Learning How to Teach Social Studies

Today in class we started off by passing around a globe that Dr. Smirnova brought in, when you received the globe you had to tell the class something you learned through reading your article. A lot of students commented on how they learned that when teaching social studies it is really important to use visuals such as maps and images to help students remember the information presented to them.

I struggled at first to think of something to say and then something hit me! One of the first classes back Dr. Smirnova presented us with information that said that students retain information best when it is taught to them by their peers. This idea made me think of my fifth grade project. Each student in the grade was given one of the fifty states, there were probably 55 kids in our grade, so there were a couple repeats. Every student got a state and was to research whatever they could find about it. State capital, state bird, state motto, state food, what people did for jobs there, what the land was like, the weather, anything and everything that you could think of. Students had to make handouts for all of the students in the class and extras for other students in the grade and parents that had certain facts about the state. We also had to create tri fold board and we each would get a table to put certain objects that related to our state on it. One entire day in the year was dedicated to this project, at the end of the year, where the whole grade would come together and listen to each student talk about their state. Some students dressed up as a notable person from their state, or a common worker of their state. Below is a picture of my best friend Alyssa who had the state Rhode Island.



I think this was a great opportunity for the whole grade. It tied in so many aspects of social studies besides just geography. There was history, geography, social aspects, even science when talking about climate and weather, economics when talking about the wealth of the state and the jobs that were available. This project was an awesome way to engage all of us students into listening to our classmates and we learned a lot of facts that stuck with us. It's something I would definitely want to look into doing something like this with my future class.

After we did this activity we broke off into groups and tried to answer geography questions from a card game Dr. Smirnova had. I'm not going to lie, my group had the hardest questions, but I felt so lost! I didn't realize how many different concepts of geography there really were such as oceans, mountain ranges, continents, countries, rivers, and so on. It was interesting to see how much I really didn't know compared to my classmate who knew a lot more than me! It also showed me that games are an interesting and positive way that students may be able to learn better and more effectively.