week+1

Please read the power point carefully and answer the questions in the last slide: here is Michigan state's standards for teaching sociology:



Assignment 1: you can post your assignment for the first week in the following table:

I think that good social studies instruction involves a multi disciplinary approach to each topic. For example, if you are teaching history, you should also be able to tie in economics, political science and geography into your lessons. Showing students that each social studies subject interconnects helps to give the students a more complex understanding of the world around them. One of MSU’s social studies enduring understandings is that teaching social studies is interdisciplinary. I think that a curriculum that reflects that by incorporating multiple disciplines, would aid tremendously in good social studies instruction. An example of good social studies instruction came in my AP US history class in high school. My teacher asked us to critically think about the subject by drawing on primary sources, and examining topics through multiple lenses of multiple social studies subjects. I came away from that class not only with a better understanding of history and how other social studies topics interact with each other, but also critical thinking skills I use often at MSU. Bad teaching instruction is teaching social studies without thinking about how subjects interrelate, does not address current events and how to think about them, and does not address the characteristics of being a good citizen. An example of bad instruction came in my AP government class in high school. This class did not cover any current events, or discuss the aspects of citizenship. It seemed like the only topic of concern for the teacher was getting through the book. We were not called on to critically think about anything. I came away from that class learning nothing new, and nothing more than I had learned in my first government class in high school. Teaching in my classroom will hopefully reflect more of the good social studies teaching instruction. I want to tie aspects of geography and political science into my history lessons. Tied in with what NCSS and MSU defines as the goal of social studies teaching, I will also teach my students how to be good citizens by teaching in various ways how government and citizenship work, and how to interpret current events based on what they learned in my classroom. I also want to teach my students to think critically about what is being presented to them. Being able to critically judge things will aide my students in becoming life long learners and conscious citizens. MSU has taught me that teaching is a learning profession. I will continue to learn not only from my own studies, but also from my students, who each bring unique experiences and cultures into my classroom. As a teacher, I want to value my students for those different experiences that they bring with them. || Good social studies instruction is very diverse and incorporates people’s personal lives into the lesson. History classes should include the history of people from all backgrounds. I have been in many classrooms where the history that I learned was that of White America and a small lesson on Black history in February, and never learning much about any other races. The best way that many people learn social studies is if they can relate it to their own lives. This is very helpful in classes like sociology and psychology, the more the students can relate the better they are able to learn the material. Social studies classes should also have accurate information that is not offensive to others. For instance, teaching that Christopher Columbus “discovered” America is very offensive to Native Americans and should not be taught. I was also in classroom where the slave trade was only taught as this magnificent triangular trade but did not focus on the hardships of slavery and I found it to be very offensive. My classroom would be very diverse and very engaging. I would make sure that even if my classroom is predominately one race, we will still learn about all races and ethnic backgrounds and their history. I would ask students to share different aspects of their culture and focus on the multiculturalism of the classroom. My classroom would also be very open to people opinions and stories. I would have a very open and multicultural classroom. ||
 * Name of student || assignment 1 ||
 * Kailey Crowe || We teach social studies in order to create effective citizens in our democracy. Teaching social studies puts us in a position to communicate the characteristics of effective citizens to our students. The NCSS believes that teaching social studies is essential to maintain our democracy. I think that this is one of the purposes of social studies. So many issues going on in our society today require at least a basic knowledge of social studies and critical thinking skills in order to understand them. It is our jobs as educators in the field of social studies to provide students with the information necessary to be able to navigate through issues important to our society today.
 * Alexandria Sullens || There are many reasons why we teach social studies. The main reason is to keep people connected through our history and also through current events. Without social studies, we would have no idea of the world before us. It is the responsibility of the schools to ensure that students are informed of not only our history but also everyone else’s history. Without social studies we would have no concept of economics. Not everyone will want to major in economics but everyone needs to know how to appropriately budget, save, and invest their money. Not everyone wants to be a sociologist or a psychologist, but it is important that we know the basics of how and why we interact with each other and why and how we act the ways we do. It is also important that as citizens we know how our government works. It would be ignorant of a person to live in a society and have no concept of how the government works and what the laws are.
 * Jon Budihas || We teach social studies for a few reasons. First, foremost, and most importantly we teach social studies in an effort to create effective citizens in our democracy. This means that we must teach our students about a number of topics. Social studies is not just history. It is not just geography, government, civics, etc. Social studies is all of these topics together, intertwined so that our students are able to see how they relate to one another. While math and science are important, they are not necessarily vital to develop in order to become an effective citizen. The social studies are. One of the main complaints about the American public from abroad is that we are ignorant. Better teaching in subjects like history and government can help change that. By better teaching our students how this country operates, we more easily enable them to participate within it. The goal is not simply to create a group of more informed voters for example, but to create a group of better prepared and more responsible citizens by emphasizing skills such as writing, money management social participation; to name a few.

Good social studies instruction is many things. First of all, it is meaningful. It needs to build more than knowledge; it needs to build skills. This means that simply having students read out of the textbook and answer questions isn’t enough. While that is a skill, teaching students things like deductive reasoning and how to connect subjects is much more important. Next, good instruction is integrative. This means that as a social studies teacher, we need to not only be able to teach our own subject, but also be able to integrate and connect it with others that may reflect on it. Social studies instruction must also be value based. This means that as teachers, we must realize that students will not become responsible citizens on their own. We need to teach them values like justice and equality. And finally, good social studies instruction must also be challenging and active. You mustn’t let your students become complacent. As a teacher, we need to challenge our students and allow them to participate in different types of learning. One day, we may do textbook reading; the next, we may work on a project. Differentiation is key when it comes to instruction, especially in the social studies.

I am still myself wondering what social studies instruction will look like in my own classroom. However, there is one certainty; instruction in my classroom will be differentiated. I look forward to doing some lectures, as I believe that it is a very effective form of learning. However, I realize that not everyone learns in this way. As a result, I will undoubtedly involve some different types of instruction. These things could include class discussion/debate, quiz bowls, etc. My assessment will also be differentiated. Like all teachers, I will use paper tests. These tests could be multiple choice, short answer, essay or a combination. Aside from tests I look forward to using different types of projects, including scrapbooks, pseudo news reports and others. I still have a lot of learning to do when it comes to effective teaching. However, I do believe that I am getting closer. || The purpose as to why we teach it and what the purpose of teaching it I think is are very closely related. That is to making students effective citizens in a democratic society. One purpose is not only to teach it to the students but to show their parents and the community why it is important for students to become effective citizens. Some people even think that education towards citizenship has taken a backseat in the education world in the past twenty years perhaps. It is very important to have social studies so that people will be strong and excited about contributing to a challenging democratic society. I think that there are many good ways to teach social studies. As we progress throughout our internship year we will hopefully find what our comfort zone is for how we teach our students specific subjects in the classroom. Although I believe that there are many good ways to teach social studies I think that there are basic guidelines to follow when doing so. First, it is always a good idea to look at state standards so that as a teacher you are following the expectations of what the citizens of your state want, or you would be contradicting the whole purpose of a social studies purpose of effective citizens. Secondly, the way teachers make and deliver lessons is important also. It is important that we have a well developed lesson and knowledge for the content that we are going to be teaching. It is also not fair to ignore or avoid content that our students want to learn, but teachers are either not interested or have little knowledge in that particular topic. It is also important when teaching any social studies class that you are integrating all social studies classes when teaching them. Focusing on that one particular subject could leave the bigger picture out for students, making it harder for them to understand, and also doing them an injustice by not giving all of the information on the topic. Also, making assignments that are attention grabbing, perhaps a topic that is locally related to the students is very important. Making the students be active and challenging them is another huge factor when teaching social studies. I think that the only bad ways of teaching social studies is when a teacher is impressing too much of their opinion into a lesson and is hindering a class from making their own judgments on the issue presented to them. One other large annoyance that occurs to me is when teachers teach straight from the book giving the students only one perspective coming from that text. It is important that students are learning both sides of issues and are making decisions off of the knowledge that they have. Hopefully that will get them engaged if a topic catches their attention, making them more effective citizens. ||
 * David Boling || I can think of many reasons as to why we teach social studies. It is a study that has many interesting and constantly changing subjects within it. According to the NCSS their “goal is to create awareness of the fact that social studies teaches students to be effective citizens.” I totally agree with this because like that same article mentioned we have to be in all corners of the world monitoring what is going on so that we are able to inform our students of different events going on in the world and be able to related them in some way to our lives, and other places around the world.