Final Blog Post

"My Infinite Journey to Learning"

Final Blog Post Reflection By: Meaghan Brenna Foley

December 11, 2014

          My learning experience in ED 3120 has definitely been a challenging one, that's for sure! However, I am so grateful for those experiences that always kept me thinking. Dr. Smirnova has taught me that there is a vast amount of technological resources that one can utilize in the classroom. This course was mainly technology-based; therefore, I learned to adapt to that type of learning style. It was strange at first, but now I think it somewhat reliable. After completing this course, I can honestly say that I love to blog! Blogging is all about personal expression and opinion. It has helped me reflect upon my course assignments, experiences, and blogs created by my peers. 

          There are many learning outcomes that have resulted from the numerous projects, blog posts, and fieldwork lesson plans/reflections. For starters, I have become a more proficient writer. I have also learned to stay on task and not falling behind on assignments. My busy workload has taught me be consistent and space out my work. I have also come to the realization that quality is way more important than quantity. It doesn't matter how long an assignment is…it's the content that truly matters. I am different today than i was in the beginning of the semester because I have a newfound knowledge base of SS methods material. For example, I can easily identify the 5 PIGS elements of cooperative learning (i.e., Positive Interdependence, Individual Accountability, Group Processing, Social Skills, and Face-to-Face Interaction). I am also now more aware of the technological resources that are available for both classroom and personal use. 

          My plans for teaching social studies include incorporating the 5 elements of powerful teaching and learning. I will only teach necessary content in a meaningful manner. I will integrate technology into my lessons. Each of my lesson plans and activities will be value-based. I will motivate my students to become active learners. Lastly, I will always challenge my students to reach their best potential! In the future, I would like to create a hybrid direct instruction and collaborative-based social studies classroom. I think students learn about historical facts mainly through basic introduction, repetition, and memorization. However, I also believe social studies learning should support the idea of cooperative learning. Cooperative learning projects will provide the students will a well-rounded learning experience. Students offer a differing of opinions. Therefore, I stress the incorporation of CL projects (i.e., artifact bags) in a social studies classroom. I can't wait to see what the future has in store for me! I am confident that only the best is yet to come!

Last Day of Class

MY LAST DAY - MY NEW BEGINNING

           This past Monday, December 8th, was my last day of class in my Fall semester Social Studies Methods course with Dr. Ludmilla Smirnova. I can honestly say that I am very proud of my efforts in this class! I worked very hard and all of that hard work has clearly paid off! During class on Monday, my classmates and I presented our e-Folio projects and enjoyed a nice snack. After our e-Folio presentations, I now understand that each of us has taken a unique path, or approach, towards our individual projects. Our unique approaches consisted of mainly creative differences (i.e., font color, text, images, catchy titles, etc…). Now, as the semester is in the homestretch…I'm giving it my all! Good luck to everyone! I wish you all the best in your future learning endeavors. Stay tuned for my final blog post!

Last Day Goodies! 

Thank you to the classmate who gave me a certificate of accomplishment! 

Fieldwork Experience Reflection

Fieldwork: "When Your Life Enters the Classroom Arena"

          My fieldwork experience this semester has certainly opened my eyes and mind to new knowledge. Personal lesson planning is such a vital aspect of fieldwork. I was paired with two of my college peers to work collaboratively on 3 main types of lesson plans (i.e., direct instruction, inquiry, and cooperative learning). As a result of my teaching collaboration, I have learned to always have a backup plan. I understand that each person has a different learning style. However, a good group communicates well and always includes equal contribution towards the workload. I often felt that my group did not appreciate my efforts and there was lack of cooperation. As a hardworking student and teacher candidate, I was disappointed. My greatest contributions were included in my group's first lesson, which was direct instruction. I learned a great deal from my first day of teaching. For starters, I learned that it is okay to be nervous! When you are nervous, you are kept on your toes! I had a wonderful time teaching my students. Their lively inquisitive nature was very encouraging and made me feel right at home. I love to mold the minds of children and introduce them to new ideas and topics.

          My insights on my peers' teaching can be summed up as ineffective and uncooperative. Although one of my group members did a good job teaching in the classroom, he would often wait until the last minute to make his contributions to the written lesson plan. My other group member did little to no work and would not cooperate with the rest of the group. As a result of my peers' lack of cooperative effort, I learned to become more independent. I did the majority of the research and assignments all on my own throughout the course of the semester. I have no regrets and can proudly say that I did my personal best! Next time, I hope I am paired with other students who understand the importance of teamwork.  

          After teaching in 3 different styles, or lesson plan formats, I have come up with my own personal definitions of direct, inquiry, and cooperative learning. 

          Direct instruction is mainly teacher-centered. The teacher introduces the new topic and assesses student understanding through diagnostic, formative, and summative assessments. In my opinion, the development and guided practice are the 2 most important elements of any direct instruction lesson plan. The development introduces the new topic with specific details and the guided practice allows the student to apply their newfound knowledge (with teacher support). 

The video above teaches one about the correct way "to do" direct instruction.

          Inquiry-based learning is all about posing a question, or problem, to the students and having them try to solve it. Inquiry learning activates prior knowledge of previously learned material. The students work collaboratively to think critically and come up with a solution to the problem, or task, at hand. In my opinion, inquiry-based learning is the most complex out of the 3 main types of lesson plans.

          Finally, cooperative learning is all about teamwork. Group-based learning supports the cooperative learning elements known as PIGS (i.e., Positive Interdependence, Individual Accountability, Group Processing, and Social Skills). Students are faced with a main task and are then assigned specific roles. The students become responsible for their both their individual and group efforts. In my opinion, cooperative learning is wonderful because it teaches students how to get along with and work with one another in a neutral setting (i.e., the classroom). 

Cooperative Learning Lesson Reflection

Cooperative Learning: The Unique Pieces of the Puzzle

Lesson Plan Date: 11/17/14

Lesson Plan Reflection By: Meaghan Brenna Foley

           My partners and I devised a project that would fit the shortened time period of 15-20 minutes. The students' task was to become "a factory" and create a poster advertisement for their assigned product. This cooperative learning activity absolutely supported the elements of cooperative learning known as PIGS (Positive Interdependence, Individual Accountability, Group Processing, and Social Skills). The students each had unique ideas and had to work together towards the common goal (i.e., the group poster). I noticed that some of the students became upset when they didn't get the role they wanted. For this reason, I think that assigning roles in cooperative learning should be mainly for older students (i.e., Grade 3+). However, individual accountability should still be upheld and supported in the classroom. As I monitored the students and walked around the classroom, I made sure every student was working on some aspect of the group poster. My partners and I assigned some students to be the ones who drew and others the ones who wrote the text on the poster. Despite their specific assigned roles, I believe that each student should be allowed to contribute what he or she may like. All students and teachers have different, or unique, perspectives on learning. Projects like the creation of the factory poster advertisement help students develop social skills and learn how to cooperate with each other. 

Inquiry Lesson Reflection

Inquiry: A Divergent Path Towards Learning

Lesson Plan Date: 11/12/14
Lesson Plan Reflection By: Meaghan Brenna Foley

           My group's inquiry lesson plan proved to be quite a learning experience. Since we were only allotted half the time period (i.e., 15-20 minutes), it was very challenging to implement a 45-50 minute lesson. Although faced with a number of obstacles, I think my group did very well. I reviewed the students' prior knowledge of the factory terminology learned in direct instruction lesson. I made sure to assess each student's understanding by going from table to table. I learned to assess students' comprehension by telling them to put their thumbs up if they agree. In addition, I asked the students to put their thumbs down if they disagreed with something. During the introduction, I also provided the opportunity for the students to share something they remembered from the last class. This was an open-ended question; therefore, there was no one area in which the students had to direct their focus. My partner, Nick, asked the students to share their thoughts on what a problem was, while I wrote their responses on the board. This set the stage for the foundation of our lesson, which incorporated an element of technology (i.e. a Voki). Voki is a special tool that allows one to type, or record, text and have it read aloud by an animated character figure. The problem for our lesson was about helping Tommy the Truck Driver with his route from the factory to the store. Once again, my group and I were prepared with a typed up document containing the message from Tommy the Truck Driver. As mentioned earlier, backup plans are critical in all matters related to teaching!

          The students' task for inquiry was to recall their knowledge of the factory terminology and work together to draw routes on a map from the factory to the store. My group members and I believed that this was the most age-appropriate task to give to the students. After discussing the lesson with Dr. Smirnova, I understood that multiple choice questions should not be included in an inquiry lesson's independent practice. Therefore, I modified my lesson to include an independent practice where the students be provided with an interview task. Given an interview worksheet, I came up with the idea to have each student interview one of his or her parents. The student would have to ask his or her parent five brief questions about factories and record the answers on the lines provided. An interview activity is the perfect form of inquiry because it engages the students, requires them to recall prior knowledge, and has them question their reasoning skills. As the teacher, I evaluated the students' skills through their recollection of the factory symbols (i.e., gestures) taught during direct instruction. The whole purpose of inquiry is for the teacher to reflect upon the 5 E's of inquiry. The questions my group came up with were: 

• Was the issue at hand challenging enough for each student? YES
• Were my students engaged? YES
• Were the materials given (Voki, worksheets, map activity) effective for students to understand and come up with logical solutions / correct answers to the questions being asked? YES

  These reflection questions were indeed met because the students conversed with each other about the correct starting location and ending location on their group maps. After their presentations, I could tell that they accurately recalled their knowledge of factories, producers, consumers, and goods. Yes, the activity was engaging because the students were interested in the Voki and actively participated in drawing their routes on the maps.

Direct Instruction Lesson Reflection

Direct Instruction: Repetition, Repetition, Repetition! 

Date: November 5, 2014

Lesson Plan Reflection By: Meaghan Brenna Foley

           On my first day of teaching, I taught direct instruction with my two partners, Nick and Gina. My partner, Nick, began with the introduction. He activated the students' prior knowledge of factories and set the stage for the development. He introduced two videos of factories to give the students a visual representation of what a factory looks like. The first video was about a crayon factory. The second video was about an ice cream factory. In my opinion, the students' benefited from being presented with these two videos about factories. Following the videos, Nick asked the students about what they saw in the videos (i.e., what goods were being made, who were making the goods, etc…). These questions helped the students make assumptions about the producers and goods within a factory. The students also were given the opportunity to make text-to-text connections when asked about "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory." The students displayed a solid understanding of factories by replying that chocolate was the good being produced in the factory.

            It was my job to take charge of the development phase of direct instruction. I taught the students about the basic factory terminology. I began by telling the students that a factory is a building where people produce goods. To help develop their memorization skills, I immediately followed up with a symbol for a factory. I told the students to watch me and repeat the following gesture (i.e., hands on your head). For producers, the students had to put their hands together. For goods, the students had to rub their tummy. For consumers, the students had to put their palms up. I think my incorporation of symbols definitely contributed to the students' overall success during independent practice. I believe that my modeling of the symbols helped actively engage the students in powerful social studies learning.  I utilized a PowerPoint presentation with visual images to coincide with the symbols taught to the students. One thing I found to be difficult for the students was when I taught them about the factory process of making cotton. I think I could have modified, or eliminated, that part to better fit the students' grade level. I overestimated their capabilities and realize that I should have mainly focused on repeating the four main factory terms (i.e.,  factory, producer, goods, and consumer). After my first day of teaching, I can now proudly say that I firmly understand that repetition is key! This is especially true during the development phase of a direct instruction lesson plan.

           During guided practice, my partners and I intended to utilize the Smart Board games of Vortex and Tic Tac Toe. However, the technology did not cooperate and was malfunctioning. It was a good thing then that we had a backup plan. With the help of our college classmates, we had the students play the vortex game manually. Their task was to put the correct term in either the consumer vortex or the producer vortex. If they put the term in the incorrect vortex, it would "spit it out." The students responded well to this activity and everything went smoothly into the next activity. For the tic tac toe activity, we split the class in half (boys versus girls). After a flip of a coin, it was decided that the girls would go first. I drew the graphic and its elements on the whiteboard. Nick asked the students questions about producers and consumers. The first group to get three in a row (i.e., the girls) won. After Gina led the class in a brief review of the factory terminology, I introduced the students to third guided practice activity. The students had to label the five steps of the cotton cycle process, introduced during the development. Although some students could recall this knowledge, others had some difficulty with this task. It is for that reason that I believe this activity was once again too complex for the second graders. In the future, I would eliminate this third activity. This would have saved time for additional review of the basic factory terminology.

           Due to limited time, my partners and I engaged the students in a brief review of the elements of a factory during the closure part of the lesson.  I learned that students learn best when they receive positive reinforcement, so I made sure to congratulate the students by saying, "good job, boys and girls!" Even when they guessed incorrectly, the teacher should always make sure to motivate their students' to keep trying their best. Our independent practice went well. The students were told to write 1-2 brief sentences for each factory term (i.e., factory, producer, goods, consumer, and factory process). I found that the students had no trouble with terms 1-4. However, some of the students had trouble recalling the steps of the factory process. Next time, I would make this worksheet either multiple choice or fill in the blank with a word bank. In my opinion, younger students need less complex tasks when introduced with a new topic (i.e., direct instruction).

Current Events Reflection

The Key to Current Events

Reflection By: Meaghan Brenna Foley

December 5, 2014

      Current events are something that I believe to be of much importance. Social studies teaching and learning supports the 5 elements of powerful learning. Earlier this semester, I became immersed in the subject of current events. In my opinion, current events are those considered to be "what's going on in the world around you" (socialstudiesforkids.com). These events may include local, national, and global matters. Social studies is a primary area of study that teachers must place special emphasis upon in the classroom. My current events project this semester was on the 5 W's (i.e., Who? What? Where? When? Why?). I worked on this project with my classmate, Joanne Nikci. Joanne and I taught our college peers about the 5 W's through the popular current events site, Newsela. We chose two popular news articles for the students to read. Modeling is an important strategy when introducing a new subject. Therefore, we modeled identifying the 5 W's by showing the students an example chart (1st article). According to Sunal and Haas (2011), "modeling encourages students to integrate higher-order thought processes with social studies content" (p. 78). After we presented the first article, the students were told to identify the 5 W elements in the second article. 

MY CURRENT EVENTS EXPERIENCE
(This is the link to my blog post on my current events project, with Joanne Nikci)

NEWSELA: OPENING THE WORLD TO CURRENT EVENTS
(This is the link to my blog post on the Newsela site and how it may be utilized in the classroom).

          Based on my experiences, I have now learned a lot about the use of current events in the social studies classroom. For starters, I have learned that there are multiple ways in which students may learn about current events. For younger children, these ways may include hands-on activities (i.e., scavenger hunts).  Scavenger hunts for news article titles and pictures will teach students about social studies, while also teaching them about concentration. For older children, these ways may include listening for details during a read-aloud of a news article and news mapping. In my opinion, news mapping would be incredibly beneficial for older students. For example, a sixth grade teacher teaching about China may post a map of China on the classroom bulletin board. The students would then be instructed to "post stories around the map and string yarn from each story to the location on the map where the story takes place" (ncwiseowl.org). This will provide students with both an oral and visual representation of current events stories that are occurring in China. 

Current events are all about investigation and making inquiries about modern-day events that occur all around the world.  In my opinion, the subject of current events is the epitome of social studies teaching and learning.  

This is a map of China with icons of key landmarks and destinations located all across the country. This would be a great resource to use in the sixth grade news mapping activity regarding the subject of current events.

       Freetech4teachers.com is a wonderful resource for teachers to use when teaching their students about the subject of current events. In my opinion, this site would contribute to the development of the students' independence and critical thinking skills. Oftentimes, students find it difficult to research news stories; however, I believe that this tool will drastically change that mindset. One site that would interest visual learners is entitled, Ten by Ten. This site is truly unique because "every hour the top 100 news stories from around the world are linked to images on a ten by ten grid" (freetech4teachers.com). 

        I would utilize the Ten by Ten site during a cooperative learning lesson for grades 1-6. I think that this tool would help my students "reach consensus and conclude that they've finished sharing ideas, explored all dimensions of a question, or completed a project" (Tompkins, 2013, p. 127). At an early age, students should start to be motivated by a number of catalyst to help accomplish their goals (i.e., current events research). I believe that the use of technology is extremely important because it helps both students and teachers keep up with the times. The world is becoming more and more futuristic. In the future, there may no longer be any printed newspapers or books. Therefore, I think students should be introduced to age appropriate online news resources and taught how to navigate them as soon as possible. 

STANDARDS

Below is a list of the following Common Core (NYS Learning Standards) that I believe best fit the Current Events Activity:

Social Studies

• Standard 3: Geography

"Students will use a variety of intellectual skills to demonstrate their understanding of the geography of the interdependent world in which we live—local, national, and global—including the distribution of people, places, and environments over the Earth’s surface" (p12.nysed.gov).

Mathematics, Science, and Technology Education

• Standard 5: Technology

"Students will apply technological knowledge and skills to design, construct, use, and evaluate products and systems to satisfy human and environmental needs" (p12.nysed.gov).

My Suggestions for Next Semester's SS Methods Class

I would suggest maybe utilizing other news resource sites (along with Newsela). I think the students next semester would benefit from using sources like the New York Times or another online newspaper site to research about the day's current events. :)

References

C&I: Curriculum and Instruction. (2013, June 11). Retrieved December 5, 2014.

Current Events. (n.d.). Retrieved December 5, 2014.

Byrne, R. (2011, August 15). Free Technology for Teachers: 5 Ways Students Can Visually Explore 

            the News. Retrieved December 5, 2014.

Newsela | Nonfiction Literacy and Current Events. (2014). Retrieved December 5, 2014.

Sunal, C., & Haas, M. (2011). Social studies for the elementary and middle grades:

           A constructivist approach (4th ed.). Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

Tompkins, G. (2013). Language arts: Patterns of practice (8th ed.). Upper Saddle River, N.J.:     
           Pearson/Merrill/Prentice Hall.


White, D. (2014). Current Events. Retrieved December 5, 2014.

LINKS:

Cooperative Learning/Individual Feedback Form

Current Events Project Rubric

Newsela

NYS Learning Standards