BFSSMeghan

As you peruse your content area textbook, please complete the following activities and/or questions. You may place your response on this page.

1. Write a bibliographical entry for the book using APA format. Zevin, J. (2010). Social Studies for the Twenty-First Century: Methods and Materials for Teaching in Middle and Secondary Schools.

2. What is the author’s background in education? He is a professor at Queen's College in NY. He formally taught secondary education in the Chicago area.

3. Skim through the Preface and the Personal Prologue. What are 2 things that you learned about the book or author? The only topics in social studies that he thinks worth teaching and talking about are those that contain or suggest questions with more than one answer. He believes that didactic information is necessary but not enough to gain deep understanding or reach for the big ideas.

4. Looking at the Table of Content, what are the 6 main parts of the book? 1.Philosophy and History of Social Studies 2. Teachers and Students: A context for Social Studies INstruction 3. Strategies for Social Studies Instruction 4.Teaching the Social Studies Curriculum 5. Textbooks and Media in the Social Studies 6.Beyond the Social Studies Classroom: Professional Issues and Trends

5. Which chapter should you definitely read before you begin the unit project? Chapter 7, Planning a Unit from Start to Finish

6. Which chapter will be particularly helpful with planning assessments? Chapter 8, Evaluation in SS

7. To aid your quick review of the textbook, how does each chapter begin and end? With an overview and a summary

8. Of all the chapters in the book, which one interests you the most? Why? Chapters 4 and 5/6 because I think that any advice I can get on organizing for instruction will be helpful and learning to teach to different levels is also very helpful.

9. Of all the chapters in the book, which one will you probably not read during this course? Why? Maybe Chapter 3? It seems to be a lot of stuff that we have been learning and it's hard to get interested in reading the same thing over and over...

10. What is one section in particular that you would like to discuss further with your content advisor? The "New-Age" multimedia sections and the Social Studies beyond the classroom.


 * Instructor Recommendations for Reading:**
 * For Research Essay—Read Chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, 12, 13, and 17. Highlight as you read a chapter. Then stop and list your “Top 5 Ideas/Tips” from the chapter. Read only one chapter at a sitting. Chapters 9, 10, 11 are also important, but the main ideas and summaries may be enough at this time.
 * For Unit Plan and Summative Plan—Read and highlight Chapters 5, 6, 7, 8.
 * For Job Preparation—Chapter 16 and 17

3 Trends Technology in Social Studies - I plan to use the articles I found to help show ways that technology is used in lesson planning and teaching students in a social studies class. Literacy in Social Studies - I found an article about literacy and one about media literacy and I would like to discuss how literacy in both formats are essential for social studies and how it can help students succeed in class. Teaching Social Studies? The article The social studies wars, now and then talks about the different trends in what parts of social studies are taught. I would like to find some more articles regarding this but I did find it very interesting.

Abstract of Research Essay 9/28 Technology, literacy and what to teach in social studies are all hot topics in the realm of social studies right now. While each has its own role to play in the classroom, they are all important and essential for students to be successful in a social studies classroom. Technology, literacy and teaching social studies are all related because technology is used quite often in social studies classrooms to enhance learning, literacy is tied to this technology because teachers have to find new ways to increase students literacy skills in the ever changing world of technology and teaching social studies correlates with technology and literacy because there is a trend of what is important to teach in the social studies curriculum right now and that is an ever changing discussion just as technology and literacy are and the changes to the curriculum have an effect on the technology and literacy aspect. Each of these trends has a great impact on our students and can enhance their understanding and knowledge of social studies.

Writing in the Content Area Article Review I chose "Writing in the Social Studies Classroom"

What are the author’s main arguments or points?

Creating a history course that would incorporate writing for learning in a way that would develop higher-level thinking skills. Higher level skills were classified in this article from Bloom’s taxonomy as Information Recall, Comprehension, Application, Analysis, Synthesis and Evaluation.

ü Does he/she support those arguments or points convincingly? Explain.

Yes, the author gives many examples of how her workshop that focused on the six different traits mentioned above. Her students had different assignments that focused on the traits and the examples in the article provided proof that at least that student had achieved the outcome she desired.

ü How does the information in this reading support what you will do or do in your classroom? Site some specific examples.

I think what this teacher did with her history class was interesting and a good way to help students focus on the important skills of reading and writing while still learning social studies. I also liked that all of their assignments focused on writing and reading and did not use tests. She stated that this excited a lot of her students and I think it’s a good way to change things up in a classroom.

Why I want to be a teacher: Teaching has always been in the back of my mind. It was something that I knew I could or should do but, was never really ready to do it. Finally, after settling in one place I decided to take the plunge and go back to school for teaching. I am glad I waited until now because now I really can appreciate what makes a good teacher instead of just looking at it as a job. I love history and want to be able to share my love of history with kids and hopefully get to them to see how interesting history can be. I really enjoy helping students and seeing all the potential they have.

Insight from meeting with Content Advisor: During our meeting, Beth pointed out something that has been going right over my head. She reminded us that when creating lessons and using differentiation, we need to keep in mind not just students with learning disabilities but also students who need more challenges and are advanced. I've been spending time thinking of all the different ways to include everyone in my lesson plans and I've been neglecting this group. I will make a point to keep this group of students in mind when creating lessons. Also, Beth has told us that it is not only a time saver but very helpful to borrow lesson plans from coworkers. This will help me because I will get new ideas and be able to "spice up" my lessons and if I am able to borrow some lessons from an experienced teacher, then I can get some good advice on what works well and what might not.

Exceptional Need Article "Flagged For Success" This article discussed different ways to find if students are struggling earlier than the midquarter and ways to help some of those struggling students. The author developed a set of "red flags" that were pertinent to the class and would offer different forms of help for those students. The help for most of the situations consisted of lunchtime meetings, review packets and some scaffolded lessons and work. The article was useful to me because as a first time teacher I'm sure that I will find myself in the situation of having struggling students and when and how to help them. Developing red flags for my students will help me to intervene and help students before they get too far behind. The four rules for establishing red flags are good rules to set and will provide an unbiased approach to helping any student, especially the red flag rule of focusing on academic concerns, not student behavior. The article overall is helpful and provides some great examples and scenarios in which I will most likely encounter while teaching. The one thing I didn't like from the article was that each scenario had a happy ending. I think it's a tad unrealistic to think that these strategies will always work and students will always be open to the help provided.

Reflection Activity A scenario that would be easy for me to adapt to would be the class that has 30 students in it and is at the end of the day. As I commented in my group, I would hopefully have taught the lesson more than once previously during the day, so I would have some good examples of what would work and what wouldn't and what areas I could change for a class that is large and has trouble staying on task. I would also not let them pick their own groups if they can't work well together. I would select the groups for them. The scenario that would be the most difficult for me would be if a student does not have access to technology at home. It seems like such a silly thing to have difficulty with but, our society has become so reliant on technology and a lot of what I like to do in my lessons has to do with technology that I would see that as being hard to adjust to. I could modify the lesson or assignment for that student and give them handouts and options for them or ideas of where they can go for access to technology.