Skip to main content

Learning about the Constitution

Group 1 Inquiry!

Image result for constitution
On Thursday, February 12, Group 1 conducted their Inquiry lesson plan where the students followed a WebQuest. To begin the lesson, the teachers had the students log onto Google Classroom. This took much longer than they expected and it really took away from the lesson. At first, I thought it was taking so long because the students were doing a pre-assessment on there. However, after they finally logged on, the teachers had the students do a Kahoot! for a pre-assessment. The idea was good, but it didn't turn out so great in practice. The students, as you might expect, got too excited playing the game and I think it got the teachers a bit more frazzled after their technical difficulties. This lead to some chaos in the room. I must commend them on how they were able to recover and get the students to be so quiet while they were working on their independent practice. All of the students were practically silent and diligently working. The students seemed very interested in what they were learning about the constitution. I wish the students had the opportunity to collaborate with each other. I felt like 40 minutes of silence was much too long for fifth graders. Group 1 had mentioned at the end that they had planned for the student to have an opportunity to share what they found with each other, but they did not have enough time because of the set-up. Overall, I think the objective of the lesson was meet, which is the most important part. The students who presented their newspaper articles to the class had very intelligent and well-informed answers about the constitution. Congratulations on two lessons done Group 1.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Finishing Fieldwork Once Again

Yet again we have reached the end of a fieldwork cycle. This is always a bittersweet moment to reach. Our class of fifth graders was very intelligent and engaging to work with. I will miss them now that we are done, but I am proud of what we accomplished. Overall, I think my group's direct instruction was our best lesson. Our inquiry had a few "hick-ups" that could be improved with a little more practice and planning, especially when it comes to knowing where the students are going to move to their next station. Our cooperative learning lesson was a great experience as well. This was the first time I had taught a cooperative lesson. In class today we talked about what makes a cooperative lesson more than just group work. Group work is something that everyone has experienced in school at one point or another in their school career. Most people hear group project and they freat because people don't pull thier own weight and someone ends up doing it all. In a cooporative...

Discovering the New World of Social Studies Methods

Welcome to my new Social Studies blog! The new semester has started and here I am, the day after my first Social Studies Methods class, writing my first blog. I am going to make sure that post at least once a week this  semester so that my posts do pile up at the end. I have learned from my past experience to better my future. When you think about it, that is one of the core definitions of Social Studies, teaching the past to better the future. I say one of the core definitions because Social Studies is not just about the past and historical facts. It is also about human nature and the study of how people create societies and how societies interact. It is also about geography, cartography, mythology, philosophy, and many other elements that all return to the "social" or the people and how and why we are who we are. That is why I love Social Studies because the more you look back into history and take a minute to examine what the geography of different places is lik...

Giving Back to the Community!

Newburgh Ministry! On Friday, I volunteered at the Newburgh Ministry for MSMC's Project Jumpstart. I was a bit nervous about the area at first. I felt fairly uncomfortable getting out of my car and walking in there by myself. The next time I go, I am signed up to go with people from my group so I should feel a bit more comfortable. Aside from arriving, the rest of the night was a lot of fun. When I first got there, the kids were coloring and doing crossword puzzles. I sat down with the kids that were there and helped a little girl who was 4 years old color in one of the pages. Once everyone one arrived, Miss Veronica brought the kids over to do some yoga to get them ready for the night. I followed along with the yoga and it was fun. After that, each student got an iPad and was able to research different thing they could find in the ocean. The wifi wasn't working right so I help the kids sign onto the hotspot on my phone. I helped the little boy in the picture above find some ...