Reflect upon how concept learning and methods of inquiry are being used to facilitate powerful teaching and learning of social studies in your placement classroom. If you have not seen social studies, comment how you might use these strategies in your own classroom.
I have not seen much inquiry learning in the social studies class so far. They have been talking a lot about maps and learning the compass rose. Today we had an early dismissal so I did not get to see Social Studies. Last week my co-op split the class in half. While she taught half, I worked with the other half on a project and then switched. We built 3D molds of the map of the world out of flour, salt, water, and oil. It was really fun mixing the ingredients with the students and creating these molds. I tried to incorporate inquiry methods into the lesson as I combined the different ingredients asking, "What do you think will happen when I add the water?" "How does it feel now?" "What does this make you think of?" and other questions to spark their interest as we were creating the molds. Social Studies is now going to be a scripted curriculum, just like they have for math and language arts. After my lesson with the students my co-op exclaimed how fun it was to finally do something a little creative! She is frustrated that this freedom may now be taken away. With the scripted lessons I feel that it is hard to build concept learning in the classroom, but it is something that teachers should still try to accomplish!
ReplyDeleteI have not seen any social studies yet. I wasn't sure why I hadn't seen any social studies and only science and then I found out that the three fourth grade teachers rotate every day and my teacher only teaches Science. I was going to go to social studies today but the students were only taking a test and my teacher had me doing something else. When it comes to inquiry, I have seen a little. Although the students are not provided a lot of freedom in science to do experiments on their own, they are allowed to make assumptions and as a class they can test these assumptions. Right now we are working with Daphnia or water flees, and the students placed five Daphnia in one vial of water and were asked to predict what would happen. Everyone guessed that the Daphnia would populate!
ReplyDeleteI have not seen any social studies in my classroom; only science, english, and math. In science, students are required to follow exact directions and are not given much space to explore their own questions. In my classroom, this will be very different. I will allow students to ask their own questions, and together as a group we will explore them and even try to find an answer to questions that we can. Science is still very scripted, along with the other subjects. I want to find a way to allow my students to be creatvie and explore their own ideas. There has to be a way to do this and still stick to the "scripted lessons". I hope as the weeks go on I will learn more and figure out how to do this in my own classroom.
ReplyDeleteIn the social studies lessons I have seen and the other subject lessons I have seen, my teacher always asks questions and have the students ask questions. Especially today I saw a lot of questions in the room because my teacher recently taught text implicit and explicit questions so they were foiund all day long. Today in Social Studies the students learned about the importance of buffalo and tepees to the Native Americans and were full of questions and the teach answered them to the best of her ability or said they could look in their books or that they will have to research the question. I remember last time the students were talking about irrigation systems and could have talked for hours if allowed. The students always have so many questions and they can be really thought out sometimes. Mrs. Miller does a great job encouraging thoughful questions and inquiry in the classroom.
ReplyDeleteBecause I have only seen minimal social studies in my classroom, I unfortunately haven’t been able to see how inquiry is incorporated with the subject. Homeroom teachers at my school focus primarily on language arts and math, with science as a special area subject. The inquiry I have seen has been limited so far due to the requirements of electronic standardized testing and diagnostic testing. When my students read Bud, Not Buddy, however, students are encouraged to ask questions, seek answers, and relate learning back to their own lives. All of the children are very engaged during these lessons, and they all seem to enjoy reading this story out loud!
ReplyDeleteIn my own classroom, I’d love to promote inquiry in social studies, as well as other academic areas. I would love to inspire curiosity in my students by introducing unique information about foreign cultures. I want to stray from teaching stereotypical forms of cultures, and instead allow children determine what interests them, and formulate their own questions to help guide their learning and (depending on the grade level) individual research.
Today our class had a guest speaker (a friend of my coop) who spoke about his trip you Ghana. My coop had prepared a powerpoint of pictures his friend had taken on his most recent two week trip to Ghana. His friend is a retired doctor who goes to Ghana and India each year to give free medical treatment to the people there. The students in my class were allowed to ask him questions about anything related to Ghana. This sparked an interesting conversation about the meaning of the colors in flags. The students of coarse also asked how the people of Ghana say certain words. During centers, if a student finished the assigned work at the writing center, he/she could look up information about Ghana online.
ReplyDeleteThroughout all subjects my coop makes frequent use of questioning, which I think is important to help with student engagement.
During social studies, the students are not really encouraged to ask questions. They usually just read out of the textbook and then do some sort of activity. They have been studying different types of communities and so far, all I have seen is them reading out of the book and talking about what they read. The only time I saw any questions being asked during social studies was when Mrs. Curtin asked them questions about the characteristics of the different types of communities so they could write them on the board. I think if I were teaching I would try to incorporate some sort of inquiry into every subject.
ReplyDeleteIn my field placement, I have not observed many lessons on Social Studies. Today, the lesson focused on the story “Curious George at School.” This focused on how important the sequences of events are. During this lesson, the students read the story and were asked comprehension questions such as “What happens when George sees the paints?” The teacher also asked about the main idea on the last page. The answer was that the people in the story are pals and are helping to clean up the mess. This shows that we should treat each other with respect and as citizens.
ReplyDeleteI feel that my placement focuses a lot on comprehension questions from stories in order for them to understand the lesson. I also taught a Social Studies lesson today on anger. Students were asked about the definition of the words anger, conflict, and resolve. They also discussed different kinds of feelings. The students and I read the book “When Sophie Gets Angry-Really, Really Angry.” The students were asked comprehension questions such as “What was Sophie really about?” I also asked “Why is it important that Sophie gets along with her sister?” This allowed students to realize that they are part of the same family. The other questions focused on if the students were ever angry about something. In order for students to understand conflicts, two students read strips of paper discussing a conflict and they resolved it with the other students’ help. Afterwards, students wrote on a paper about why they were mad and how they resolved it. They drew two pictures to describe it.
I think having these kinds of questions allows students to connect it to their own lives. They are able to understand it. I have not seen methods of inquiry pertaining to Science because I have not seen Science taught in my field placement. I agree with Allison that concept learning is very difficult in the classroom because my field placement focuses a lot on integration with Social Studies. In my own classroom, I feel that I would have a lot of hands on learning during Science experiments. Students would observe animals such as worms and ask questions about them. Students could notice how it moves, its color, how it feels, what it does, and if it grows. They could also notice what happens if an earth worm is placed in water and see if it dissolves. This will make them critical thinkers and observers.
This week was the first week for the new unit on space for science. Since the unit is based on science, I did not see any social studies this week. But, from my past visits when the students were learning all about war and identifying countries I observed great examples of methods of inquiry being used throughout the unit.
ReplyDeleteWith my co-op only having Big Books and worksheets to teach the different units in social studies she has to move beyond the books and worksheets and do activities, in which the extra activities help children to make connections to the world beyond the classroom. On the first unit on war, she related one of the activities to a real world issue that is taken place currently in the students’ lives. The students had to write letters to the soldiers in Iraq, which made them, reflect and understand the war, as well as how it might be like to be a soldier. Getting children to reflect about real life issues, especially ones that are occurring in their lives, allows for them to examine and question things that are relevant to them. When talking about the War in Iraq, my co-op used several great inquiry questions to get children interested in the unit. A few of the questions she asked included, “How do think the soldiers feel being so far from their families and friends?”, “What do you think being a soldier is like?”, and “How long do you think the war is going to last?”.
Incorporating methods of inquiry in social studies allows for children to solve problems and learn important question strategies to make them prepared to be better citizens, which is one of the goals of social studies. Relating activities and lessons to real world issues and problems is also a great made to build inquiry in the classroom. Children are more likely to be interested and question things that are relevant to their lives. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to see a lot of concept learning taking place during social studies. Hopefully during the next unit I will get to see concept learning, as well as a lot more great examples of inquiry being used in social studies. Overall, I had a great week at fieldwork, and was able to teach five subject areas this week.
The only type of social studies I have seen in my placement was today, when I was grading a test that the student had taken the other day. The test had one section on looking at a map and answering questions. This did not involve much inquiry though because the questions were multiple choice. In language art and mathematics students are always engaged in an activity. Throughout out the day, my co-op is always asking students questions that are usually open-ended questions. When students are reading their fluency books to my co-op or me, we will ask questions that go beyond just what is strictly written in the text requiring students to make connections. Student are never really forming their own questions and investigating to find answers though. When I am at placement when students have science, I want to observe science to see if inquiry is taking place or if it is very scripted like others in placement described. If I was also teaching 2nd grade, I would try to integrate social studies into other subjects. I want to promote student inquiry by students reading social studies books on communities, where we live, or other countries people live to students so that they have some type of base knowledge. From there, we could be creative and students can come up with ways to improve their community or something similar. I want to promote inquiry in all subject areas because I think it is an important part of the learning process and most of the time it makes learn more fun.
ReplyDeleteI did not see any social studies this week but I know in my classroom concept learning would be a high priority. We learned that in order for the students to remember the material long-term, they need to feel connected to the information. It needs to be meaningful to them. The concepts should be interesting and activities should be relevant to the material and the students' lives. The students should not just be taught facts such as names, dates, and times. This is purely memorization and the students will never remember. The concepts should be more broad and the overall idea of the material.
ReplyDeleteIn the classroom, with topics such as child labor in factories, new inventions, wars, etc. the students can reflect on how they would have felt living in that time. They can see how much their lives today have been changed by history and how their daily lives would have been back in time. This would force children to compare and contrast their lives and the effects. Another way to incorporate inquiry and concept learning is to have student reenact events in history. They could reenact wars, slavery, etc. Some students would have to be on the losing side and they would see how it feels like for that group of people and realize that everyone's lives were affected. As a teacher, I think it would be fun and interesting for students to dress up as different cultures as we learn about them. This is a great first hand account for students to see how life was like for each civilization. Getting the students involved will make them remember the information rather than giving just facts to them.
Today in Mrs Rights class I got to see an awesome Social Studies lesson where the children learned and explored different living areas: urban, suburban, and rural. My co-op began the lesson by asking the students to turn and talk about the word "population". This allowed students to develop and share they own meaning of the word by applying it to their previous knowledge.
ReplyDeleteMrs. Rights then made this word even more relatable by having a student research the population of their own community as well as Lebanon County. This allowed students to see the word "population" in relation to their everyday lives.
Throughout the lesson she also had the student reference their unit vocabulary cards, illustrations in their textbooks, as well as, words in the textbook to develop their questions and understanding about the particular topic. The students were even instructed to make predictions based off the illustrations of the book prior to reading the text. While the student were reading the textbook(as a class), Mrs Rights was sure to stop and give "deep-thinking" questions to the students. Questions such as "Why wouldn't you live in the city", "What kind of area is Lebanon considered", "What does a city have that a suburban or rural area does not?". These questions allowed students to apply the information from the textbook to their own thoughts. These questions required students to reflect and think beyond one right or wrong answer. Like Sierra said it is important for students to learn question strategies in order to become better citizens, and this lesson demonstrated this fact.
In addition, my co-op instructed the students to visualize in their own minds the difference between urban, suburban, and rural areas.
The final activity for this lesson revolved around students working in partners to complete worksheet about urban, suburban, and rural areas. I really liked the worksheet though because it was very open-ended; it allowed students to develop their own ideas of what makes each of the three areas unique, different, and similar. This worksheet focused more on the main ideas then it did having the students memorize the characteristics of each area.
I feel very lucky to have witnessed such as an inquiry based Social Studies lesson.
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ReplyDeleteIn my classroom I see a lot of concept learning. My coop is awesome and really tries to get the students engaged in every activity. The students have many opportunities throughout the day to voice their opinions on various things and also use inquiry. I have yet to see a very in depth social studies lesson since we are focusing more on our phone number and address, but I have seen concept learning in other areas.
ReplyDeleteI feel it is essential to incorporate concept learning and inquiry into the classroom because if the students do not feel connected to the information they are being given, they will not be able to use it in application. It will just be facts that they memorize.
It was the first time that I got to see social studies in the classroom. All I saw today was the introduction of a research project on the different tribes in different regions. She explained what they were to do and sent them on their way to research using books or the computers. Usually, she does her best to engage the students to ask questions and have their peers answer them. In all of the other subjects she usually uses inquiry. Also, Mrs. R has to come up with her own lessons for social studies. However, I am happy to see that she does teach it and does not integrate it with another subject. First thing in the morning every other two weeks, she has social studies from 8:50 to 9:20. Hopefully I will see more about how she teaches social studies next time.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Jenna, incorporating concept learning and methods of inquiry is very important for students to connect to information. Those who can connect to a part of a lesson are the students who walk away learning something, and that is important. They can relate to information and will more likely remember something that they can connect too rather than memorizing facts.
Unfortunately, I have only gotten to see 2 social studies lessons in my 2nd grade placement. The one lesson focused on vocabulary and she used content cards. Each card had a picture and the word as well as a description of it on the back. I feel these cards were a very useful tool because they allowed students to bring the cards home to go over with their parents and reinforce the concepts they learned at school. Plus, these cards are geared toward all learners because of the picture-word correspondence which adds a visual aspect which is helpful especially for ELL and special needs students. My placement teacher also made the lessons relatable to the students so they could make connections to the concepts. For example, when they were going over the vocab words she asked them for examples of cities or rural areas or suburbs. She made students recall on previous experiences and share about some of these places they have visited. Students’ responses were very insightful and you could tell they understood the main concepts of the lesson.
ReplyDeleteAlthough, I have only gotten to see 2 lessons they were embedded with good concept learning. My placement teacher kept the students engaged and excited about the subject. She used lots of gestures and hand motions as well as partner sharing. However, there was not as much inquiry. One lesson, she did a KWL chart and had students generate questions about their town of Lititz. I think that maybe she could have promoted more inquiry experiences throughout these lessons. For example, she could have allowed students the opportunity to locate places in Lititz on their own or utilize the class set of laptops they have to research different cities or places. All in all, I think it is very important to make concepts relatable in order for students to make connections to their everyday life and foster powerful learning.
During social studies in my field placement, my co-op poses questions before he reads the story to the students. They were reading about Paul Bunyan and why he was important. Because the students already read the story earlier in the week, my co-op asked about Bunyan's life, and what he looked like, etc. The topic of city vs country was discussed later in the day using a book also. Again, my co-op asked the class for characteristics of both that were mentioned in the book. He also asked them to say if they thought the school (Milton Hershey) was in the country or the city. They had to use the characteristics of the story to draw conclusions about where their school is. Some students went as far as saying my home is in the city or the country. Being in a Kindergarten room doesn't cater to much inquiry learning, but he does pose questions and he asks his students to think about the material and use it to make opinions or conclusions, but also does a wonderful job relating the topics back to the students' lives.
ReplyDeleteI have not yet seen social studies in my placement because my class is currently on a science cycle. However, there are many ways I plan to incorporate concept learning and inquiry in my classroom. One of the main ways I plan to do this is by allowing my students to discover the concepts on their own through group work and activities. Similar to how our class learned about ancient civilizations, I will have my students discover topics on their own, formulate their own topics/opinions, and find out what interests them. I can also create activities that get the students involved while learning such as plays, skits, and things of that nature. Students can even write their own plays collaboratively and perform them for the class. I feel that students will learn the most if they are actively involved in learning social studies and have hands on experiences to reinforce the concepts.
ReplyDeleteI have not seen social studies in this classroom yet, but as far as inquiry goes the one thing I have seen a lot of is questions. By this I do not mean just the teacher asking questions to the students, but Mrs. Potter directs the students so that they ask her intelligent questions as well. She does not make them feel uncomfortable at all if they have a question to ask. Another thing that I think can be related to inquiry is that Mrs. Potter tries her best to relate everything to something this is relevant to that age group or something in their lives. This really makes the students pay attention more and even though she is sometimes relating it to something that has nothing to do with the content knowledge it still hooks them so that they are interested to know what is coming next. I hope I can do that in my classroom someday as well.
ReplyDeleteI have seen multiple social studies lessons however have not seen much inquiry learning. The substitute asks a lot of comprehension questions but they are scripted from the book. The questions are usually pretty basic asking for definitions or simple answers. I have also not seen much concept learning due to having a substitute. I know that she is not implementing the lesson plans as fully as the teacher would.
ReplyDeleteI feel that inquiry learning is an important strategy in any content area and I would try my best to incorporate it as much as possible. I think that higher levels of thinking by proper use of questioning and engaging the students is important to student success.
Throught the entire day, for every subject, my co-op does a great job incorporating both concept learning and inquiry. I have only been able to see two social studies lessons so far, but with both of these lessons my co-op did a good job with both inquiry and concept learning. In my placement the second graders are learning about the 13 colonies, native americans, early settlers, expiditions, etc. The first lesson I was able to see my co-op discussed the simple understanding of history with the students; what is it and how do we learn about it. Together with the students she made a web listing all the ways they could learn about history; overall, about their ancestors, about our contry, and even about their town. She did a very good job at assessing the topic at all different levels, asking them also of personal experiences of how they learn about history (trips, relatives, etc.).
ReplyDeleteInquiry on the other hand is something my co-op does alot of. She is continuously asking the students questions, placing them in the time they are talking about (If you were moving to the new world what kind of things would you take with you? What would you have to do before you left to go to the new world?)
Both concept learning and the use of inquiry are two things which I willdeffinitely akeing a point of incorporating into my classroom in the future!
Concept learning is important because it makes the connection of all units possible and easier. Understanding the relationship of concepts will naturally provide the sense of time and the order of global events. I think the inquiry of students needs to be utilized. Young children are full of questions and curiosity and with some guidance, students can find the answers to their own questions. I don't think inquiry can be taught, we need to help steer students in the right direction and let them explore on their own. I think an early fostering of these skills can lead to some very advanced students later in their school career.
ReplyDeleteI have not seen any social studies in my placement yet. I do see science, though, and the level of inquiry is not very high. The experiments and worsksheets that they do are very teacher centered, and I think that because they only have a small amount of time to cover a prescribed set of material, direct instruction takes precedence over developing students' inquiry skills.
ReplyDeleteI think that in all subjects, the process of inquiry should drive instruction. Meaningful learning in a classroom happens when students' natural curiousity and interest in the subject matter become the driving force. Knowledge should be built through exploration and experience of concepts and through problem solving and deep critical thinking.