Buckle Up, It's Time For Social Studies Methods!

After a wonderful winter break, I am back at The Mount for the Spring Semester.  I have a lot of great education courses that I am in, and I am excited to begin tackling them! One of the education classes that I am taking is Social Studies Methods with Dr. Smirnova, which is my final methods course. Saying that is actually pretty scary!  Time goes by so fast!

The first day of Social Studies Methods, I was more prepared and I knew what to expect when I walked through the door of this course since I just had Science Methods last semester.  However, our first task was much different this semester. Dr. Smirnova had us close our eyes and fall into one of our past social studies classes in school.  For me, I landed in my 10th grade Honors Global class with Mrs. McKenna.  I found myself there because it is a class where I remember the enthusiasm, knowledge, and high energy that Mrs. McKenna always embodied. I was very fortunate to be able to take a class with her before she retired the next year! She made learning about history fun and engaging. She was great at taking us back in time to the period she would be teaching us about.

Dr. Smirnova had us complete this activity so that we could envision what made history so great for us in school so that we could take on those same qualities when we teach our students in fieldwork.  Everyone in class had very similar characteristics and skills that they shared about their teachers which shows that is what makes a great history teacher.

I enjoyed travelling back in time with Dr. Smirnova and my peers during this activity.  Now, as the course goes on, I am grateful to have the opportunity to take our fieldwork students time travelling into the past as well!

I can definitely say that compared to the beginning of last semester, I am much more prepared to work with technology, plan for fieldwork, and complete the assignments of this rigorous course.  Now, it is time to hit the ground running and begin to prepare for fieldwork since I am a part of group 1! I am very excited to teach Social Studies to our students in fieldwork this semester because in school, History was one of my favorite subjects, which is why I am a History major now. I am ready to take on this semester of Social Studies Methods, and  I am ready to learn about more tools and resources to use in my future classroom to become even more of a digital educator.