How have you made use of social studies theories and research to improve your civic dispositions as you grow as a social studies professional?

 I have used my skills in social studies research to improve my civic dispositions in my ESL Civics class. I have used social studies research skills like corroboration and finding multiple perspectives. This in turn has also improved my Civic disposition. I took over my third class, beginning this week. It is an ESL Civics class. The first new topic I will be presenting to the students is on the minimum wage, specifically the proposed increase to $15 an hour in the American Rescue Plan. I did a lot of research to find good materials to use in my class for activities and explanations. I looked at multiple sources for two main reasons. First, I looked at multiple sources to avoid bias. If I found one article that was pro minimum wage, that was okay but then I had to find a counter article that was against the minimum wage. Articles that I found did not show a bias, I used at introductory articles to the topic. Second, I looked at multiple sources so that I could find the best sources for my ELL students. Some youtube videos gave far too much information about the federal minimum wage which I found unnecessary and probably confusing for my ELL students. Finally, this ahs improved my Civic disposition. Normally, I barely look at the news. I can be a very depressing environment so I chose to stay away from that. I would hear major stories through friends and family. Now, I have to look at the news as a part of my job and I have found a way to engage with the news but not be drowned by it.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

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...
Read more

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 ...
Read more

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...
Read more