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Bloggers choice 2: Highs and Lows

 For my second bloggers choice and final blog post, I will be reflecting on the highs and lows of this semester, my final semester at Loyola. Student teaching came with many highs and some lows as well but overall I enjoyed my student teaching experience. I will begin with the lows and then end on the highs. The elephant in the room is the biggest low which is remote learning because of COVID-19. I never imagined that my student teaching experience would be like this. The techniques and strategies that I had been studying for 3 years had to be reimagined. It was hard towards the end when I felt like there were only so many different types of activities I could do. After the 5th nearpod, 12th pear deck, and 8th article reading, it gets a little bland. I wish I could have done more group work but that was hard for my ESL students online. There were many highs though. I got to use a lot more technology that I can use once schools go back to normal. The best high was coaching the volle...
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Blogger’s Choice #1: What advice would I give to freshman Amanda?

What advice would you give to your past self is a classic question posed by generations upon generations. So I decided to answer that question for my blogger's choice post. What advice would I give to freshman Amanda? Since this the internship that this blog is for involves both education and history, I will write about both of those topics. There really is not much advice I would give to my freshman self in regards to history. I loved every history class I took at Loyola. My favorite professors are from the history department. I would maybe tell myself to take a class on African or Asian history but I was able to study those on my own for student teaching to fill in any gaps in knowledge. For my education freshman self, I would tell my self one very important piece of advice. Education is much more political than you expected and it's okay that you are not into politics. My education classes at Loyola were strongly focused on politics and I would prepare myself better for that...
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Why are the social studies an important part of a student's education today?

 Social studies are an important part of a student's education today because it ensures to some degree that we educate the whole child. Students should not only learn the cold theories of math and facts of science. They should learn to understand the people around them and history can help them do so. When we study history and culture, we understand better why certain people act certain ways. Mather is an extremely multicultural school because there are many immigrant and refugee students. By studying history, new students can learn why America is the way it is. Students who encounter students that are not like them can have a better understanding of why certain people act certain ways or wear certain things. When we better understand the people around us, we can get along better with them and have more friendships. Also on a practical note, courses like civics teach students how things work in the adult world. I have been teaching financial literacy and I think it is an extremely ...
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How have social studies theories and research assisted you in meeting the needs of individual learners?

 Social studies research and theories have helped me reach the needs of individual learners because they help me target what students are interested in learning about in a given topic. At the beginning of my units, I ask my students what they would like to learn about. Many students say they don't know but some will respond with very interesting questions or topics. For example, one student asked about fighting monks. While I was not sure what he meant at first, upon some Google and Youtube searched, I found out that he was talking about the Shaolin monks. Different social studies theories and research have helped me expand my knowledge and expand upon the content that I teach in my class in order to meet the interests of my students. My students often like to expand beyond the historical schools covered in the textbook like military and political history. Sometimes they want to know more about certain topics covered in the textbook. Using primary sources and secondary sources has ...
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How have you made use of social studies theories and research to improve your inquiry skills during your internship?

 During my internship as a student teacher, I felt like I did not focus too much on improving my own inquiry skills. I mainly focused on improving the inquiry skills of my students. But nonetheless, there were still many things I learned about history during this internship and I used social studies research and theories when I did use my inquiry skills. I learned many things about history while student teaching. They say that you don't really know something until you teach it. From my experience so far, that is entirely true. There were many topics that I was familiar with but did not know to the full extent required by being a teacher. Now I know much more about topics like African and Chinese history. When I was creating my lessons for those units, I used social studies inquiry skills. I looked for credible sources. I mostly looked at secondary sources to save time. However, I looked at multiple secondary sources about a topic to not only find the best resources for my students ...
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How have you advocated for the teaching profession, whether in schools or in the wider world?

 Something I realized early on in my education career is that teachers are not respected as professionals. I have heard it in the media, from friends, and from family. I remember sitting at a family dinner and a relative was making fun of a kindergarten teacher who had a masters degree. He commented, "What kindergarten teacher needs a masters degree?" And I responded, "Don't you want the smartest people to teach your children at any age?" It has always been very frustrating for me to see that teachers are not treated as professionals. The main ways I have helped to advocate for the teaching profession is through my actions as a teacher and my involvement with Golden Apple. As a teacher, I always make sure to act and look professional. Some teachers may like to wear jeans and t-shirts to work but I always make sure to dress business casual. It's the clothes that make the man so if teachers want to be respected as professionals, we should dress like profession...
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How are you helping your students to become advocates for issues that are important to them? Service learning project

 This upcoming week in my Civics class, I will be leading lessons on the service learning project. Students are required to do a service learning project in CPS. Most of them complete it through their Civics course. I worked with my coteacher by using an assignment he has done in the past and modifying it for an online classroom. It should take about a week for the students to finish their projects. The week begins with students exploring their passions. The students should explore and identify their passions so that their passion can be the topic of their service learning project. This will help to motivate the students to complete the work and make the project more meaningful to them. It is also a great way to incorporate SEL into the classroom. After students think about their passions, they will connect their passions to the project. The project is to research a public policy that is interesting to them. They will identify a problem, choose a policy, explain why it is not worki...
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