This week I was able to participate in teaching Social Studies in one of the 1st grade classrooms. My 1st grade team is very supportive and is excited to give me a lot of teaching experiences this semester, which I am really grateful for! We are currently focusing on learning about influential Americans based on these two standards:
CAS SS.1.1.1 Apply the process of inquiry to examine and analyze how historical knowledge is viewed, constructed, and interpreted.
CAS SS 1.4.2 Identify and explain how the significance of notable people, places, holidays, and civic symbols reflect the origins and values of the government and its citizens.
Our focus this week was on Rosa Parks. She was easy to introduce because we learned about Martin Luther King Jr. last week and the students already had some great background knowledge about the social climate and events that were taking place in American History in the 1950's and 1960's. According to Kopp, "building background knowledge is the first consideration when planning for student engagement" (Kopp, 2017, p.29). Making a connection to Martin Luther King Jr. created almost instant engagement because he and his message had really resonated with the students.
One of the recommendations in our reading was to use technology to provide experiences. "Short videos are excellent ways to introduce a topic. Videos offer students opportunities to peek at the learning that is to come" (Kopp, 2017, p.42). For both Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks we used Xavier Riddle videos to introduce these historical figures. We followed it up with referencing the book I am Rosa Parks by Brad Meltzer.
One of my focuses for this class is to build the skill of asking good questions. I worked with the classroom teacher to develop a list of questions to pose to the students because I read this week that, "Central to a rich social studies experience is the capability for developing questions that can frame and advance an inquiry" (College, Career & Civic Life, 2013, p.23)
At the very beginning of the lesson a student raised her hand and asked her own really good question. She asked, "Why did so many people think it was ok to not treat everyone equal?" I thought this was a perfect example of a compelling question. "This question reflects the two primary qualities of a compelling question: (1) It reflects a social concern that students find engaging; and (2) It reflects an enduring issue in the field of civics" (College, Career & Civic Life, 2013, p.23)
The teacher and I scrapped most of our questions and wrote this one big on the board. We told them that we don't really know the answer and asked if they had any ideas about it. We had an awesome class discussion; the kids were extremely engaged and almost everyone had thoughtful comments to contribute- it felt like some teaching magic was happening! We talked about how these stories made us feel and then we talked about the legacy that Rosa parks and MLK Jr. left and what we can do to continue it. We went on to fill out a note catcher with some Rosa Parks facts as well as complete a timeline of some of the important events of her life. I know not every lesson will be like this one, but this was a pretty special teaching moment to experience.
First grade rotates between social studies and science units, so we are not currently doing science lessons in my mentor teacher's classroom. For this reason, I jumped at an opportunity to help the school librarian create a fun science exploration around magnets for a 3rd grade class during my lunch hour. The 3rd grade had earned some extra library time and decided to introduce their students to magnets in a fun way. Their new science unit aligned with standard CAS SC.3.1.2: Objects in contact exert forces on each other; electric and magnetic forces between a pair of objects do not require contact.
This wasn't a formal lesson, it mainly embodied the engage and explore steps in the 5e's teaching and learning model. In the engage phase students become actively engaged both physically and mentally with an activity or question. The explore phase is designed to provide students with opportunities to interact with the concepts and skills that are being developed. This phase is important because it allows students to acquire a common set of experiences (PrimaryConnections, 2016).
I loved that the third grade teachers wanted their students to have a hands-on experience as the kick-off to their inquiry-based science unit. In our reading, Kopp reiterates the Next Generation Science Standards which state, "Students cannot comprehend scientific practices, nor fully appreciate the nature of scientific knowledge itself, without directly experiencing those practices for themselves" (Kopp, 2015, p.40).
Prior to letting them try the magnet experiments we discussed what they thought they knew about magnets. Their classroom teacher asked them to write down questions they thought of as they played with the magnets so that they could further explore those questions when they got back to the classroom. I felt like this experience was somewhere between a guided inquiry, where the teacher poses a testable question to the students, and an open inquiry, where the students start with a scientific question that they generate (Kopp, 2015, p.43). The teacher didn't provide a specific question, but all the experiments were preset by the librarian and myself, so the exploration wasn't entirely organic.
I didn't get to see the full unit plan the teachers had in mind, I only got to participate in this introduction. I am not sure how effectively they planned objectives that aligned with the standard they were teaching- but it was a great, fun initial step! I was grateful for the chance to be involved!
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Jess- you did a really nice job of capturing lessons learned from our curriculum and relating them to the lessons taught in your 1st grade class. I like how you and the teacher made a pivot and allowed time to dig into a very important and student driven topic as equality. I imagine that the students felt more connected to the topic when they were able to stop and ask some questions we don't always have answers to. Well done!
ReplyDeleteJess,
ReplyDeleteyou did an amazing job with engaging with every aspect of your classroom. Specifically, you really focus on building and creating a good relationship between what we are learning within this course and then building it back into your classroom. After reading the blog I really enjoy that your teacher focuses on letting students experiment with what they are being asked to do and then build questions. I think that is so important to ensure the curiosity and want to learn. Seems like good start to the semester!