Inquiry: A Trip to the Bank

On Thursday April 4th, my group and I taught an inquiry lesson to a second grade class at BDMS. Our inquiry lesson focused on the same topic, "A Trip to the Bank".
We began the lesson with a quick review of the material taught in our direct instruction lesson. Once this was completed, we introduced our problem. We told the class that Plankton has a problem; he wants to open his own restaurant and he needs to go to the bank to do so. However, he has never been to a bank before and he does not want to ask Spongebob for help. We told the second graders it was their job to write Plankton a letter explaining what he should do at the bank and how the bank works.
The students were extremely engaged. They quickly pointed out that they did not want to help Plankton because he is the "bad guy". We explained that Plankton is asking for help and he is going to change, and that it is our responsibility to help anyone who needs our help.
We asked the students questions about the problem solving process before we explained the process and our expectations to them.
We broke up into groups. One college student sat with a group of 3 second graders. The child in the class with an IEP was placed in a group of 4 second graders and 2 mount students. One of my peers and I were the teachers helping this group. Each group was given two articles to read and take notes on. This section of the lesson could have been improved. We could have printed more articles and the articles could have been enlarged so that the students could read them more easily. Instead of asking the student with the IEP to read the articles, I read them to her while the other mount student in our group worked with the other 3 second graders.
Overall, this part of the lesson went well. We completed it on time and all of the students gathered ideas and information. On the bottom of their note taking sheets, they were asked to draft ideas that they wanted to share with Plankton. I assisted the student with the IEP by writing some, but not all, notes for her.
Once this part of the lesson was over, each student returned to their desks. One of the mount students in my group explained the letter writing activity to the class. We provided each student with a template and a writing checklist that was easy for them to understand and utilize. The purpose of the writing checklist was so that students knew they were following all directions and meeting expectations. The lesson ended with the students writing their letters, using their checklists and note sheets to help them.
Overall, my group and I were proud of the execution of this lesson. Everything went exactly as planned. The two improvements that could have been made to this lesson were mentioned earlier.

Direct Instruction: A Trip to the Bank

On Tuesday April 2nd, four of my peers and I taught a Direct Instruction lesson to a second grade class at BDMS. The topic of our lesson was "A Trip to the Bank". Our lesson focused on bank terminology and definitions. We taught the following academic vocabulary: deposit, withdrawal, saving, spending, loan, taxes and interest.
We began the lesson by activating the students' prior knowledge. We did this by asking them questions about ideas they learned in the 6 previous lessons taught by our peers. We then assessed students' prior knowledge by asking them questions like "has anyone ever been inside a bank?", "what is a bank like inside?", "does anyone know why people go to the bank?", and "does anyone save money in a piggy bank?". We felt that these questions would not only assess prior knowledge, but also engage the students in the lesson.
To engage the students in the lesson, we explained that Spongebob and Patrick were going to join us on our trip to the bank. The students enjoyed this and were excited by it. While teaching the terms, we took "Brain Breaks" to check for understanding before moving on.
During the development of the lesson, students were taking notes on a fill in the blank sheet that matched the powerpoint notes. We walked around the classroom to make sure that the students were on task and copying notes correctly.
Our guided practice activity involved students coming up to the smart board, matching terms to pictures, and explaining why they made that match. This part of our lesson could have been improved. We could have selected different pictures or described scenarios instead.
Our second guided practice involved explaining scenarios that Spongebob was in and asking the class if spongebob should save money, spend money, or take out a loan. This part also could have been improved because each scenario was somewhat vague. We conducted a final check for understanding, and then we moved on to independent practice.
Our independent practice asked students to "fill in the blanks" on a worksheet. One student identified as having an IEP was given a different independent practice sheet. Her independent practice sheet had pictures instead of terms.

We finished our lesson on time. Everything went exactly as planned. Overall, my peers and I are proud of our lesson. After hearing professional feedback from our peers and Dr. Smirnova, we definitely realized some areas in which the lesson could have been improved. 

Current Events Presentation

For our current events assignment, Dr. Smirnova asked us to find an article from newsela.com that discussed a current and relevant event/information. Two of my peers and I decided to select an article about the different types of government that exist. Newsela.com is an excellent resource to use in a classroom. There are an abundance of articles about various social studies topics. The articles are organized by grade and reading level as well as content area. Each article has an assignment attached to the end. Four multiple choice questions allow teachers and students to check for understanding after reading the article. After reading the article and taking the assignment, my group and I determined how we would use this article to teach a lesson in a classroom. We decided to use a KWHL chart. We asked students questions that prompted them to fill in the KWHL chart, such as "what do you know about the type of government the United States has?", "what do you want to know?" and "how will you learn about this?". Students were then asked to read the article together in small groups to complete the KWHL chart.
My group and I gave this presentation to our class through the Big Blue Button online class. Giving the presentation was challenging at first, but eventually our peers began to participate in the discussion and fill out KWHL charts together. Overall, our lesson was successful. It went as planned and we met all of our goals. Click here to see the slideshow we created!

PIGS, SIM, CL

In social studies methods, Dr. Smirnova allowed us to learn about PIGS and the Social Interactive Model along with Cooperative Learning in a way that allowed the class to truly experience the process. Dr. Smirnova had us break up into groups and each member of the group was assigned to be part of an expert group. There was an expert group for each letter in the PIGS acronym. The expert groups had to work together to learn about their aspect of PIGS. Once this was done, we would return to our original groups and each member of the expert group would teach the other group members what they learned.
My expert group had the task of researching the Cooperate Learning lesson plan requirements and outline. I worked with three of my peers. Together, we familiarized ourselves with the CL lesson plan. Becoming familiar with this type of lesson plan and then explaining it to our peers was crucial because prior to this class, none of us wrote or conducted a cooperative learning lesson plan. Click here to see the slideshow I created with the members of my expert group!

Assessment & Objective Formulas

Assessment

What can be assessed?

• Readiness. Do students already know some concepts? What prior knowledge do they have? What skills do they have? This is why pre-assessment is important. 
• Students' Interest. What students like outside of class. Knowing their interests will help us engage them. 
• Learning Profile. Areas of strength and weakness, work preferences, and self-awareness. 

What is an assessment? Measuring students' knowledge and keeping track of it.

3 Types of Assessment

• Diagnostic: Finding out. Belongs in the introduction of the unit. (KWL chart, pre-assessment).
• Formative Assessment: Keeping track and checking up. Occurs throughout the lesson. (exit ticket, conference, quiz, journal entry, check for understanding)
• Summative Assessment: Making sure, at the end of the lesson, independent practice. (unit test, post-assessment, performance task)

Building Blocks & Components of Objectives

Condition: the setting. (given task or materials. only one setting)

Behavior: action expressed by a verb. (only one verb)

Criterion: expected performance level (no percentages. only one)
*Objective is written in the independent practice part of the lesson plan (the end). When students work alone they show that they really learned something.

Objective Formula: Given (a task or materials) the student will (a verb from Bloom's Taxonomy) with (an expected level of performance). 

*the materials in the objective are not the teacher's materials, they are the student's materials.

*the objective is singular; one student.

*you must create a rubric for the objective.

Objective example: Given a task to work in a group of 4 and the resources on the American Revolution, the student will create a poster, following the criteria of the rubric and scoring at 3/4.

How We Learn

How do people learn? What is learning?

Metacognition is thinking about thinking and thinking about learning as well as reflecting on it. Facts are fleeting. This blog is an example of metacognition. It is the highest level of thinking and sharing. 

Bloom's Taxonomy

We must teach to from the lowest level to the highest level. This diagram was created to help teachers.

Educational Philosophies:

Perennialism

Progressivism

Existentialism

Reconstructivist

Models, Strategies, and Methods:

Model- approaches to teaching (there are 4).

• Behavioral Model: stimuli and response. Developing desired skills, knowledge and behaviors. It involves a lot of repetition. Teacher has authority. 
• Information Processing: thinking and processing; explaining. To equip students with the skills of accessing, processing, organizing, and reflecting on information. 
• Social-Interactive Model: students are interacting to develop their social skills and democratic values.
• Personal Model: students are working independently to develop students' identity, self esteem.

Strategy: a set of steps in order to reflect a particular model.

• Strategy for behavioral model is direct instruction.
• Strategy for information processing is indirect/cognitive (inquiry). 
• Strategy for social-interactive model is indirect/ interactive.
• Strategy for personal mode is indirect/individual.

Methods: the way you deliver the strategy and model.

• Behavioral: lectures, powerpoint presentation, demonstration. Anything controlled  by the teacher.
• Information Processing: inquiry lesson. 
• Social-interactive: cooperative learning.
• Personal: independent projects.

Origins & Elements of Social Studies

What is Social Studies?

Teaching and learning history is primarily done through discussion and lecture. Occasional audio visual aids and field trips are used, but unfortunately there is not a lot of funding to use these tools constantly. Most homework and assignments come straight from a textbook. Elementary students learn Social Studies through small group and independent work, manipulatives, films, TV, computers, and integrated approaches.
Social Studies is a body of integrative knowledge, concepts, skills, generalizations and theories in the SS fields (history, geography, economics, citizenship, etc.) 
Each aspect should be taught equally. Because there are different aspects, there are so many different ways to teach SS.

The most powerful elements of Social Studies....

Social Studies is meaningful- engaging students with real-world situations.
Social Studies is integrative- draws on more than one discipline, subject, or skill set.
Social Studies is value-based- Strengthens students' sense of democratic values and social responsibility.
Social Studies is challenging- incorporates different perspectives and draws on students' critical-thinking skills.
Social Studies is active- Participatory, makes use of manipulatives or physical environment. Real learning occurs when students are engaged; they apply different skills.