Teaching Social Studies and Technology allows teacher candidates to explore and teach social studies through the use of technology inside the classroom. The candidates work in a group of five and collaborate idea's to form a lessons to teach the class. As a group they explore technology based options that will assist in the expansion of their lesson. Collaboratively with my group, I created a direct, inquiry and cooperative lesson plan on Merchants, Markets and Mud in Medieval Times and taught it to a 4th grade class.
During my first experience teaching the class, I taught a direct lesson. This lesson focused on teaching the students about Medieval times, specifically the concepts of Merchants, markets, mud and towns during the Middle ages. The students goal was to learn the relationship between merchants and markets and the importance of mud in medieval times. During our first meeting I instructed the students to draw what they think a Medieval town would look like. To begin our lesson I had the students recall what they drew, and share with the class a little about their drawings. I then asked the students to compare and contrast their work with pictures of medieval times. The students came up with great ideas, this was a great way to introduce the lesson and tie in our icebreaker to the relevance of our lesson. I presented the students with a word cloud I created on Tagul. I asked the students to first point out words they knew, then point out words they recognized, and finally words they didn't recognize. This was a great way to quickly preassess students prior knowledge. The lesson followed the standard, “Key Ideas and Details: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.4.1 Engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grade 4 topics and texts, building on others' ideas and expressing their own clearly.” I began by introducing the students to some common vocabulary words they will be seeing throughout the next few days. To introduce the terms effectively and hold the students attention, I introduced it in the form of pictures. I presented the students with a variety of pictures and asked them to explain to me what the picture is depicting. All the students were very engaged, loved viewing the images and sharing their thoughts.
I assessed the content that the students were learning throughout the lesson. I gave students a handmade sign I created as a tool to check for understanding. There were three signs a green one, meaning I understand or agree, a red one meaning I disagree or I don’t understand and a yellow one, meaning I am unsure or can you repeat the question. I made use of the color green, meaning go, yellow meaning slow down and red, meaning stop, and used the color icons rather than words for the students who need reading accommodations. I developed a slideshow that used minimal amounts of words, instead I used pictures to go along with the topic I was describing to accommodate to those visual learners. I assisted a student during our slide show who is unable to scribe, and a few that needed redirection. These students needed assistance following along, to accommodate their needs my fellow teacher candidates continued teaching the class at a typical speed while I worked independently with the students throughout the direct instruction. After our lesson we played a Medieval Matchup Game, the students were split into five groups containing three to four students each. I displayed the matching boards in the front of the classroom. One board in the front of the classroom displayed all the definitions. Each group of students received two index cards with a vocabulary word on it from the lesson. Each group had time to discuss what the definition was. Then as a group they came up to the definition board, found the right definition and then placed both the vocabulary word and correct definition on the Medieval Match-up boards. Two pairs struggled with one of their vocabulary words, we turned the discussion over to the class and asked them to recall on the pictures we displayed earlier in the lesson. As a class the students were able to conclude on a definition for each word.
Students were given an independent practice called Medieval Trivia. Students were instructed to start it now and finish it at home. This was our evidence that we successfully taught them the necessary content. We concluded our lesson with a post-it note exit ticket. Everyone filled out how they felt about what they just learned. We instructed the students that if they understood the topic very well, they must write down two facts that they learned today. If they felt okay about the topic, they were instructed to write one fact they learned and one question they had. If they were confused they were instructed to write down two questions they still have. On their way our they were instructed to place it on an emoji board. The emoji faces were used to symbolize their feelings about today's lesson. I used emojis rather than words to assist students with reading accommodations.
The following class session we taught an inquiry and a cooperative lesson to the students. We introduced the students to our Voki, Ms. Medieval. The voki presented a problem, she had recently discovered that all the books in the library about medieval times have been ripped up. The students must gather the book piece and figure out what or who it's discussing. The students were asked to help her rewrite these books so a huge piece of history would not be lost forever. To accommodate students with auditory processing disorders or students who are visual or kinesthetic learners we provided the students with a typed letter from Ms. Medieval stating the same things she presented in her recording.
I divided students into groups of three to four forming five different groups. Teacher candidates were stationed at each group and helped facilitate the students through a scavenger hunt. Each group found and identified four clues. They evaluated the clues to form a person, place or thing in medieval times. I supported and monitored the students interactions within my group. I assigned roles to each individual student and allowed all students to review the clues and come to a group decision. After the given time and all groups are finished, I gained students attention towards the front of the classroom.
I expected students to present their finding in front of the class. I explained the behavior expected by presenters and the audience. The student reported their findings about the clues by telling the class what they discovered and what their final outcome was. One person from each group was assigned as the speaker, they were responsible to tell the rest of the class their clues, the conclusion they came to and explain the steps they took to come to the final result. As an independent practice students wrote a letter to Ms. Medieval. In their letters, the student were responsible for telling Ms. Medieval what they discovered on the scavenger hunt. The student were given a rubric and were graded based off thus rubric.
The lesson was based off of an introduction, introducing the topic to the class and giving direct instruction about the topic. The lesson developed through the use of Ms. Medieval when the mystery was introduced. Students were evaluated by their ability to evaluate and collect data based on the inquiry process. Students were given an independent task in order to check for understanding.
Our cooperative lesson the students played the role of a merchant and created their own market. The lesson focuses on the students proving their knowledge of merchants and markets by engaging them in a cooperative group task to create their own market. The students will infer what other students in their class would likely buy, create a market and sell their goods as a merchant during the medieval times. The standard followed in this lesson is, “ CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.4.1 Engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grade 4 topics and texts, building on others' ideas and expressing their own clearly. ” The students were given a poster board, craft supplies, and a task to work in a group of merchants. Student created a poster advertising the goods they’re selling in their market. Students followed the criteria illustrated on the rubric. To prove mastery the students had to receive at least a 3 out of 4 on each section to prove their understanding, each student proved mastery.
I introduced the topic by reviewing the content. I explained to the students that they will be working in their merchant groups to advertise their goods being sold in their market. Teacher candidates joined groups to assist in student collaboration. To monitor cooperative learning I rotated from group to group making sure the students are effectively working together and collaborating. I facilitated individual accountability by explaining that each student has a specific role within their group. I made it known to the students that they each must complete their role effectively and are individually contributing to the success of the group. I fostered positive interdependence by explaining how each role is very important when working together in a group. I explained to the student that each group member will have a specific role and you all depend on each other when working toward the common goal. I also made it clear that the success of the group is dependent on the participation of all group members, that each role is important in order for the group to successfully complete the poster. Group processing was facilitated by having the students work together in their small groups. The students, working together to achieve the same goal, are responsible for their own work and the groups work as a whole. The students reflected on how their groups worked together on their independent practice assignment by answering the question “How did you and your group members work together to complete the poster?” Face-to-face interaction was encouraged by having the students working together and giving each student a role. During the face-to-face interaction the students provided feedback to their peers as well as encouragement and motivation. During this lesson the student developed multiple social skills. One of the social skills was working together and collaborating. Working together and collaboration requires listening, turn taking when speaking and cooperation among all group members. Another social skill the students developed is presentation skills. After creating their advertisement, they presented their poster.
As an independent practice the students deposited money into the market bank they wanted to purchase from. Students were also instructed to write on a ticket identifying their role in their group and how their group worked together to complete the task.
Teaching Social Studies and Technology allows the teacher candidates to explore and teach social studies through the use of technology inside the classroom. As a group I collaboratively worked with the teacher candidates in my group to create and execute two interactive lessons on Medieval Times. The students mastered the goals based on our lessons. We followed the steps of inquiry to form sequentially based lessons that would assist students learning the topics.
I think this was a really important experience. It gives us the opportunity to see what principals are asking and looking for in teacher candidates. It also gives us the opportunity to hear everyone's answer and build on our own answers from that. We had the opportunity to speak about all the different methods of instructions such as direct, inquiry and cooperative and how we would incorporate the lessons into the classroom. 
As a group we discussed how we would incorporate technology into the classroom and what are important aspects of technology. We all had different experiences regarding technology to share. It was great to hear everyone's experience so we could use those techniques in the classroom as well. I think technology is a wonderful tool to use in the classroom. It is a very engaging and key component to the classroom. 
