Reflection: Teaching Lesson One

Last Monday, I taught a short social studies lesson about Habitat for Humanity in my third grade classroom at Salem Elementary. I had mixed feelings before teaching the lesson and while planning, and I have mixed feelings after having taught it.

My teacher only reserves 30 minutes for social studies, and this is not even every single day. So, when she told me that I would have from 3:00 to 3:30 to teach a lesson, I was nervous about designing a lesson for this class that would be interesting and interactive while only been a half hour lesson. The week before teaching my lesson, I observed her class for a few hours to fulfill an assignment for another class. During that time, I also observed a short social studies lesson. The lesson was focused on "the common good" and what we can do for our community. They were reading out of their text book, and a small part of the chapter on Habitat for Humanity seemed very insignificant. Then and there, I decided that I would use the thirty minutes I was given for my lesson to expand a little bit on Habitat for Humanity and get the students talking and thinking about this organization and other ways they can help their community.

I decided that if I went into the lesson, activated their prior knowledge by allowing them to discuss what they remembered about Habitat for Humanity from the textbook and had a discussion with the class about how they help their community, I would have a little bit of time left to have them examine some photographs of Habitat volunteers in action. I didn't feel as if I would have time to have the students engage in a writing activity, since there are several students in this class on different levels and I was teaching the whole class. However, I thought that the students would benefit from looking at several photographs of volunteers doing different jobs and collaborating to build houses. I would then have the students discuss what each picture was depicting and how those people were helping their community. I would wrap up the lesson by asking the students how they thought they could help in their communities.

On Monday, I taught my lesson, and overall it went VERY smoothly and the students were very cooperative. Everyone was engaged for the thirty minutes that I was teaching. One thing that I would change if I were to teach this lesson again would be to have several MORE photographs instead of just one per group. Although the students were talking for the entire five minutes that I gave them and they were on task, I feel like they would have benefited from seeing several more photographs. If I had more time to teach, I would have them write about how they could help in their communities in addition to having them discuss it.

When planning this lesson, I had intended to use a visual arts objective since I was having the students interpret photographs. When I was looking for a 3rd grade visual arts objective to fit this activity, I could not find one that sounded right to me. So, I decided to use a language arts objective for oral communication in order for my lesson to still be interdisciplinary. If I were to teach this again, I would try to integrate more objectives from the arts. Another thing I could have done would have been to integrate technology somehow and show students the interactive student website for Habitat for Humanity. This site offers several games and activities for students.

Considering the fact that I only had thirty minutes to teach, I think my lesson went well. It could have been improved in the different ways that I mentioned, but overall I felt comfortable teaching and did not have any issues.

Diving into the Oily Gulf

Earlier today, I saw a news broadcast of an underwater video of the oily Gulf of Mexico. Seeing this, on day 81 of the disaster, made me think really hard for the first time since the first week of the spill. How significantly has this already affected wildlife and how will it continue to affect wildlife? Just how much will this disaster affect society and the generations to come?

Although this is a morbid disaster, children need to be aware of its impact on communities. The oil spill provides great fodder for integrating social studies with science (particularly environmental and health sciences) and math. A few essential and other questions I thought of to begin thinking about teaching this topic include:

1. How has this oil spill already affected marine and other wildlife? How many millions of fish have been killed (math)? How many more fish and other animals will be killed?

2. How does this affect society as a whole in areas where the oil has travelled?

3. How does this disaster affect marine sports, fishing, boating, and other aspects of coastal culture?

4. Does the oil spill affect inland states? If so, how?

5. How does this affect our health? Will we still be able to eat fresh seafood? Will our drinking water still be safe?

6. What long-term environmental and health affects do you think this spill will have on our Earth?

The New York Times' Education page features a section on "The Gulf Oil Spill in the Classroom." This page includes several ideas for lesson plan ideas on the oil spill. You can visit the page at http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/28/the-gulf-oil-spill-in-the-classroom/

Photo found at http://ootp.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/louisiana-oil-spill_100406.png

Educating Children about History at the NC Museum of History

Yesterday, I had the privilege of joining my class for a field trip at the North Carolina Museum of History in Raleigh. Having gone through undergraduate school thinking that my calling was the field of public history (educating the public about history through museums, historic sites, historic literature, memorials, historic buildings, etc.), I felt a little bit nostalgic visiting the museum that I had been to so many times while a student at UNC. Nonetheless, this trip made me very excited on getting to teach students about social studies and different cultures.

We began our visit to the museum by being introduced to Debra Nichols and Jessica Pratt, two experts working in the Education and Outreach departments of the museum. While a classroom was being prepared for us and a computer presentation was being set up, Mrs. Nichols took us to the third floor of the museum, where we explored a photo exhibit that portrayed North Carolinians during the Great Depression. The exhibit featured photographs of children of all ages, workers in different trades, and people of all socio-economic standings. Students can listen and watch a video and they can explore all of the photos. I think that allowing students to explore this exhibit would be ideal in educating them about children their age and what they were going through during that hard time in our nation's history.

After viewing the photograph exhibit, we went back downstairs to the classroom, where we listened to a presentation about the educational resources available for teachers and students. We learned about a resource packet that is available online that makes many resources and information about field trips and tours available to teachers. We were also shown kits that can be mailed to classrooms that include lesson plans, artifacts and other activities for students to engage with in their own classrooms. One opportunity for students that I found very fascinating was the TarHeel Junior Historian program. This program invites students from 4th to 12th grade to enter into essay contests, art contests and other contests. It directly involves students in the museum and they have a conference for all members where they recognize the participants of the many different contests. Assuming I will be teaching 4th, 5th, or 6th grade, I plan to adamantly advertise this opportunity in my classroom and get all of my students involved in the contests. Later during our tour, we viewed an exhibit of all of the students who had been awarded in the different contests. In fact, the "Chapter of the Year" for the program just happened to come from the elementary school that I attended, Morehead City Elementary School!!

The exhibits we explored during our tour were excellent and enthralling. One that stood out the most to me was the Native American exhibit that featured a re-created Indian woman whose remains had been found and transported to Chapel Hill so that museums could create molds of her actual skull. This model was so life-like, and it would give students a feel of what Native Americans in North Carolina actually looked like. The clothing and jewelry she was wearing are also indicative of Native American life. Other exhibits we were able to view were the sports hall of fame, a 1920s drug store, an extensive exhibit of Thomas Day's historic cabinets and furniture, and a Jewish North Carolinian main exhibit. Each of these had so much to offer to young students; each provided interactive pieces such as tapes that students could listen to or videos that they could watch. In fourth grade, learning about the history, geography and people of North Carolina is key, but it is very important in other grades as well, as they learn about their community, their civic rights, the economy, and history in general. I thoroughly enjoyed this trip the the North Carolina Museum of History, and I will definitely be taking my future students there.

Components of an Outstanding Social Studies Lesson

Having majored in history in my undergraduate schooling, I have looked forward to the day that I would learn to teach social studies and the social sciences in my own classroom. According to a 2006 Jennings and Rentner report, mentioned in our text 'Dynamic Social Studies for Constructivist Classrooms, ' "To find additional time for reading and math,...71% of districts are reducing time spent on other subjects in elementary schools...The subject most affected is social studies." Unfortunately, many teachers have joined the migration away from meaningful social studies instruction in the name of standardized testing of math and language arts skills. On a brighter note, there is a way that social studies can still be integrated while focusing on language arts and math. According to our text, "referred to as integrated learning, the practice of joining together elementary school subjects is based on the idea that the real world doesn't compartmentalize life into subject matter categories: life demands that we all must use a complex network of entwined skills and information to take on real issues." The practice of integrating social studies prevents the discipline from being ignored in the elementary school classroom.

We can integrate social studies into language arts by having our students read and write biographies and historical fiction, for example. There are also several ways that science can be integrated into math, such as interpreting graphs and data that show social statistics, measuring distances between places on a map, or creating a time line, among many other activities. Social studies can be integrated into science through activities such as environmental awareness projects and how the environment affects society. Of course, social studies goes hand in hand with the arts, since interpreting and exploring the arts give students a first-hand look into cultures they are learning about. So, an integrated social studies lesson is key in making sure that social studies exists in the classroom. In addition to integration, there are several other components that make up a good social studies lesson, such as:

1. Incorporating as much culture and art as possible, such as music, creative movement and dance, and drama;

2. Making sure that students have access to several types of literature; not only text books, but different types of trade books such as informational books, historical fiction, biographies, and folk literature;

3. Providing a hook to draw students into the subject matter and pique their interest;

4. Ensuring that your lesson coincides with national and state standards and objectives;

5. Ensuring that students' individual levels of development are addressed;

6. Providing hands-on learning experiences for children such as allowing them to manipulate maps, globes, compasses, computers, timelines, charts, graphs, timing devices, cameras, calculators and realia of cultural objects that the students are learning about;

7. Creating opportunities for children to extend their learning from the classroom into the community through field trips where they can speak with and listen to historians, artists, scientists and experts on many different topics;

8. Allowing students to use computer based multimedia such as the internet to supplement their learning in the classroom (the internet provides students with opportunities to conduct research on any topic of interest related to social studies);

9. Allowing students access to hypermedia and other presentation software to create presentations;

10. Implementing effective projects that engage students in social studies for long periods of time throughout the school year;

11. Presenting the material in a meaningful way that engages students and allows them to make connections to their own lives.

These eleven items should be components of a successful and well-planned social studies lesson. Social studies should be hands-on and meaningful for students in order for them to enjoy it (and not think of it as boring!). Knowing how to teach meaningful social studies lessons that incorporate other disciplines is key in being able to implement this subject in the classroom.

Integrating the Arts: North Carolina Museum of Art

This past Thursday, July 1st, I had the opportunity to visit and tour the newly redone North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh, NC. One of my classes, Integrating Social Studies and the Arts, took a field trip to learn ways that we could use the museum as a resource in our classrooms and for field trips. To kick off the visit, we were given a presentation by the education director on two educational kits that can be reserved by teachers to use in classrooms. The first kit was the Art Detective Discovery Kit, which is available for grades 3 and 4, and allows students to use their critical eye to explore art. The second kit was Rainstorm Brainstorm, available to grades 5 through 8. The Rainstorm Brainstorm kit involves designing a pond as a "work of land art," which incorporates science and the arts into an engaging and fun activity for students.

Following our session in the auditorium where we learned about these educational kits, a docent took us to the galleries, where we toured galleries which were separated according to the artist. The first work of art that we observed was called "Eye of the Pyramid" by Libensky. This piece of artwork is simply two pieces of green glass positioned together so that it seems as if there is a pyramid carved into the center. This piece of artwork, as well as many others that we saw, are windows into the kinds of art that people of other cultures and time periods created. Viewing and exploring art allows students to think about the kinds of things that other cultures valued and thought were important to represent through their art. Cultural understanding is an integral part of any social studies curriculum.

We also observed several works of art that could be easily integrated into a math lesson. These types of pieces allow students to think mathematically.

Several galleries dedicated to individual artists revealed the types of art inherent to certain time periods as well as certain cultures. Our docent, Harriette Weinstein, was very helpful and told interesting stories about each piece of art that kept us enthralled and enabled us to understand the types of things we could teach our future students about these pieces.

We ended our trip by picking up several brochures on resources, site maps and membership applications, as well as visiting the museum gift shop. The museum gift shop features several small souveniers such as pencils, magnets, erasers and postcards as well as smaller versions of the pieces of art that we observed throughout the museum.