Thoughts on Social Studies

Final Units

noreply@blogger.com (Julie Keefe) — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 17:58:00 +0000

Here are the final units that you have created. Each unit is a pdf file that contains all of your lessons, assessments, rubrics and research papers.

aimeesunit.pdf

alicesunit.pdf
carasunit.pdf
heathersunit.pdf
michellesunit.pdf

mashasunit.pdf
juliesunit.pdf

Our Field Trip

noreply@blogger.com (Julie Keefe) — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 14:50:00 +0000

Thursday was a great outing along the Black Heritage Trail and the Freedom Trail. Here's a video I made of our trip. I hope you enjoy it!

ELA and Social Studies Links

noreply@blogger.com (Julie Keefe) — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 12:38:00 +0000

Today, 7/21 is a day devoted to examining the ELA and Social Studies strands and viewing cross curricular ties. Some of the things we'll be doing today can be found on the following sites:
Foldables Wiki
More Teacher Created Foldables
US History Foldables
Map Graphic
History Foldables (huge resource!)
US History Review with Foldables
A Stand Up Circle Book

Thoughts from the week of 7/14

noreply@blogger.com (Julie Keefe) — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 10:46:00 +0000

We began our week with a discussion of primary sources and their importance in the elementary social studies classroom. Kathy Schrock's slideshow provided the clear definition, "actual records that have survived from the past, such as letters, photographs, videos, and articles of clothing". Sites like the Library of Congress' American Memory project provide a large assortment of resources. For example, today in history on July 21, 1861 was the first battle of Bull Run. This photograph taken in 1862 shows the destruction.
On Tuesday we struck the streets of Cambridge in search of 42 degrees 22.585 North and 71 degrees 07.055 West.

We found a multicache in our geocache adventure that took us through Harvard's campus, back through Lesley and into a Cambridge neighborhood.

Thursday we shared cultural biographies. This was truly a great class. I am always throughly amazed with your descriptions of your cultural selves and how much you have to bring to your classroom. Not to mention a day of great food!

Thoughts from 7/10

noreply@blogger.com (Julie Keefe) — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 16:39:00 +0000

We began our meeting with a discussion of Bloom's Taxonomy. The chart we reviewed is available on the resource page of our myLesley course site. This related site is another great way of finding verbs to help you write lesson plan goals that work on higher order thinking skills and of targeting specific student skills.

From that discussion we began to review the State's introduction to the Social Studies Frameworks. Many of you found the piece to have quite an air about it. We found many references to the great democracy that we are and how that understanding that can help us to see the need for teaching democracy to others. One item of a more positive note was the importance in social studies for creating the next group of citizenry. In order for our country to work according to our democratic principals we need our citizens to be well-educated and knowledgeable about their role in government. This notion was also evident in our look at the NCSS introduction to its standards. There we saw a focus on the need for social studies across the curriculum. There is a focus on the common good and educating the whole child. If we work to teach our students to become good problem solvers then they will be able to deal with an ever increasing amount of information.

The Web 2.0 groups met to review their assigned readings and then share with the group on what a podcast is, what a wiki is and what makes up a blog. Throughout this course we are practicing our work on blogging and learning first hand how it feels to blog and communicate with classmates virtually. We will also be creating an initial audio and a video podcast. We did discover that a true podcast happens with regularity and allows the user to subscribe to the feed. From there we examined RSS feeds and how that can make new information from blogs, wikis, podcasts and websites come to us, eliminating the need for us to go searching to multiple locations to find out new information.

Thoughts from 7/8/08

noreply@blogger.com (Julie Keefe) — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 01:56:00 +0000

Tonight's class began with a journal question from Daily Spark. We discussed the current ways of creating a more chivalrous society. From practicing good karma (& 'carma') to showing respect for the oldest and youngest members of our communities we found many aspects of everyday life that could use a good dose of thoughtfulness. This lead in to our discussion of social skills, ethics and civics in our social studies classrooms. As we've moved from homes with a parent as full-time caregiver, to households with two working parents or a single parent, the burden of social skills training has shifted towards the classroom. We can lead by example, creating classrooms that promote problem solving skills, treating each other with respect and operate with clear expectations and goals.

We tackled the large question, "What is social studies?" while examining Inspiration and working with the Taba Teaching strategy. Our brainstorming session created an exhausting list of things we think of when we hear the words, "Social Studies". Our responses ranged from history, political science, and economics to things like sociology, dance, culture, and war. We then began to categorize them in our web, adding color coding and related images.

Reflecting back on our own social studies memories yielded very meaningful and positive learning experiences as well as negative or less productive studies. Many remarked on the power of project based learning and how that made learning more meaningful. With this we examined units that we can still remember many years later. Classrooms that were student centered and responsive in nature stood out. Times when we were problem solvers seeking out our own information and connecting it to our prior knowledge made information stick. In this discussion we also noted the importance of social responsibility in the classroom and the power of utilizing our resources of our extremely historical geographic location. Those classes that left us with negative feelings were lacking in personal connection and featured a lot of rote memorization and little explanation or depth to the lessons.

EEDUC 5136 Summer 2008

noreply@blogger.com (Julie Keefe) — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 16:12:00 +0000

Our first class of the Summer 08 session of Integrating Social Studies began with introductions and a review of our syllabus. It looks like we'll have many opportunities for working in pairs and groups as we have students with similar concentrations.

As the course progresses this blog will highlight key components of our in class discussions as well as links to information, sites, and resources. You will also find links to individual student blogs about our course readings here:

Julie's Blog

Masha's Blog

Aimee's Blog
Heather's Blog

Alice's Blog

Michelle's Blog

Cara's Blog

As always, keep the questions and discussions flowing! We're off to a great start and ready to dig in.

Thoughts from 7/26

noreply@blogger.com (Julie Keefe) — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 21:09:00 +0000

Today's class continued our work on assessment and brought us into the world of rubrics. We reviewed several online resources for rubric creation. It is so helpful to not have to start from scratch, but rather modify a rubric that someone else has created. Rubrics allow students to have the ability to see the expectations prior to beginning an assignment. This is critical in a long term assignment or one with multiple parts. They can see the point values and determine those pieces which are the most critical.

Rubrics also allow the teacher to be more transparent with grading. It takes away from some of the subjectivity that can plague the grading procedure. It also gives parents greater clarity and justification for their child's grades.

Some of the resources that can be found online are:
University of Wisconsin's site on educational rubrics: http://www.uwstout.edu/soe/profdev/rubrics.shtml

A Rubric on an Inspiration created graphic organizer:
http://www.uwstout.edu/soe/profdev/inspirationrubric.html

A Generic Rubric Generator:
http://teach-nology.com/web_tools/rubrics/general/

Guidelines for Rubric Development:
http://edweb.sdsu.edu/triton/july/rubrics/Rubric_Guidelines.html

Our last mission of the class was to create our own rubric for the unit assignment. It took us a long time, but the end result was a comprehensive rubric that had point values and categories of quality for all of the pieces of the assignment. It can be viewed on myLesley.

Thoughts on 7/24

noreply@blogger.com (Julie Keefe) — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 19:17:00 +0000

In class we explored the many areas of assessment. Utilizing a jigsaw method in conjunction with cooperative learning we broke into groups of 4 to cover 4 major areas of assessment: MCAS, traditional assessment, non-traditional assessment and Lindquist's Chapter 8 on Student Assessment. The traditional and non-traditional folks began with information on thirteen.org 's online professional development site. The MCAS group delved into the Massachusetts' Department of Education site on MCAS.

As we came back together as a group, we heard from members of each division and explored the topics in depth. Our assessment work will continue as we begin working with rubrics. Thursday's class will feature the whole class construction of the rubric for our unit assignment. All of our assessment findings will be written up in Thursday's blog entry.

Thoughts from 7/23

noreply@blogger.com (Julie Keefe) — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 12:21:00 +0000

Tonight's class served as a way to get caught up with discussing our readings, review various types of instructional strategies and delve more deeply into our use of Inspiration. In Lindquist, we reviewed Chapter 2 and explored Tarry's ideas for creating a positive classroom. Starting off the year with a classroom set of goals created by the class is a way of teaching students the importance of rules and respect for others, but it also carries over a critical civics lesson. Tarry has many ideas for promoting peace in the classroom.

Moving on to the course readings we covered instructional strategies for Differentiated Instruction and Cooperative Learning. There are so many ways to get students involved in group work and to help them gain the skills necessary for working with their peers. Social Studies provides many opportunities for collaboration, problem solving and critical thinking as a group. Differentiated Instruction requires the teacher to have a thorough understanding of the students in class and ways of learning that are most effective for them. This website provided a clearinghouse of DI resources. We also reviewed Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, which can be found here.

Lastly, we delved back into the world of graphic organizers in Inspiration for work on the unit lesson integrating the software. As I went around the room I saw a wide variety of usages for the program. Some are creating models for their students to create in a classroom. Others are using the program to create a graphic organizer to use in conjunction with a projector for whole class instruction. As the units are completed for the end of class I will be posting completed units on my website so that those resources are available to all.

Thoughts from 7/19

noreply@blogger.com (Julie Keefe) — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 12:14:00 +0000

Our class began with a presentation from School Psychologist, Debra Culberson. In her presentation, Debra covered the 8 Neurodevelopmental Domains according to Mel Levine's work. The presentation included descriptions of the domains, warning signs that something may not be functioning properly as well as strategies to help students who are having difficulties.

After the presentation we shared our Cultural Biographies. This class was truly amazing. It was great to see people sharing their personal thoughts about how they viewed themselves culturally. For many this description extended far beyond our normal conception of culture: race, ethnicity and religion. Many described themselves according to their beliefs and passions. Some of us identified ourselves according to our familial relations and those who have had a profound impact on our lives. We were treated to food, photos and music. I am still amazed by the depth of your sharings and I am very proud of all of you. I hope this was a beneficial assignment and one that you can carry over to your own classrooms to become more connected with your students.

Thoughts from 7/17

noreply@blogger.com (Julie Keefe) — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 16:28:00 +0000

Well, we packed in a great deal in this class. This class was dedicated to latitude and longitude and our first geocaching adventure. In class we reviewed the principles of latitude and longitude. Often times this subject can be difficult to teach. One of the things that I have found that make it a difficult subject is the counter-intuitiveness of the lines. Latitude lines run east/west around the globe, but we measure latitude in degrees north or south of the equator. Longitude lines run from the north pole to the south pole, but we measure longitude in degrees west or east of the Prime Meridian. With all of that said, we moved on to GPS and its role in the beginning of geocaching.

Geocaching began around 2000 with the deregulation of GPS.
Geocaching.com is the source for locating geocaches around the world.
Accounts are free and necessary for the site.
We typed in the Cambridge zip code and located the cache, "Billy Moon's Bear". Click here to view the page for this cache. With our GPS loaded with the first coordinates we headed out for Harvard. Our first find was a small red door with a name above it...

From here we used the clue of Sanders to locate the next part...off to Sanders Theatre. There we had to find a William with one given name and use his graduation date to complete a math problem to finish off the coordinates of the final cache location. The theatre was beautiful with sunlight streaming in through the stained glass.

We plugged in our new coordinates and headed towards those, approximately .5 of a mile away. This lead us back through Lesley's campus and into a surrounding neighborhood. As we approached the cache we found a yard that contained Winnie the Pooh's friends. The cache site was a hollowed out tree complete with a miniature door, log book, signs and a book swap box. Here with are with our first geocaching find!
We made our way back to class to log in our find online. We reviewed the numerous ways to incorporate GPS and geocaching in the classroom in conjunction with the assigned readings. After that we got on the computers to delve back into Inspiration for our next lesson plan. The uses of the program are widespread. Looking over shoulders I saw Venn Diagrams, mind maps, timelines, sheets for students to organize new information....the list goes on.

Our next meeting features a guest presentation by school psychologist Debra Culberson as well as our Cultural Biographies and a readings recap. Keep up the hard work, I'm so impressed!

Thoughts from 7/12

noreply@blogger.com (Julie Keefe) — Sat, 14 Jul 2007 02:03:00 +0000

Thursday's class opened with a classroom meeting. In our meeting we discussed the implications for classroom meetings as well as tips for classroom management within the circle, ideas for discussions, as well as time parameters, etc. Everyone was willing to share their thoughts on what's the most unappealing subject within social studies to teach. Tops on the list? Politics, religion, and economics.

On a side note of management, please be aware that class participation is 30% of your grade. That means that your attendance in class is extremely important...if you're not there, you're not participating. For those who have not had issue with this, I thank you for your insight and thoughts in our discussions.

After our meeting, we discussed Chapter 1 of Seeing the Whole Through Social Studies. This chapter was loaded with information on multiple intelligences, integration across the curriculum, and curriculum planning ideas. I will be giving out handouts that will provide you with more strategies for incorporating multiple intelligences as well as Bloom's Taxonomy.

From there we delved into the topic of teaching with primary sources with the help of a slideshow from Kathy Schrock. I found this helpful in illustrating what a primary source is, how it's different from a secondary source, and for providing a wealth of clearinghouses online and ways to use primary sources across the curriculum.

When we meet again, we'll be trekking down Mass Ave on a quest for a geocache. Dress comfortably and be prepared to fully experience latitude and longitude!

Thoughts from 7/10

noreply@blogger.com (Julie Keefe) — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 12:36:00 +0000

Our second class seemed to have a better flow. We began class with a discussion of the readings. There were great quotes pulled from the Foreward and Introduction of Seeing the Whole Through Social Studies. Many students remarked about the importance of centering our teaching around our students. We must look at our class and realize that they are all different individuals. Great teaching involves seeing the whole of each child and helping them engage in their own learning.

After our discussion we moved on to examining topics for the unit assignment. As people perused the frameworks and the web, ideas began flowing and it was great to see excitement developing around these ideas. Looking over the list of topics and grade levels is quite impressive! We have first and second grade topics on immigration and community, third grade coverage of local and U.S. History, fourth and fifth grade coverage of explorers and native peoples and sixth grade coverage of Africa. This will be an incredible resource available to the class upon completion.

We didn't get to the George Lucas Educational Foundation piece on Geo-Literacy, but we'll be covering that in class on 7/12. This class will also feature our first look into teaching with Primary Sources. There's much to be examined here and this will get you started in creating your first lesson plan due next week.

Summary of Class 7/9

noreply@blogger.com (Julie Keefe) — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 13:20:00 +0000

I came away from class feeling as though we accomplished a good deal for our first meeting. We examined the syllabus in depth. Utilizing Inspiration, we discovered the Taba Teaching Strategy in action as we attempted to pull together a definition of Social Studies. We began reviewing the parts of myLesley, examining where to find articles, assignments and links to important sites.
Tonight we'll be reviewing last night's readings and continuing our work on Inspiration. Most importantly we will begin reviewing resources in efforts to determine a unit topic for each of you. This is a critical decision to make early on in the course, because many of your assignments are based upon this topic. We'll also delve into Edutopia online and begin perusing a section on Geo-Literacy with a focus on the importance of essential questions.

Welcome to EEDUC 5136!

noreply@blogger.com (Julie Keefe) — Sat, 09 Jun 2007 14:23:00 +0000

Welcome to the first posting in Thoughts on Social Studies, an online blog to add to the in class experience of EEDUC 5136 Integrating Social Studies in the Elementary Classroom. I hope that class times can be summed up here, along with any further comments, helps and hints.
The purpose of the blog is two fold: it serves as a way for us to have a running dialogue and it will also give us the experience of blogging and its potential role in the classroom.