The Final Post

This will be my final post on this blog, as my SSED 307 class is coming to a close. Throughout this class, I have learned so much and I have learned what it truly means to be a meaningful, purposeful, and powerful social studies teacher- which has been the purpose of this blog. As my final post, I want to sum up everything that I have learned this semester and take a look at the many teaching techniques and styles explored throughout this class, highlighting some of the key points.

At the beginning of the semester, we learned the five strands of social studies- history, geography and environmental literacy, civics and government, economics, and culture. As future teachers, we must teach all five of these strands. Then, we discussed how social studies is viewed in the public school system today and this was very shocking to all of us. We learned that schools do not focus on social studies as much or make time for social studies because it is not a tested subject. Even though reading and mathematics dominate the school system because they are tested subjects, social studies is still just as important to teach. We learned that social studies is an essential subject to teach because it prepares students to be active, engaged, and participating citizens of the 21st century.

For the first two weeks of class, we learned about a new way of teaching social studies that we, as a class, had never heard of before. Our professor told us that we had to unlearn the way we were taught social studies in the past, this being a memorization of facts, and relearn this new way of teaching social studies, this being concept-based instruction. Concept-based instruction focuses on the teaching of universal, timeless, abstract, and broad concepts. Concept-based instruction has much more benefit for the students as students are able to learn concepts that can be applied to anything and relate to their lives, versus memorizing facts that they will soon forget. We also learned the building blocks of CBI: facts, topics, concepts, and generalizations.

Over the course of the next few weeks, we broke down concept-based instruction and what it means to teach these concepts in the desire of becoming meaningful, purposeful, and powerful social studies teachers. We learned about generalizations, performance tasks, learning experiences, and guiding questions. Generalizations are sentences that incorporate and relate two or more concepts, and are sentences that the students should be able to understand and possibly derive themselves. Performance tasks are the summative assessments that sum up everything learned in the unit. These performance tasks need to be created before the learning experiences as the learning experiences need to reflect the performance tasks in order to ensure valid assessment. Learning experiences are formative assessments usually that are activities designed to prepare students for the performance tasks. Finally, guiding questions are questions created that you want your students to be able to answer and understand, reflecting your generalizations. These questions can be factual but also need to be conceptual and provocative. Provocative questions result in the highest level of thinking.

During this class, we also learned about the importance of technology integration in the classroom and tools to incorporate this technology. We learned about the SAMR model and TPACK model. The SAMR model shows the different levels of technology integration in the classroom and stands for: Substitution, Augmentation, Modification, and Redefinition. Substitution and augmentation just use technology to support learning, but modification and redefinition transform learning and alter the original task (where true, deep learning takes place). TPACK is a model designed to show what should be implemented in the classroom and stands for: technological, pedagogical, content knowledge. Al three of these things need to be used equally and a successful and intentional teacher should master all three aspects.

Other techniques and areas that we focused on included literacy in the 21st century, the flipped-classroom model, assessment of and for learning, and the NCPTS and their importance. We learned that literacy did not just mean reading and writing but includes environmental, economical, digital etc. The flipped classroom method was a teaching method that we used and describes the flip of a classroom from teaching the content at home and doing the homework in class. We explored the many benefits of the flipped method and got our flipped classroom certification. Assessment of learning describes summative responses (after learning) and assessment for learning describes formative assessments (during learning).  As a class, we examined every NCPTS and understood what was required of teachers to master proficiency in every category.

As I have reflected and debriefed on some of the main techniques, topics, skills, and styles that we have learned this semester, I realize just how far I have actually come and how much I have actually learned in this class. All the things mentioned above all describe and define what it means to be a meaningful, purposeful, and powerful social studies instructor. After this class, I feel like I can be this effective and impactful social studies teacher, and it has been great to be able to share what I have learned in this class with the rest of the world through my blog. I have truly enjoyed this class and have found it so important and essential to my teaching journey. Thank you for reading this blog, and I hope you have learned things as well through the sharing of my posts. Goodbye.

I leave you with a summary of what it means to be a meaningful, purposeful, and powerful social studies instructor, according to NCSS: http://www.socialstudies.org/positions/powerfulandpurposeful

The Importance of NCPTS Standard 1c

In my last blog post, I wrote about what the NCPTS are, why they are important, and why they should be so essential to teachers and future teachers. This week, I want to look specifically at standard 1c: "Teachers lead the teaching profession." I want to expound on this standard and relate it to some of the important knowledge I gained this week from the Section Chief for K-12 Social Studies at the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, Fay Gore.

On Tuesday, my classmates and I had the privilege to speak with Ms. Gore via video chat and ask her deep, challenging questions with a response of profound and enlightening answers. She truly took the time to talk to us and to give us great and helpful advice and thoughts that we can carry with us as we continue on the journey of becoming teachers. One thing from the video talk that really stuck out to me was her mention of the NCSS (National Council for the Social Studies), correlating with the C3 framework that she had a part in creating. I had heard of the NCSS but I did not know what exactly this council stood for, its goals, and why it matters to me as a future teacher. After this talk, I researched the NCSS and its contribution to the C3 framework to further my understanding of what it means for teachers to lead in the teaching profession.

What is the NCSS? According to their website, their goal for Social Studies educators is: "...to teach students the content knowledge, intellectual skills, and civic values necessary for fulfilling the duties of citizenship in a participatory democracy." The key to this statement is teaching students the "duties of citizenship," which is why we have social studies in the first place and is why it is so important to teach social studies in the schools. The NCSS defines Social Studies as: "the integrated study of the social sciences and humanities to promote civic competence." In this definition, Social Studies promotes civic competence which is necessary for those living in the 21st century. NCSS encourages educators to truly teach Social Studies and properly fulfill the duty of promoting civic competence.

Fay Gore served as the Co-chair of the editorial committee for the C3 Framework. The C3 Framework was published by the NCSS in 2013. Before speaking with Ms. Gore, I did not really know what the C3 Framework was and why it was important to Social Studies. The C3 Framework stands for: "College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies State Standards: Guidance for Enhancing the Rigor of K-12 Civics, Economics, Geography, and History." The C3 Framework was created for states to upgrade their social studies standards and for practitioners to strengthen their social studies programs. The goals of the C3 Framework are found on the NCSS page link. Basically, the C3 Framework is designed to prepare students for college, career, and civic life.

Understanding what the NCSS is and how it relates to the C3 Framework is important for educators and is important to the NCPTS standard 1c "Teachers lead in the teaching profession." Teachers have the opportunity to join NCSS and get involved, speak out about standards revision, and advocate for better teaching conditions. A teacher's job does not just mean teaching in the classroom every day for a designated period of time, it is so much more than that, as it requires teachers to lead in the school and teaching profession. As a future teacher, I want to get involved now in researching different ways to get involved in the teaching profession  and participate in opportunities when I am a teacher to lead in the profession. It is never too early to start.

NCPTS and their Importance

In the pursuit and goal of this blog being to analyze what it means to be a "meaningful, powerful, and purposeful" social studies teacher, I want to examine the actual guidelines for developing into this type of effective teacher in my blog post this week. The North Carolina State Board of Education has developed a set of six teaching standards that all teachers should adhere to and follow in order to become proficient or accomplished teachers in the 21st century. These standards reflect teacher leadership, the establishment of a respectful environment for a diverse groups of students, teacher knowledge of the content they teach, the pedagogy that the teacher uses, teacher reflection on their practice, and the contribution that the teacher makes toward student academic success.

These standards can be tedious to read through and some can seem of little importance to certain teachers, but essentially, they are all of equal importance and they are all aimed at accomplishing the same goal- producing successful and effective 21st century teachers. Why are these standards so important to teachers teaching in today's school system? According to the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, the NCPTS are: "...the basis for teacher preparation, teacher evaluation, and professional development." These standards: "...include the skills and knowledge needed for 21st century teaching and learning." (http://www.ncpublicschools.org/docs/effectiveness-model/ncees/instruments/teach-eval-manual.pdf) The NCPTS are in place to promote and create successful 21st century teachers with the skills and knowledge to create successful 21st century students.

The NCPTS reflect the North Carolina Department of Education's "New Vision of Teaching." This "New Vision of Teaching" lists out what 21st century teachers should know and be able to do in order to ensure meaningful and purposeful teaching and learning. This "New Vision of Teaching" can be found on the pdf site http://www.ncpublicschools.org/docs/effectiveness-model/ncees/instruments/teach-eval-manual.pdf and I strongly encourage everyone to look at it, as it reflects the NCPTS and describes what teachers should be able to teach, which is not just the core subjects, as there are also 21st century themes and skills incorporated into these subjects.

Using the NCPTS and the "New Vision of Teaching" as the basis, the North Carolina Department of Education has created a diagram that describes the framework for 21st century learning:

This diagram illustrates all the essential tasks that a teacher needs to accomplish/teach in order to foster 21st century learning. As you can see, there are not just core subjects in this diagram that need to be taught, but there are 21st century themes (global awareness, financial, economic, and civic literacy), learning and innovation skills (critical thinking, problem solving, creativity communication and collaboration), information, media, and technology skills (information and media literacy), and life and career skills (flexibility and adaptability, productivity and accountability, and responsibility and leadership). Teachers must teach all of these skills and knowledge in order to produce 21st century citizens in the students. Underneath the content that teachers must be able to teach rests the platform that builds this content up and makes it stand effectively. Assessments, instruction, professional development, and learning environments are all essential in order to promote this 21st century learning. This diagram, "The New Vision of Teaching," and the NCPTS all reflect each other and are all centered on the same goal- creating meaningful, powerful, and purposeful 21st century teachers.

 

If we, as teachers, want to succeed and be great 21st century teachers, we must know and uphold the NCPTS, as they are the guidelines for producing the teachers that we need in today's digital society. Their importance is great, as they are the basis for teacher preparation, teacher evaluation, and professional development. Future teachers need to be able to accomplish all of the tasks that the NCPTS lay out and become proficient in each standard. If teachers are not providing 21st century teaching, how can we expect students to provide the world with 21st century citizenship?