My beliefs about teaching social studies is that the teacher should always try to engage the students by having class discussions, recieving opinions about the topic, and keeping the topic lively because to manystudents social studies may seem to be a tedious or boring subject. Students may seem to get lost in thought or not be able to focus for an entire social studies lesson thus proving that the teacher should not lecture the students, but rather create a clever way to approach whatever he or she is trying to portray.
What is social studies?
In my opinion, social studies is the subject which includes history, geography, culture, and how societys survive and try not to repeat mistakes from the past.
How do you feel about SS?
I feel that social studies is an important subject because without knowing mistakes that have been made in history we would not know to not repeat them in the present or future. Also, when people travel i believe having knowledge of geography and culture within other societys will benefit and make the trip more easier for the person, and i also think it is interesting to hear other cultures views on certain topics and the way that they live.
What do you remember from school?
I have had many different experiences when it comes to social studies class and this is because it all depends on the teacher i had. I remember the most benefical year of social studies for me personally was my junior year of high school because this was the year that we took the US history regents. I was overwhelmed with the thought of having to take multiple regents exams that year but because my teacher was able to teach lessons in multiple ways this kept my attention and helped me to do very well on the test. I liked in particular that my teacher would have class disscussions and get students opinions on the topic, have group projects where students would figure out problems and how they would solve it, use cetain videos, and combine a mixture of practice tests and vocabulary too.
How comfortable do you feel teaching SS right now?
I believe that I feel a cetain amount of confidence with teaching social studies right now but it is not 100% confident. I believe i need to brush up on certain topics within geography and history in order to feel ready to teach students.
What are some characteristics of good SS teaching?
I believe characteristics of a good social studies teacher would be to include students in conversations, have debates, make posters, group projects, vocabulary, videos, powerpoints, etc. I believe when a teacher uses multiple ways to teach social studies this will help students to learn as well as memorize the facts and information which they need to know.
– this will be your first SS journal/blog entry.
I loved when you talked about "keeping social studies lively"! That is one thing teachers haven't been really successful with so I hope I can do a good job with that too. It is easier said than done but we have to do our best! :)
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