moved from the standard black board and chalk to the interactive smart board. This drastic switch from black board to smart board means the way education is presented is more advanced. There's many benefits of adding technology to the classroom. As Walden University states, "technology... can help encourage active participation in your classroom.. Technology education can help you modify your lesson" (2019).
Technology to use in the field:

•  Kahoot
• Smartboard
• iPad
• Book Trailes
• Animoto
• Socrative
• Quizziz

Sources: https://www.waldenu.edu/programs/education/resource/top-five-benefits-of-technology-in-the-classroom

Observing Fieldwork!

Observing the classroom
So far my experience at Bishop Dun Memorial school has been exciting! Being able to watch my fellow peers teach the second graders is interesting and gives me a lot of insight about how to handle the class we were given.

Each group is able to teach their own version of economics in a variety of ways. Each group has a slightly different topic based off of economics and it is fun to watch each peer have their own way of teaching.

I cant stress on how important observing the classroom is. I think it may be even essential, I believe every student going into the education world should do. It gives students the chance to see how students interact with the teacher, how the students work and what the students will have to deal with while in the field one day. Being able to watch experienced, and even new teachers, can give you real life examples and situations of things that can actually happen in the classroom. Observing will even help you in the field as what one teacher does well and the students react positive, you might want to do that too in your class!  


So far my fellow peers are doing a great job teaching and I look forward to going myself with my group!

First Day of Fieldwork

First Day of Fieldwork!

Our first day as teachers in a 2nd grade social studies class was exciting and I cant wait to teach these students all I know about economics! We spent the first day introducing our selves and doing an activity  o get to know each other as teachers and students. We met every student in the class and asked them questions, academic and non academic, to get to know their interests and dislikes. Our teaching group method for getting to know our students was a "Ski-tell" game. In this game we had a jar of colorful skittles. Each student was to reach their hand in, generously, and pick out one skittle. Depending on the color of the skittle, the student was to answer a question. For example, if a student reached in the jar and picked out a blue skittle, the question to be answered was "Tell us something that you recently tried for the first time." The questions asked were used to specifically get to know likes, dislikes, and interests of students so that we could use the information to engage them in our future lessons.

I am excited to see where this semester takes us! I look forward to working with these students.

BTW the skittle game, brought to you by Pinterest! Is a really fun way to engage the student, but make sure the students don't eat to much skittles they WILL get hyper!



Methods of instruction!

When it comes to teaching- specifically teaching social studies, teachers have many different ways to approach teaching. By allowing yourself to incorporate many different models, strategies, and methods in your teaching, you are allowing your students to learn better.
Strategies are a set of steps that you have to follow in order to complete a particular model. Some strategies for teaching are direct instruction, indirect/cognitive, indirect/interactive, and indirect/individual. These strategies relies on teachers to talk and relay information to their students. Then the students will relay the information back to them through a form of assessment; quizzes, tests, independent practices, etc. Some different models of teaching are behavioral, information processing, social-interactive and personal. In all of these models you are giving your students a chance to engage in the information and think for themselves and not have teacher taught instruction! This will allow your students to share their knowledge with one another and with you. All their shared knowledge will help boost their confidence on the matter taught.  These different forms of methods can help you teach every subject in an effective and carefully planned way. Overall, all models, strategies and methods used in teaching should be used in your students' best interests. 

Implementing Social Interactive Model in The Classroom

Implementing Social Interactive Model in The Classroom 

The first thing you must thinking about when told cooperative teaching and learning is group work and social skills! In order to implementing cooperative teacher focus on interaction between your students and your peers. This is important because it helps students gain skills that they will use in their everyday life, both in the classroom, and not in the classroom. To incorporate social relationships within your classroom will help your students learn the information presented in a different, more engaging way. Wh6y you may ask? Because they are given the chance to discuss and interact with the ideas and thoughts of other students! Every student has  view points and ideologies on things. Incorporating social interactions will really help the students can benefit from one another. Facilitating group work in your classroom encourages your students to expand on their thoughts and feel willing to share their ideas because they are given the tools needed to share them successfully. 

So as a future teacher remember, Group work is key! Any chance the students can work together, in a small group or in pairs is a chance you should take! In a lesson plan, except for having students work independently on everything pair them in groups.

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The Importance of Economics in Social Studies

The Importance of Economics in Social Studies

 

 

Economics is a section of social studies that is as important as every other aspects of social studies. Most student can guess what economics has to do with; money, but there is so much more to economic then just money. Although money is a big part. Economic has vocabulary words like supply, demand, deposit, wants, needs, etc. To learn all these concepts and more then you will understand economics and its many parts. Even though all these vocabulary words have something to do with money ion economics, they all have different context and meanings. When explained to elementary students, it can be tricky because of the complexity and difficult concepts. Explaining kid friendly definitions and tying-in the concept of economics to related areas to a child is the way to teach this subject. For example one of the groups that taught deposit used SpongeBob to approach the subject to the second grade class! This was a fun and easy way to approach such a complex and difficult subject to second graders.

 

Besides how hard subject could be, economics to a second grader can also be quite boring. Because at this point in their life's second graders aren't focusing on finance related issues. Economics is important and can definitely be fun if implemented the right way!

Goods and Services!

Goods and Services!

Within the topic of social studies: economic, the concept of goods and services are commonly taught. Teaching goods and services is an important, yet simple way for younger students to understand the gist of economics.
Goods are materials that satisfy human wants.
Services is a transaction in which no physical goods are transferred from the seller to the buyer.
You can teach these two definitions in many different exercise and activities. The 2nd grad class we are observing, the teacher use's a coin system when the students do a task well, participate, are interactive when instructed and stay on task Then, at the end of the week the students will have the opportunity to buy different things with the money they have earned. Some students do choice to save their money and save it for something better in the long run. This is a double teaching method; the teacher is rewarding and encouraging students for good behavior while also teaching them the basic concepts of goods and services.When teaching goods and services, you can direct it in many different ways with many different examples.

Current Events

Current Events

Social Studies not only involves history and the study of it, but also keeping up-to-date with todays current events. Effective social studies teachers/majors have to ask themselves the question; What is going on in our world? How can I spread the word? and How can I be better for my enviorment?Current events is more than just picking an article and reading about it; current events is news that happens around us all day, everyday, especially in todays technology filled society. To be an effective social studies teacher, it's important to stress upon current events. In that case, in class we were split into groups and did our own projects about current events. Two other students and myself worked together to find a relevant article and form a lesson plan around the current event. My articles was on goods, supply and demand. We centered our lesson plan around Valentines day gifts, as this was the holiday we presented our article on. These types of projects show your students how social studies is all around us and it is around us all the time.


With technology all around us, current events are all around us, whether we see it or not. We are constantly surrounded by breaking news and stories we would never see otherwise. It is important as effective teachers to keep ourselves and our students up to date on current events.

Article: Models, Strategies, and Methods

Four Models of Instruction

Information Processing- Equip students with the skills to process information, process it and reflect on it. It about thinking and engaging students. The students are thinking out loud, and are discussing. They explore. 

Social-Interactive- Group work, students are learning from one another and developing social skills. Students will face each other, and their desks turned to each other. 

Personal- Develop students identify, teachers will help students develop their own talents and experiences through solo work and meaningful work; 

Behavior- Explains why teachers authority is the way it is, how to develop student skills, behavior, and knowledge. To do this you have to repeat a lot. Repetition! Repetition! Repetition!