The Beginning of Social Studies Methods

This month has been an exciting one, filled with lots of learning, new things, and a look into my future as a teacher! One of the learning experiences that I completed this month was the wisdom from experience where we had to interview a K-2 teacher and a 3-5 teacher. I enjoyed both experiences, but I had the opportunity to interview my Kindergarten teacher. She now teaches 1^st grade and it was so great to sit down with her and ask her some things about social studies, as well as catch up and ask her some advice about becoming a teacher in general. It was nice to be able to go back to where I went to school and remember why she was one of the great people that influenced me to become a teacher. She told me that one thing to always keep in mind is to be flexible. Sometimes, lessons won’t go the way we plan and we must change everything. Sometimes, we realize that our class isn’t understanding what we are teaching and we must differentiate and make accommodations. It’s all about being flexible and not stressing when something doesn’t go exactly the way we planned.

I heard someone in our class mention at one point that they have a student in the class that they will be student teaching in that has ADHD and struggles every day. For my outside research, I found an article on Edutopia that listed many strategies that help in positively impacting those students who struggle. Often, they are struggling on the outside, because of what they are dealing with, but they also feel bad because they can’t focus, so they are struggling emotionally and socially as well. This was also one of my TTotW for week 4. I really wanted to find ways to help students in my class that may struggle with ADHD because it is becoming so much more common nowadays.

My learning experiences for this month relate directly to the NCTCS Standard 2: Teachers Establish a Respectful Environment for a Diverse Population of Students and Standard 4: Teachers Facilitate Learning for Their Students. What I learned in my teacher interview relates to standard 4. It’s important to facilitate learning for our students. A part of that is accommodating instruction and changing things if we see the need. The article I found on helping students with ADHD relates to standard 2. A respectful environment where our students feel safe is crucial in a well-functioning classroom. If we see a student that may have a need in our classroom, it is our job, NOT to diagnose them, but to help them in every way we can so that they can learn in the best way possible.

I’ve mentioned a few times in this post about things that I want to use in my future classroom. I want to keep the mindset that the teacher I interviewed has. I want to remain flexible and be ready to make accommodations and differentiate if the need be. I want my future classroom to be comfortable for all my students and learning to take place in whatever way they need it to. For that to take place, I need to stay flexible. Also, I want to take the strategies I learned in the article to help the students I may have that have ADHD. Those are great things to help those students with their learning and allow them to feel important and smart!