I am the youngest of three children. My mom began her career in science, specifically studying biology. When my siblings and I were born, she switched her job to work for an insurance company, as it offered better hours. Although I do not know much about my dad’s work, as it is confidential, I do know that he is head of his government department. One set of my grandparents live in South Boston and my other grandma lives in Spotsylvania. I have two older sisters, one who is 27 and the other who is 23. My oldest sister is a first-grade teacher at a title one school in Spotsylvania. My other sister was a neuro-ICU nurse, but recently, switched to a NICU nurse at the UVA hospital. I also have an 18-month year old nephew, who is such a ball of energy and is constantly trying to make people laugh and smile. My family is part German, so we eat a lot of German food. Although we do not see our extended family often, I am able to spend a lot of time with and participate in simple traditions with my immediate family. Each year my family rents a house at the beach, and of course the pets come along too. Recently, due to quarantine, my family has cookouts and game nights three to four times a week. My favorite part of family time is the time I spend with my baby nephew. My family is a huge fan of the outdoors and spends any free time we have outside together. We enjoy various outdoor activities, such as hiking, running, and walks. My sisters and I have participated in several color and mud fun runs. Also, since we have been quarantined, my family has been invested in going on 13-mile bike rides several times a week. Any time we can spend time outdoors together as a family we will. Family is a huge part of my life, but it is not complete without our pets. I have two Australian Shepherd dogs, one is four years old and is named Mazie and the other is one, named Piper. I also have a 12-year-old cat named Jezebel who we adopted from the SPCA. The name Jezebel means a person who causes trouble and she definitely lives up to her name. My last pet is a pink and blue betta fish named Swim Shady. 

I love the atmosphere, community feel, and values instilled in our school. I do not have any dislikes with our school, other than us not being able to attend classes and see our friends on campus due to Covid-19. I am an Interdisciplinary Science Studies major, due to my love for science. I am in the education program, as I love the environment our professors provide us with and the platform they create for us to learn. All of our professors in the education program are so caring and inspire me to become an amazing teacher. My sister and the experiences I have encountered with children have inspired me to become an educator. In my sister’s classroom and various curricular activities, I have had the opportunity to work with a variety of students from different backgrounds. I was able to see the lives of each student and the strong connection and attachment they formed with their teacher, coach, friend, etc. I was inspired to be a teacher to develop strong connections with all of my students, be a role model, watch them grow, and help shape who they become. I hope to become an outlet and support system for all my students, but especially those who come from poor home lives or may not have a parent figure. The only activity I am involved with on campus is playing for the UMW volleyball team. As a freshman, I hoped to join more clubs and activities on campus; however, playing a college sport has been extremely time consuming. My goals for class this semester is to gain more knowledge about our past and our evolving society. I hope to gain strategies and learn various ways to teach my students in a fun and interactive way. 

When I am not at school, I spend my free time playing volleyball, hanging out with my friends, spending time with my family, and working out. I have several different groups of friends: childhood friends, college friends, and teammates. Growing up, I watched my older sisters play volleyball and soccer. When I was ten, I was offered to join practices and team activities. After this experience, I fell in love with volleyball and wanted to play on my own travel team. I am very involved with the children in our community. I coach five to six volleyball camps each summer, as well as assisting middle and high school coaches. This past semester, I coached two travel volleyball teams and a middle school team. Also, I spend a lot of time volunteering in my sister’s classroom. When I have any free time, I love spending time with and forming bonds each year with her first graders. 

After attending one of my practicums, I fell in love with a school in Stafford County. After I graduate, I hope to stay in the area and teach Kindergarten at this school. After gaining more experience in the classroom, I hope to teach college students and inspire them to become teachers as well. Throughout the program at UMW, I have had several teachers who taught elementary school during the day and were adjunct professors at night. Their first-hand experience has encouraged me to teach college students how to become inspirational teachers that will leave their mark in their future classrooms. 

2.    Why do we teach social studies? Social studies is an essential part of schooling in the elementary years, in order for students to become active participants in a democratic society. According to the article, “in a world that demands independent and cooperative problem solving to address complex social, economic, ethical, and personal concerns, core social studies content is as basic for success as reading, writing, and computing. Knowledge, skills, and attitudes are necessary for informed and thoughtful participation in society.” Teaching social studies to students allows them to understand, participate in, and make informed decisions about the world around them. Students gain various skills, such as decision making, problem solving, explanations of the past, and most importantly, it allows students to be knowledgeable citizens. 

3.    How should we teach social studies? How is social studies being taught? Teaching should be meaningful by creating lessons that challenge students to make connections and expand their knowledge in various ways. It should also be integrative. Teachers should allow students to explore social studies across the curriculum. Our teaching should be value based and focused on providing a multitude of opportunities for students to engage in problem solving and decision-making situations. As teachers, it is our job to challenge our students in a variety of forms. Through projects, debates, discussions, and other various skills, students can practice their critical thinking skills. Lastly, as a future teacher, we need to provide and encourage our students to be active participants. As teachers, we should guide learning, not dictate. Teachers should build on student’s interests and foster understanding in the immediate and far away world. In order to provide our students with these things, teachers need proper preparation and professional development, instructional time, resources, and assistance. Social studies is being taught differently among the states. For example, Virginia decided to keep the Standards of Learning and incorporate part of the Common Core Standards into them. Unfortunately, some educators teach students solely through lectures, textbooks, and worksheets. 

4.    What challenges do we face as social studies educators? What factors are working against us? What does any of this matter? As social studies educators, we face challenges, such as time restrictions for teaching the content due to creating more time for math and reading. We also have factors such as federal funding working against us. Also, the world is constantly changing around us; however, we are not adapting our instruction to fit our evolving society. All of these challenges matter because students are lacking basic foundational knowledge needed for future history courses, and more importantly, to be an active participant in society. Teachers need to be informed on how to create a social studies inclusive classroom that instills these important topics into our students to make them more informed citizens.  

5.    What do you hope to get out of this course to address those challenges? I hope to gain a greater foundational knowledge of our history and evolving society, so I am able to appropriately teach my students. By gaining a more complete background, I hope to be able to adapt my instruction to provide my students with various learning experiences from the past, present, and future. I hope to learn ways to provide a well-rounded program with such limited time restrictions. Also, I hope to learn more about and serve a diverse group of learners, in order to expand my understanding needed to teach my future students. With federal funding working against us, I am curious how to incorporate technology into our lessons. Lastly, I hope to learn how to teach age-appropriate strategies, while creating a balance. 

 

Factual: Building Blocks of information; elements that students must know in a discipline to understand concepts or to solve problems; it is the teacher who chooses the facts to support concepts and generalizations.

Conceptual: Name given to the categories formed as a result of classifying factual data; pay attention to likeness; interrelationships among the basic elements within a larger structure that function together.

Procedural: what we know in order to perform the task; methods of inquiry and the criteria for using subject-specific skills that are explicitly taught in classrooms through definition and demonstration.

Metacognitive: ability to analyze, reflect on, and understand their own cognitive and learning processes; focuses on our own learning and thinking.

2.    What is the difference between scope, focus, and sequence?

Scope: Teachers make decisions about the breadth and depth of the content that will be addressed; You can decide what to teach based on: big ideas, skills and knowledge are representative, misconceptions, and engaging

Focus: Question or set of questions.

Sequence: The order of subject matter; usually progresses from simpler to more complex.

3.    What is "chunking"? Collections of lessons that have similar goals leading to broad understandings. 

4.    How do you know a student knows something? Understands something? Able to do something? KUD objectives; Know: content and skills a student must master to complete the unit. Understand: big ideas, they are broad and abstract, students should be able to construct meaning from instruction. Be able to: observable and measurable, involves cognitive, affective, and psychomotor instructional objectives; remember, understand, apply, analyze, evaluate, and create. Must be able to move from one form to another in order to provide quality instruction.

5.    What is the difference between formative and summative assessments?

Formative: information about how students are progressing toward states goals and are typically not evaluated for a grade; provides feedback.

Summative: provides information about student learning that is frequently translated into a grade. 

6.    What are the different ways you can assess social studies? Response groups, experiential exercises, social studies skill builders, visual discovery. Allows student various forms of demonstrating their knowledge through projects and portfolios