Semester Ending

With the semester ending I was slammed with work. Im so glad to have finally made it!! Next semester I will be student teaching in the Marlboro School District. I am so excited to finally get the chance to be a teacher. The semester flew by and all I can think about is how much I learned this semester. I learned more about direct, Cooperative, and inquiry lessons. I also learned how to engage students in Social Studies. I also learned about the Jigsaw lesson and how to implement it into my class. I cannot wait to provide my students with engage activities that consist of hands on, partner work! Maybe I might even get to plan a field trip for the students to learn more about Social Studies. I also cannot wait to implement the Jigsaw model into my teaching because I think it is a great way to encourage group participation. If you don't participate in creating the lesson you won't be able to teach it to your peers.  As I embark on my next journey of teaching I can't thank Dr. Smirnova enough for teaching me how to engage and bring Social Studies to life!

Job Interview

On the last day of class me and my classmates got to experience a simulation of a job interview.] One question that really made me think out of the box was the question that asked what animal would I be for behavioral management. This question really made me think about what kind of animal would be a best fit for children. At first I wanted to pick a dog but I knew that was too simple of an answer I wanted to pick an animal that would be different. A dog while yes it is trainable I think they are either to mean or too friendly of an animal. And what about the children who don't like dogs. After that thinking I picked an elephant because while an elephant is big and may look scary on the inside they are not. Elephants are caring and nurturing towards their young.

Although this was not an actual job interview I was nervous and at times it was hard for me to come up with an answer because I was nervous I was giving the wrong answer. I think that this was a good way to prepare us to prepare for a job interview. Even though most of us still have time until we will be interview for a teaching position it gave us an opportunity to see what a job interview will one day be like. I think that overall this was a good way to prepare us for what our future has in store for us.

Artifact bag

Today we shared our artifact bags. In the bags each of us chose items to place in the bags that would help teach our lessons. My lesson was based off the globe and direction. The artifacts I chose were a compass, a map with longitude and latitude, and a picture of Christopher Columbus's ships. The objects each held a meaning to the lesson I previously taught to a 5th grade class.

Using artifacts bags help to engage the students in hands on learning. I think that there are many different ways to incorporate the artifact bags into a lesson. One way  I created a lesson based on the artifact bag was to have my students create their own artifact bags based off of learning about Christopher Columbus and Globes. The students will Create a bag based off of one of these topics. The Students will then share their bags with the class or a group of peers. The expectation is that the students should be able to guess what the artifacts are representing and what topic the student chose. Although this is one way I created a lesson based off of Artifact bags there are may other ways Artifact Bags can be made into a lesson.

fieldwork experience

During my fieldwork experience I got to teach students and learn about cooperative, inquiry,  and direct lessons. I enjoyed the cooperative learning the most. The students got to work together to complete their lesson.  The students created songs or wrote about the globe and Christopher Columbus. The purpose of Inquiry lesson is to have students work together and learn through themselves.


Another thing I learned during my fieldwork experience is that it is important for you to have a way to assess your students. During my fieldwork experience I did not have enough time to complete our assessments because of this is did not have a way to check if my students were understanding the lessons I taught them. Although I got to assess the students through check for understandings and them sharing their songs and writings I did not have physical papers to help check the students understanding.

Poverty Simulation

This past wednesday I got the opportunity to attend the Poverty Simulation. During this time I got to experience what it is like living in poverty. I was a 14 year old twin and while I was still attending school I was worrying about how we were going to eat, how we were going to pay the bills and if my brother was making enough money for us. During the simulation I even decided to "sell drugs" aka sugar packets as a way to make money for my family. I also resorted to stealing bus passes so we wouldn't have to pay for more. Seeing how I acted just during a simulation gave me an understanding that you are going to do whatever it takes just to get your family by. It was an eye opener that we live in a country that people have to do illegal things to keep making money for their family. Although I know I can't do it alone I hope that one day there will be a day where families don't have to suffer from living in poverty.

Jigsaw

The jigsaw model that we learned about was a cooperative lesson where students get into groups. How we did our jigsaw was we got into our initial groups and chose a topic we were going to learn about and make a powerpoint about. Then we got into another group of the people who chose the same topic as you. During the time you get to create your lesson about the topic. After we complete the powerpoint we got back into our original groups where we shared what we learned about the topic. We all got to learn about what our other classmates were learning about. I loved that the students got to be the "teachers". Its a great way for the students to become hands on and engaged in Social Studies. Learning about the jigsaw made me want to use it in my own classroom!

Climate Change

The earth is a closed system in regard to energy. The earth has a limited amount of natural resources. Stupid mistake that we don't understand that the earth isn't an open system allowing more energy to be replenished, but it is closed and we have a limited amount of energy.Energy is an opened system we should derive our energy from the sun. We must change and fast, but can we change. How do we  make change occur.There are two layers the troposphere where we live in and the stratosphere which is the gasses that are trapped above the troposphere which provides a boundary of temperature. We are dumping 110 million Tons of man made global waste causing the troposphere to lock in heat. Anomaly something unexpected that shouldn't happen. 2016 was the hottest year yet. We have been killing our coral reefs because of climate change and storms having been getting worse because its going over a warm ocean instead of a cold ocean. Hurricanes also had not been seen in the Pacific Ocean and now more and more are being found there. Wild fires have also been getting worse, more extreme fires in correlation to the temperature rising. Glaciers have been melting and causing ocean rise.Millions of people and cities will be effected by storms/ ocean rising putting our cities underwater. Loss of crops and not enough food to feed anyone. Major droughts are causing farmers to loose their farm and ability to make food. Many new diseases are coming due to the rise of temperature cause these viruses to thrive. We are now at the risk of loosing 50% of species. The number one threat the economy is climate change. Our world will be based off not using fossil fuel and use renewables.