Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Promising Practices
On the first day of class, we talked about 15 "promising practices" for teaching social studies. They're described in some detail in the first document of your course pack. Are you seeing some of these teaching practices enacted by your mentor teacher (or by you, if you've taught a social studies lesson)? If so, can you share what you've seen? What are some examples of good social studies teaching that you see happening in your classroom?
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I have seen a few of these practices implemented in my phase one classroom. First off, I was in a fifth grade classroom and they were spending a great deal of time on Native Americans. The first point, active learning, was used very often in the class. My teacher would have the students do Native American crafts, contruct homes for the different regions, and research different areas. She told me she tries to cover all the intelligences within this unit. I feel by doing this, a lot of the students have a better understanding of the information. My cooperating teacher also incorported number 13, peak experiences. At the end of the unit, she is taking the students to a Native American museum. It is a way for the students to apply what they learned and finish the unit. My teacher also used a couple other practices in her classroom. She implented number 2, 5, and 10. The students took a great deal of time to cover one topic, Native Americans. They also used a variety of sources. My teacher allowed them to use the textbook, a variety of library books and the internet. The students could also use any other resources they came across while looking up information.
After reviewing the fifteen promising practices, I have realized that my mentor teachers have not covered or used many of them. I don’t know if they have implemented them when I was not there or if they are planning to in future lessons. I really hope that this is the case because I think that these practices are very beneficial to the students and their learning.
My current cooperating teacher has made a curriculum that creates “a window and a mirror” for the second graders. Their social studies unit is on family and culture. There are many stories and diaries in the book about different families and their culture. After reading about them she asked her students to learn about their culture and create a family tree. This is an easy way to help the student connect and understand material in greater depth.
Overall, I have seen a lot of textbook teaching and worksheets. I don’t think that this is benefiting the students because I feel like it is promoting memorization and not learning to learn or to want to know.
There are many practices and it there may not be enough time to utilize and incorporate all of them into every social studies unit. Personally, I find them very helpful and I plan on trying my best to use them. I think that they help the students want to learn and have interests in different areas and units of social studies.
So far I have seen a few of the practices used in my classroom. Mainly my teacher uses the first one where students are doing social studies. She also uses student choice and alternate resources to teach material. For the first unit of study we focused on ancient civilizations. The students were able to choose which civilization they wanted to research, and then the students were able to take notes on and create their own poster board about a civilization. They were then responsible for teaching the class about their civilization. While others were presenting the students were to write down three facts that interested them about the civilization. She also had them create a small Illinois book and answer questions in a group based on the book. She also seeks out other resources. For Illinois we use the Weird Illinois book to make it more interesting and relevant to what we are learning about. Students will also be able to learn outside of the classroom when they go to Napersettlement, which is a reenactment of colonial life. They get to get an introduction to colonial life before we start. This enables them to use some prior knowledge when talking about it later. Overall I have seen some practices, but there could be more. We have mainly been looking at social studies as just history.
I'm currently in a 5th grade classroom that is able to include social studies and science into their curriculum. This is unlike my last class, which had to focus its attention on reading, writing, and math. This past Tuesday the entire 4th and 5th grades went on a field trip to the Field Museum. As a chaperone, I was instructed to take my group of students to the Ancient Americas exhibit since the students were going to start a unit on the ancient civilizations of the Aztecs, Incans, and Mayans. This was more of a "interest experience" that was supposed to get the students excited for and initially introduce upcoming material. So, even though this is the opposite of a "peak experience" that is supposed to culminate the material, I thought it was important to mention. Additionally, this is taking students' learning outside the classroom. The teacher wanted the chaperones to make connections to the material they will be encoutering. Furthermore, I already talked with my teacher about my social studies lesson that I'm going to implement. We've decided I'm going to read a picture book to the class on the Aztec capital city of Tenochtitlan and do an activity to follow it up. With this, I'm going to reinforce the information that we learned at the Field Museum. I'm really looking forward to being a part of increasing their knowledge.
I did not notice any of the practices in my first classroom, as they had not started social studies yet. However, in my second phase, they get social studies 3 times a week.
The kids began this unit by reading the book, choosing different Native American tribes, and then further researching in groups. They finished all of this by making posters that were going to be hung up around the room. I thought that this could fit in with the first practice for students to "do" social studies.
This is the only practice that I have noticed being used. There is a lot of reading from the book, usually in small groups and then a short class discussion. They also receive a lot of worksheets that they fill out after reading. I think it is really sad that this is the only idea the students are getting of social studies. If she implemented some of these practices, I think a lot of the students who don't do well in social studies would thrive.
In class yesterday, my table was discussing all the promising practices we are learning and all the articles that demostrate exceptional teachers at work (specifically, Mary Cowhey and Bob Peterson). With all the amazing ways to teach that we are being exposed to, our question was, why would anyone choose not to teach with the promising practices in mind? Are we the only ones being exposed to these articles and resources? As PDS interns, teaching our students to critically examine social studies is becoming "the norm" in terms of how we approach planning. I know that I find myself hearing new strategies from Greg, or reading articles such as, "Teaching History So Children Will Care," and getting excited to try out ideas. Why don't we see these practices being carried out in classrooms very often? We decided that it couldn't be laziness, because there are definitely great teachers (who are NOT lazy by any means) who still don't practice the kind of social studies we are examining. What are other aspiring teachers getting in their methods courses?? What's the cause of the disconnect between our promising practices, and currect classroom practices??
I sit at Jamie's table and was part of that conversation. It was a really interesting topic to think about and discuss. One response that I had to this was that some of the school districts we will be going into may not be accepting of these new methods and ideas that we have been learning. It is really hard to try a new idea when the rest of the district may not believe or feel the same way. A lot of times it is said that older teachers are stuck in their ways and do not want to change. This is one problem that we may encounter. Another statement that is often said is that the first few years of teaching is so difficult that going to what is easy is what some teachers may do. These teachers may then fall into this pattern for years to come and won't change. I think that with the unique experience we are having as interns in PDS pretty much gives us a year of teaching under our belts and will allow us to implement the methods we learn. It may be a challenge depending on where we are teaching, but in the best interest of our students we should take that challenge and try to make a different where we teach. Maybe if we can start it, other teachers will catch on and it can spread. I know that some schools and districts may want to avoid controversy but we are being taught the complete opposite and should take what we are being taught to the next level by doing it.
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