Before Social Studies and Science Method class I was unaware of artifact bags. In my school years, we never used anything similar to this mini lesson. With this being said I enjoyed constructing this activity because it had me thinking creatively. Before picking out the artifacts I had to decide which explorer I wanted to do it on. Naturally the first explorer that came to mind was Henry Hudson, but I figured everyone in my Early Explorers groups would do the same thing. At this moment I had to think outside the box and think of all the explorers we taught to the second grades. I decided to go with the Pilgrims because I figured I could get artifacts from my father. It was convenient that my father group up near Plymouth and it would be an easier artifact bag for me, but I thought wrong. Unfortunately, my father did not have anything saved from Plymouth and I was left on my own to think of artifacts. I was having a hard time thinking of different artifacts, but I did some research and found some interesting artifacts that I could implement in this lesson. The first artifact I decided to make was a Pilgrim hat. I made it small enough so it could fit in the bag that I supplied the students with. My second artifact was the Plymouth rock which was very tiny, but they can get the idea from the given date on the surface of the rock. My other two artifacts were a burnt map of travel route and needles. All these artifacts signify some importance to the Pilgrims, but it also makes the students think logically through the inquiry process. After the artifacts were placed in the bag, I decided to make the bag authentic. I found fishing net and wrapped it around the bag because the Pilgrims used to fish for food and it tied in well with lesson. According to Lesson Planet, "Your artifacts don't need to be amazing or complex; real historians can learn from even these simple things. Actually, simplicity usually draws out more critical thinking. I also put out an "ad" on Facebook, asking for authentic memorabilia from this era, promising it would be cared for and used to further the education of the next generation..."(Mollie Moore, page 1). All of the artifacts that I choose are simple, but it will get the students to think of all the explorers that were taught about in the direct lesson. Once I was completely finished with the artifacts; it was time to create a presentation on my explorer. Instead of using Google Presentation, I decided to use Symbaloo to display my artifacts and embed my presentation that had the task that the students had to solve. In this PowerPoint I included the 5 W's of Social Studies and make duplicates of that specific slide. This was for students to collaborate together when pulling out the different artifacts. The 5 W's is important to learn because this aspect can relate to any subject that is out there in society. I was reading on one article and the 5 W's can relate to journalism and I found one quote that mentions this term. According to Andy Tattersall, "Applying the 5 W's to your research might not work for every piece of research, but it is a useful idea worth exploring" (Impact on Social Sciences, page 1). What I got from this article was the importance of the 5 W's and how it can change the outcome of the situation. This tool should be implemented regardless of the subject that you are teaching. Anyways... After constructing my Symbaloo page it was now time to implement this mini-lesson plan to my fellow colleagues. During this time I was ecstatic to see everyone's artifact bags and I was also excited for them to see mine. I can definitely see the impact on what this might have on the students. We eventually separated into our groups and began to present our artifact bags. I decided to go first in my group and I began by displaying the Symbaloo page and asked my fellow colleagues to look at the background of this page. Displayed on the background was a ship and the signified the Pilgrims ship. I wanted to have them see the connection with the artifacts and the ship that was displayed. All of my fellow colleagues answered this questions and then we decided to move forward with the lesson. As soon as they were done looking at the background, I pulled up the presentation and began to talk about what my colleagues will be doing today. On the second slide, there was a task for each of them to complete by seeing what's in the artifact bag and filling out the slides with the 5 W's. This would help them decide what explorer is related to artifacts. Emily decided to pull out the first artifact which was the Pilgrim hat. Immediately everyone in my group realized it was a Pilgrim hat, but they were still unsure of the mystery explorer. The next artifact that was pulled out of the bag was a burnt map that displayed their travel. Kim and Emily began to discuss the burnt map and see the correlation between the hat and the map. Both of them immediately thought of Christopher Columbus, but they were all still unsure of their decision. The next artifact that was pulled out was was the Plymouth Rock. Sarah examined this rock carefully and noticed a date on the surface of the rock. She then read the date that was stated and Emily immediately knew it was the Plymouth Rock. This really got my fellow colleagues to think about this explorer. Last but not least the last artifact was a box of needles. Sarah, Kim, and Emily then brainstormed the different ideas based off of the 5 W's and the artifacts. Their final decision on their mystery explorer was The Pilgrims. They based all of their prior knowledge to answer the question that I gave them. Overall I think this lesson went really well and it made my fellow colleagues think critically. The artifacts weren't easy enough for them to guess on the first try. After they were done finding the mystery explorer, I provided them with a book that I choose. The book that I would be implementing within this lesson is, If You Were At, The First Thanksgiving by Anne Kamma. We didn't have time to read the book, but I did a picture walk with my group to show them the theme of this book. When applying this lesson with my students, I will read this book before the artifact bag. It will give them
an essence of the different artifacts that the Pilgrims used. When I picked out this book I wanted to relate it to a third to fourth grade level. The lexile of this book hits right in between these two grades. This experience was very insightful because it helped me learn how to implement teaching social studies in an engaging way. I am looking forward to using this artifact bag while student teaching. Until next time bloggers :)
Today in class we learned about engaging students in examining history. When I was in school history used to be my worst subject because I would have to remember dates. I have no recollection of teachers actually going into depth about the importance of history. To this day, history still remains my worst subject because of what it entails. Dr. Smirnova's PowerPoint, hit all the major aspects of becoming a more diverse history teacher. She depicted all of the misconceptions of this subject and the importance of teaching it as well. The first question that she asked was what are the powerful elements of teaching history. There are five key elements when discussing the importance of engaging the students. They are listed as followed:
Meaningful: "Engaging, connects students with real-world situations."
Integrative: "Draws on more than one discipline, subject or skill set."
Value-Based: "Strengthens students' sense of democratic values and social responsibility."
Challenging: "Incorporates different perspectives and draws on students' critical-thinking skills."
Active: "Participatory, makes use of manipulative or physical environment."
All of these 5 elements are important to include within a lesson plan. I am going to go more into depth about these 5 elements and really interpret what they include throughout each lesson. The fist element is meaningful. As described above, meaningful element should connect students to real-world situations. According to A Vision of Powerful Teaching, "Key concepts and themes are developed in depth. The most effective social studies teachers do not diffuse their efforts by covering too many topics superficially. .../Deep and thoughtful understanding is essential to prepare students for the issues of the 21 century citizenship" (p,1). This statement is basically saying that teachers should not teach too many topics. Teaching too many topics will not allow the students to convey a deeper understanding and thoughtful discussion. Instead the teacher should pick one topic to go into detail about. This will start off with a Direct Lesson and eventually make its way through until cooperative. Having the teacher distribute out a whole unit will allow the students more time to understand the material and grasp the concepts better. Which then leads into the integrative section. Integrative as mentioned above draws on more than one discipline, subject or skill set. An example of this would be drawing ideas from: economics, geography, history, political science, and sociology. All of these subjects can correlate with one another. One way to make these connections is to look at the past and present and see if the students can make any connections between the different aspects. This will get them to relate certain aspects and will deepen their content knowledge. The one item that is important in this section would be the use of technology. Technology is becoming more prominent in the classroom and the students are relying more on technology. To intertwine technology and integrative teaching would be an excellent idea. One way that teachers can do this is by using Web 2.0 tools for the students to collaborate and work together to solve a problem. Having the students read and write will help them "add important dimensions to students' learning" (A Vision of Powerful Teaching, p.1). The third important element that is mentioned is Value-based. As mentioned in Dr. Sminova's slide, Value-based instruction strengthens students' sense of democratic values and social responsibility. Through this section students are becoming aware of certain policies and help them think critically towards that specific subject. They do this by making decisions and making choices that are needed. According to A Vision of Powerful Teaching, "Students learn this value through discussions, debates, the use of authentic documents, simulations, research, and other occasions for critical thinking and decision making, students learn to apply value-based reasoning when addressing problems and issues." It is important to have this value-based instructions because it allows each student to speak his/her opinions on the given subject. Also it helps them realize that they need to be open-minded and use research to back up their answers. This form of debate helps students realize all of these important factors. Debating is not the only way to reach the value-based instructions. There are multiple ways to guide students through this specific section. Second to last element is challenging your students. Challenging your students allows them to think more critically and reaches a higher point on the Bruner's scale of learning. This section can actually be seen through the inquiry process. During this inquiry process, students are being asked to research a specific topic or given an experiment to complete. Through this the teacher is challenging his/her students to come up with an answer to the problem. They are either doing this research or experiment by themselves or within a group. The teacher is just there for the students if they have any further questions, but the teacher is not allowed to help through this section. Students are discovering new facts and vocabulary and they are challenging themselves to think critically. This helps each student grow with their cognitive ability. The last and final step is active. Active is the last step because this is where the students are putting the aspects that they learned together. Students are working individually and collaboratively during this point to implement what they learned from the previous sections. They do this by explanation and modeling for the whole class. All of these attributes can be seen through a cooperative lesson plan. In a cooperative lesson, the students gathering their ideas to eventually share with the classroom. This helps the students implement their findings and makes them state the important facts on what they learned. Having an active part through this section is also important because it develops students' social skills. All of these elements are important to include within your lessons because it helps students realize a deeper understanding of history. If these elements were included while I was in school I would've been more engaged in the different topics. As a teacher it is important to include these topics and reach all of your students needs. Until next time bloggers :)
The 5 E's are vital in a lesson plan and in a classroom. Teachers should be aware of these 5 aspects when implementing an inquiry lesson. Let me first start off with talking about what is consisted of the 5 E's. According to Enhancing Education, "The 5 E's is an instructional model based on the constructivist approach to learning, which says that learners build or construct new ideas on top of their old ideas." When students are exploring through the 5 E's they are tapping in on their prior knowledge and using that as a "crutch" to the lesson. Wait, but what are the 5 E's? Well I'll tell you, the 5 E's include: Engage, Explore, Explain, Elaborate, and Evaluate. These 5 attributes should be included in your inquiry lesson to help the students build their knowledge. Another attribute that the 5 E's helps are cognitive skills. When going through each E, it helps the students develop a higher order of thinking according to the Bloom's Taxonomy Pyramid. All of these E's have a different aspect, but they all come together at the end. Breaking down each E is the best way to explain these different aspects. The first E that I will begin with is the Engage. Engage section should always be the first E when implementing a lesson. This helps you make connections between what the students learned before and what they are learning now. The engage portion also introduces the problem or aspect that needs to be solved. An example of this was our group introducing the Web quest to our second graders. We gave the students a problem to solve and this helped us/them begin their lesson. Through this portion the students should be asked a question and this should get them to start thinking about the possible answers. This is where students "Become mentally engaged in the concept, processes, and skills" (Enhancing Education, 1). Also this section is important to bring in students prior knowledge on the subject, either by bringing up questions that were asked in the direct lesson or what the students should already know. After introducing all of these aspects it's time to move onto the second part of the 5 E's. Which brings us to Exploring! This section is for students to develop among themselves. Whether this is making the discoveries in a group or working alone. During this E, students are identifying and developing concepts. They do this by researching the subject and/or experimenting with the different ideas that they previously learned. The students are now taking the question that was posed in the Engage section and using that question to make new discoveries. Relating back to our fieldwork experience, students were asked to do research on their mystery explorers and they had to go through the inquiry process to complete this assignment. They had to read the first article that was supplied and make a hypothesis based on it. Through this students were asked to read through other research articles and find out more information on their mystery explorer. During this section, the students were exploring new pieces of information based on their "mystery explorers." The exploring section should be done by the students and ONLY by the students. Teachers should be there to support and observe the students learning during this section. The next E that follow Exploring is Explain. This portion should only be done when the students have completed the Exploring portion. If students are not done with that portion this will be difficult for them to complete. Through this section, students are asked to explain their findings to the whole class or a small group. Having the students explain their findings helps them review on what they learned and might even introduce new key terms. Through the students verbalizing their findings they are also creating social skills. This section is pretty self explanatory and I think is the easiest section for the students to complete. To the right of this blog is a video that goes into depth about the 5 E's. It breaks down all the concepts in a simple language and helps people understand the importance of including these different attributes. The second to last E is Elaborate. This section goes more into depth about the given topic that the students just researched. During this section, the students "Expand on the concepts they have learned, make connections to other related concepts, and apply their understandings to the world around them in new ways" (NASA, 1). Through this process the students are building more knowledge on what they discovered and implementing them through this process. An example of this would be having the students write a letter to their mystery explorers. We did not have time to incorporate this in our lesson, but we included it in our lesson plan. Having the students write a letter helps them use the terms and attributes they learned in the previous section. You can see that each step relies on one another in order to complete the 5 E's. Final Step: Evaluate! Last but not least is the evaluate section which is crucial in this learning method. According to Enhancing Education, "Evaluate is the phase that encourages learners to assess their understanding and abilities and let teachers evaluate students' understanding of key concepts and skill development" (p. 1). The last section allows the students to tie up everything they discovered and present their findings either to class or small groups. This coincides with the Explain section. Through this the students are asked to use academic language they learned and key details. If there are any confusion with any topics that the students researched this would be the time to clarify any loose ends. Learning more about the 5 E's definitely helps me see the importance of this aspect. Without these E's our lessons would not be engaging for the students. The whole point of teaching is to help the students learn through an engaging and helpful way. When writing this blog, I came up with a bunch of ideas to use the 5 E's of learning through a Social Studies lens. I'm hoping that I can implement these ideas when I student teach. Until next time bloggers :) Works Cited
Dunbar, B. (2012). 5Es Overview: "The 5E instructional model" Retrieved April 12, 2016, from http://www.nasa.gov/audience/foreducators/nasaeclips/5eteachingmodels/
The 5 E's. (n.d.). Retrieved April 12, 2016, from http://enhancinged.wgbh.org/research/eeeee.html
This activity was completed in the classroom and we were asked to do some research on a specific tribe. On Tuesday, we got split up into our master groups to begin our PowerPoint lesson. The activity that we did was through the Jigsaw method again. I'm actually beginning to like this method because it helps you work with different people each time. It also allows you to learn new ways of teaching because everyone has a different teaching style. Before starting out presentation, everyone gathered the information that was needed to complete this task. Melissa shared the Google Doc that we were all working within and we started to answer the questions based on the sheet. We were mostly hyperlinking certain websites and jotting down a few notes because we were running out of time to complete this assignment. While everyone was researching it was my job to start the PowerPoint and copy some of the important ideas over. When I was copying the information over it helped me go more into depth about this specific tribe. It's amazing to see that there tribes still alive around this area and I found all the facts and information intriguing. Copying the information really hit the lowest level of Bloom's Taxonomy. I was rereading all of the information that we found and remembering the facts and key details. Personally I don't think I ever moved passed the first level of Bloom's because in this presentation we were asked to research these questions and present our findings. When we were looking for pieces of information we were still considered to be on the first level. There was no activity that was involved through this project to help us apply our knowledge any further. After I was done inputting the information, I decided to take a step forward and use a different presenting tool other than Google Docs. One tool that came to mind with presenting information was Symbaloo. I have previous experience in using this Web 2.0 tool and I enjoy working with it. Inside this tool you can add: websites, videos, any social media, pictures, and much more attributes. Before designing this Symbaloo for this project, I first had to look at our PowerPoint presentation and base off of that. I decided to start off with the resources we used in our Google Presentation. In the top left corner I added tiles that ran through all the links we used and more links that I added to the one's we picked out. I made sure they all had the text labeled Resources and the same background color. One way I like to organize my Symbaloo is making sure everything matches with the other desired panels. My
next panel I decided to create were the videos. I used the one video that we included in the Google Presentation and added two more videos that discussed about this specific tribe in more depth. All the videos are located on the bottom right and are embedded into Symbaloo. The rest of the panels have pictures of this tribe and I also added in the Presentation we all created. Symbaloo is an excellent tool to implement within a lesson plan. All the materials and resources can be put right on that exact page. It helps keep everything organized and teachers can use it to store different resources and many other things. I would recommend using this tool in a higher education setting because it can get very complex for students. With my group they had a lot of questions on how to use it and they asked if it was an easy tool to manipulate. Personally this tool is very easy to master, but it takes time and practice in order to become experts. Attached to this blog is a video on how to create a Symbaloo and how to use the basic tools that are supplied within it. I hope everyone experiences this amazing tool and can implement it within their classrooms one day. Also below this blog I will hyperlink the Symbaloo I created for this Jigsaw Activity. Getting back to the Tlingit Tribe it was important to master the content before we went off into our base groups to teach them about this specific tribe. So at this point of time it was our job to make sure our group applied the knowledge we just learned. We jumped up a few levels on the Bloom's Taxonomy Pyramid and we are beginning to understand what is asked of us. Watching the other expert groups present it was important to listen and record down any important facts that they just mentioned. After all the people presented in my base group it was now time to recall the information that was just taught to us. It was time to conduct a SCAVENGER HUNT and the first group to answer all the questions right was the winner. Our base group put our "game faces on" and we were ready to win this competition. We all decided to assign each other roles during this sections because we thought it would be easier to conduct. Emily was in charge of scanning the QR codes, Bryanna was in charge of writing down the questions and I was in charge of writing down the answers. Once they both got through all the codes they began helping me answer each question. Sadly our group came in third place, but I learned a lot of information during this section which helped me memorize the different pieces about each tribe. Overall this Jigsaw activity was yet again another hit for us. I am looking forward on implementing this technique in my future classroom. Until next time bloggers :)
This past week and the week before Spring Break we learned about the Jigsaw method. I had an idea of what the Jigsaw method could be, but I wasn't completely 100% sure. We were required to read a little more on this method and really break it down into pieces on what this method was about. According toReading Rockets, "Jigsaw is a cooperative learning strategy that enables each student of a "home" group to specialize in one aspect of a topic (for example, one group studies habitats of rain forest animals, another group studies predators of
rain forest animals)." In order to successfully do this students must meet up with their groups and collaborate with whatever material that they are supplied with. This is a great way to have students interact and help them with social skills that are needed to succeed. We had this opportunity to discover how this Jigsaw method worked in our own classroom. Dr. Smirnova introduced this method to us and wanted us to complete it altogether. The first step in this lesson was to get with our fellow colleagues that were sitting next to us at the time. Second step was to discuss in our group who wanted to do which components of the cooperative lesson. We all decided on what we wanted to be because that was going to be our expert group. At this time I was confused on what was going to happen next because I was still unsure of how this was all going to work out. After we picked our expert groups we then had to meet up with the same people in our expert groups. Finally we were altogether and that's when I realized the different components on what makes up a Jigsaw method. I like to think of it as putting the pieces back together. Once we were in our expert group we collaborated on the topic that was handed to us which was Positive Interdependence. This was the first aspect that is included in the 5 PIGS. As soon as we met up in the group "we got down to business." Our group started looking up different articles and highlighting important words to add in the PowerPoint. While they were looking up information I was beginning to started the PowerPoint and the Socrative game. I thought Socrative would be an engaging game for the students because it was a new tool that was introduced to them. The point of this Jigsaw method was to work together to complete a task with your expert groups. Once completing the task it was now time to come back together and have each expert group explain their findings with all of the class. At this time we are learning while the experts are deepening their understanding of the material. Each group had a different twist on the way they presented their material. Some groups used videos to convey their messages while others used lecturing to teach their lesson. The one thing I noticed from everyone was the use of academic language and eye contact. I can see that everyone is growing and going to become excellent teachers one day. Personally I started to feel more confident and comfortable with speaking in front of the classroom. It's amazing what practice can do. Listed below is my groups Jigsaw PowerPoint. Feel free to access it whenever you want. Also towards the end of the PowerPoint there is the Socrative game that you can access, from there you can set up an account. I highly recommend using this website in a classroom setting. This is a great way to assess students knowledge and make it into a competition. I hope you sign up and use this amazing tool in your classroom. Until next time bloggers :)
Before Social Studies and Science Method class I was unaware of artifact bags. In my school years, we never used anything similar to this mini lesson. With this being said I enjoyed constructing this activity because it had me thinking creatively. Before picking out the artifacts I had to decide which explorer I wanted to do it on. Naturally the first explorer that came to mind was Henry Hudson, but I figured everyone in my Early Explorers groups would do the same thing. At this moment I had to think outside the box and think of all the explorers we taught to the second grades. I decided to go with the Pilgrims because I figured I could get artifacts from my father. It was convenient that my father group up near Plymouth and it would be an easier artifact bag for me, but I thought wrong. Unfortunately, my father did not have anything saved from Plymouth and I was left on my own to think of artifacts. I was having a hard time thinking of different artifacts, but I did some research and found some interesting artifacts that I could implement in this lesson. The first artifact I decided to make was a Pilgrim hat. I made it small enough so it could fit in the bag that I supplied the students with. My second artifact was the Plymouth rock which was very tiny, but they can get the idea from the given date on the surface of the rock. My other two artifacts were a burnt map of travel route and needles. All these artifacts signify some importance to the Pilgrims, but it also makes the students think logically through the inquiry process. After the artifacts were placed in the bag, I decided to make the bag authentic. I found fishing net and wrapped it around the bag because the Pilgrims used to fish for food and it tied in well with lesson. According to Lesson Planet, "Your artifacts don't need to be amazing or complex; real historians can learn from even these simple things. Actually, simplicity usually draws out more critical thinking. I also put out an "ad" on Facebook, asking for authentic memorabilia from this era, promising it would be cared for and used to further the education of the next generation..."(Mollie Moore, page 1). All of the artifacts that I choose are simple, but it will get the students to think of all the explorers that were taught about in the direct lesson. Once I was completely finished with the artifacts; it was time to create a presentation on my explorer. Instead of using Google Presentation, I decided to use Symbaloo to display my artifacts and embed my presentation that had the task that the students had to solve. In this PowerPoint I included the 5 W's of Social Studies and make duplicates of that specific slide. This was for students to collaborate together when pulling out the different artifacts. The 5 W's is important to learn because this aspect can relate to any subject that is out there in society. I was reading on one article and the 5 W's can relate to journalism and I found one quote that mentions this term. According to Andy Tattersall, "Applying the 5 W's to your research might not work for every piece of research, but it is a useful idea worth exploring" (Impact on Social Sciences, page 1). What I got from this article was the importance of the 5 W's and how it can change the outcome of the situation. This tool should be implemented regardless of the subject that you are teaching. Anyways... After constructing my Symbaloo page it was now time to implement this mini-lesson plan to my fellow colleagues. During this time I was ecstatic to see everyone's artifact bags and I was also excited for them to see mine. I can definitely see the impact on what this might have on the students. We eventually separated into our groups and began to present our artifact bags. I decided to go first in my group and I began by displaying the Symbaloo page and asked my fellow colleagues to look at the background of this page. Displayed on the background was a ship and the signified the Pilgrims ship. I wanted to have them see the connection with the artifacts and the ship that was displayed. All of my fellow colleagues answered this questions and then we decided to move forward with the lesson. As soon as they were done looking at the background, I pulled up the presentation and began to talk about what my colleagues will be doing today. On the second slide, there was a task for each of them to complete by seeing what's in the artifact bag and filling out the slides with the 5 W's. This would help them decide what explorer is related to artifacts. Emily decided to pull out the first artifact which was the Pilgrim hat. Immediately everyone in my group realized it was a Pilgrim hat, but they were still unsure of the mystery explorer. The next artifact that was pulled out of the bag was a burnt map that displayed their travel. Kim and Emily began to discuss the burnt map and see the correlation between the hat and the map. Both of them immediately thought of Christopher Columbus, but they were all still unsure of their decision. The next artifact that was pulled out was was the Plymouth Rock. Sarah examined this rock carefully and noticed a date on the surface of the rock. She then read the date that was stated and Emily immediately knew it was the Plymouth Rock. This really got my fellow colleagues to think about this explorer. Last but not least the last artifact was a box of needles. Sarah, Kim, and Emily then brainstormed the different ideas based off of the 5 W's and the artifacts. Their final decision on their mystery explorer was The Pilgrims. They based all of their prior knowledge to answer the question that I gave them. Overall I think this lesson went really well and it made my fellow colleagues think critically. The artifacts weren't easy enough for them to guess on the first try. After they were done finding the mystery explorer, I provided them with a book that I choose. The book that I would be implementing within this lesson is, If You Were At, The First Thanksgiving by Anne Kamma. We didn't have time to read the book, but I did a picture walk with my group to show them the theme of this book. When applying this lesson with my students, I will read this book before the artifact bag. It will give them 
