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Instructional Strategy 1: Setting Objectives

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Instructional Strategy 1: Setting Objectives

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The desired result for setting objectives is about as essential as it gets. Students may not need to know the TEK standard or numbers associated with it, but they should have a good understanding about what they should be learning that day. By the time they leave class, they should be able to look up at the Smartboard or whiteboard and be able to self-reflect if those objectives were met throughout the duration of class time they had that day. For example, if I were to state to students at the start of class, “You should be able to identify four Native American tribes that existed in Texas prior to European contact as well as the region of Texas they were mostly found in”, then that should be a pretty clear indicator as to what students should be able to recite prior to the end of the lesson.

It is my understanding that this strategy does not just apply to social studies, but multiple content areas. It is however relevant to me seeing as how this is the content I will be teaching. Objectives are essential to any classroom’s functionality. Without it, a class is run on chaotic ramblings in which the teacher has no clear roadmap and the students have no final destination.

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Instructional Strategy 2: Summarizing and Note Taking

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Instructional Strategy 2: Summarizing and Note Taking

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Results for summarizing and note taking are crucial to student success in the classroom. At face value it may appear out-dated and tedious, but it is a catalyst for student development as it presents itself as a method for students to write down information they see as beneficial and important for context in the lessons moving forward. Summary of information allows students to take a chapter of material read or a powerpoint presentation and essentially break it down to its main focal points instead of having to rewrite the entire book in their journals. I tend to call this “Taking meat off the bones”. It’s not that the meat and bones (whole book) aren't important, but that meat (important information) is required for assessments and collaborations with other students.

This would be most beneficial for students summarizing information before a formative assessment or a comprehensive final. Students could use the notes taken along with some shared notes from a classmate as they completed a skeleton note scaffold. This could help two students who had two different thought processes about what information they deemed as important. If one student had information that the other didn’t and it was able to help on completing the skeleton, then that student can take an opportunity to share why he or she thought it was important to write it down and they can both learn from each other in that instance.

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Instructional Strategy 3: Response Notebooks

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Instructional Strategy 3: Response Notebooks

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This strategy I find to be most useful in a bell ringer or exit ticket context. Having response notebooks allows students to collaborate with both their peers and the teacher. A prompt will be displayed such as, “How was life different in Spanish Texas than it is today?” This can help students with critical thinking skills to remove themselves from a 2024 sphere of thinking and imagine themselves in the thick of a historical situation. It allows for different mindsets to come to fruition when one is not thinking about the conveniences of the modern day era but of the faculties of the past. It can present itself as a challenge at first but can ultimately help that student to bridge some gaps of missing contexts in historical narratives. One instance where I found this to be tried and true was in the entry from Nancy Barile where she touched on the instructional strategy from a teacher she knows to relates lessons to real life events like a G20 summit (Barile, 2018). This allows students to put themselves in the shoes of a political world leader having to make important changes for their nation.

The justification comes from a place to have the students not just learn what happened in history but why certain events happened in history. Since the students will have multiple perspectives on things as well as a different frame of reference, this can help in the collaboration process as students begin to deep dive into their lessons.

Western Governors University. (2020, March 2). The 5 best teaching methods I used this year. https://www.wgu.edu/blog/5-best-teaching-methods-i-used-year1805.html

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Prodigy may not be as appropriate for social studies, but I have still found myself having to use it to help students in an intervention class or a class that assisted in house bill 4545. My students who did not pass STAAR but needed some supplemental assistance would spend some time on programs such as IXL which was another tracking of progress for students, though it covers a multitude of content areas and is not so specific as Prodigy is for math. Still a useful tool to help students who may be not so engaged, but it's animated cartoonish style helps keep a student's attention.

This would mostly be used as supplemental to what a normal everyday lesson would involve in a typical day in my classroom.

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Fishbowl is typically used on review days or on a day when vocabulary is having a heavy emphasis in the class that day. Fishbowl is a classic game in which participants work with partners. Each player writes down a person, place, and thing  on a sliver of paper. They then put their entries into a bucket or bowl of some sort and it is then passed around. Students have one minute to get their partner to guess the term they are trying to describe. Each round has points calculated and rounds are completed by describing and charades. The amendment that I have made to this game is the vocab terms straight from either the curriculum and instruction site or from the textbook. Students then work with their partners to guess the historical terms in this context. Students then use these terms to review and work with each other. I like to use this as my version of “Think, Pair, Share” (Knapen, 2018).

This strategy would probably not be as effective once students pass middle school. Though it could be played at the high school level, they may be ready for higher level thinking assignments than Fishbowl could provide. Grade level from about 3-8 would benefit from this the most.

Knapen, R. (2018, June 15). 20 interactive teaching activities for in the interactive classroom. BookWidgets. https://www.bookwidgets.com/blog/2018/06/20-interactive-teaching-activities-for-in-the-interactive-classroom

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Standard essay entries are also utilized in my class. The desired results for this would be to assist with ELAR skill as well as encourage critical thinking skills. Since students in 7th grade are not tested for STAAR on social studies, the least we could do in my class is help prepare students for their written portions of their tests. There appears to be a heavy emphasis on this skill being honed at this time, so written essays can be beneficial for this area. This can also help with fluency and reasoning (Moyano & Cortés, 2020).

This skill could be implemented as early as 3rd grade through 12th grade. Essays do not go away and the earlier a student learns how to make this skill better it will be for them. Even in their collegiate careers.

Moyano, N., Quílez-Robres, A., & Cortés Pascual, A. (2020). Self-esteem and motivation for learning in academic achievement: The mediating role of reasoning and verbal fluidity. Sustainability, 12(14), 5768. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12145768

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Debates are a healthy alternative assignment that can help in the classroom. Having students defend their opposing point of view can help them see things through different perspectives (Knapen, 2018). The desired result in this instance would not necessarily be to change that student’s mind, but to be able to see the perspectives of others and to ultimately either reinforce their ideas or possibly modify them to some degree being exposed to knowledge they did not know beforehand.

This is mostly appropriate for middle school to high school ages given that the complexity of arguments presented may be too much for lower grade levels. For most grade levels students can tend to have arguments, but to articulate a stance on a particular subject requires a much higher level of maturity among some students.

Knapen, R. (2018, June 15). 20 interactive teaching activities for in the interactive classroom. BookWidgets. https://www.bookwidgets.com/blog/2018/06/20-interactive-teaching-activities-for-in-the-interactive-classroom

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Learning experience 5: Collaborative Learning

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Learning experience 5: Collaborative Learning

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Collaborative learning is a tool utilized in classrooms. The desired result from this type of learning is to encourage students to work together towards a common goal. It can foster a culture towards commonality. It can also encourage students to work together since that seems to be a part of also functioning as a member of society. Teamwork can translate to other content areas they may encounter in school such as athletics. Creating a team atmosphere in collaborative learning will help the students much more than if they were to just work on their own as individuals. This can be crucial to higher level thinking (Cornell University Center for Teaching Innovation, n.d.).

I believe it's appropriate for social studies since even historians can work in a group setting feeding off of each other's ideas to come to a conclusion as to why certain historical events played out the way that they did.

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Learning experience 5: Collaborative Learning

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Lastly, a learning experience that carries much weight that will impact students greatly are field trips. This can create a hands-on perspective for students to make history come alive for them. Being able to visit physical locations where things happened and to stand in places where historical figures stood can really make a student identify with historical narratives more than reading from a book can do.

These can work for virtually any age group in education. Students as young as elementary to high school. More than the traditional assessment in classroom style of doing things, having students get involved in their learning will greatly impact how they perceive certain information if they can actually travel there and see it for themselves.

Prodigy. (2023, June 23). Experiential learning activities for students: The complete guide. https://www.prodigygame.com/main-en/blog/experiential-learning-activities/#fishbowl