SOCIAL STUDIES FOCUS

LeRoy Elementary School is unique in the way they set up their social studies and science instruction.  Every quarter, the instruction is focused on just one of the two subjects.  For example, the third quarter was a social studies quarter, and now, science has just started as the fourth quarter just began.  I have never seen a setup like this before.  Social studies is implemented within the two hour literacy block in the mornings; however, I have only observed it being taught one time.

The social studies lesson I observed was in a unit about early explorers.  The lesson itself covered basic information about the Vikings.  To connect this lesson to previous content, my CT first reviewed the five major reasons explorers had to explore at this time.  This is something students had been learning about the entire explorers unit, so my CT made sure to tie it into this lesson as well.  As we’ve learned in our courses, students need that connection.

This is even something we incorporate when we write and submit our lessons plans. 

Next, my CT used a video as a resource from Discovery Education’s website.  The video was about 18 minutes long and included a quiz at the end.  When I first saw the video ran 18 minutes, I wondered if students would be able to sit still and watch for that long, but the students did a good job staying attentive.  That was the end of the lesson.  I was kind of surprised to see that there wasn’t an activity or group work or anything after the video.  In my experiences, I’ve learned that if a video is provided in a lesson, it should be used as a resource, rather than the lesson’s main instruction.  While I have included videos or video clips in some of my lesson plans, they’ve always been short, and I typically use them as a sort of attention getter in the introduction of my lesson.  This is not to say that there aren’t other ways to use videos, of course.  I’m also finding out that Pinterest has valuable resources and ideas to use.  I’ve started my own Early Childhood Social Studies Board where I’ve pinned my own projects and ones by others, which can be found here http://www.pinterest.com/daniellegubelma/early-childhood-social-studies/.  

In terms of assessment, for that particular lesson, I did not see any type of assessments being used.  More than once, my CT has expressed to me that they are not big on assessments at LES.  Two weeks later, I found out that my CT had given a quiz on “Reasons for Exploration” on a day I was not there.  This assured me that she had followed up with the content being taught that unit and had made a conscious effort to see just how much the students were learning.  She let me know that the students did well on this quiz.  

In comparison to my last semester’s clinical placement, I’d say the social studies instruction is different.  I was in a first grade classroom which had a unique way of doing social studies as well.  My CT taught social studies to her class and the other first grade class, while the other teacher only taught science.  So, the classes would switch on days they had social studies and science.  The instruction itself differs from this semester’s placement because it was all textbook based.  The students would sit at their desks and follow along in the book as my CT read the text.  Then, there would always be some activity which usually consisted of drawing a picture about what they learned.  This semester, my third grade class does not even use textbooks to teach any subject.  The students do not have a single textbook in their desks.  My CT does keep them stored in cabinets because she told me she uses them as a resource once in a while.

In the future, I hope that I can find a balance between what I’ve seen in my clinical placements in terms of social studies instruction.  To elaborate, I hope to combine what my current CT does with what my past CT did.  I don’t believe textbooks are always a bad thing, but I plan to stay away from the same old boring textbook instruction for every single lesson.  A change I plan on making in my future teaching is providing more assessments.  This is not to say I will give a pencil and paper test after each unit or lesson.  I’ve learned recently about several assessment tools, both formative and summative, that I can incorporate in order to find out if my students are learning from me.  Now that it’s the fourth quarter and social studies is finished for the year, I am interested to see science begin!