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EDU 375: Teaching Elementary
School Social Studies Objectives & Reflections
1. Recognized the scope and
breadth of social studies topics and indentified social studies
concepts in the elementary school curriculum.
In order to attain this
objective, I worked together with three of my collegues to complete a
unit plan about a major time in history of which impacted today.
We chose to the abolition movement. While doing the unit plan, I
thought myself, like I was in a real teacher's shoes. My group and I
tried to create lessons which we thought were both effective and
interesting. We then worked together to see that it followed the New York State Standards.
The lesson I wrote was all about Harriet Beecher Stowe, which is famous
for the writing of Uncle
Tom's Cabin. She wrote this story in protest against the
horrors of slavery.
|| Link to Unit Plan ||
2. Explored multiple
perspectives of social studies topics, address diverse learning needs
of learners, and construct hands-on social studies activities which
support the New York State Social Studies Learning Standards and NCSS
Standards.
In addition to objective one, I feel that the unit plan also helps
fulfill this objective as well. In this unit plan, we created
many different activities to address the many different types of
learners along with the New York State and NCSS Standards. Some
of these activities include doing research on the internet for the
reading and writing learners and songs for the auditory learners.
There are also many visuals used for those of the visual
learners. In the unit plan, we discussed influential people of
the abolition time period such as Harriet Tubman, Harriet Beecher
Stowe, Frederick Douglass, and Abraham Lincoln.
|| Link to Unit Plan ||
3. Explored the strategies of developing an interdisciplinary approach
to social studies instruction.
I feel that we addressed this objective when doing the children's
autobiography lesson. My lesson was on Harriet Beecher Stowe and
her life. I used the artwork on her book to help introduce the
evils of slavery and how the cover of her well-known novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin,
portrayed the blacks against the whites. I also incorporated
reading into my lesson. I think it is very important to address
the many different types of learners in your classroom. It
helps to develop an understanding amongst the entire class, not just
one type of learner.
|| Link to
Children's Book Lesson ||
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