First Day Back !

Today was a great day back ! I was very excited to see Dr. Smirnova and my peers in Social Studies Methods. When I got to class I noticed there were a few people I did not recognize which made me excited to start our get to know me activity with Dr. Smirnova. This get to know me activity was different from the ones in my other classes. This activity began was visualization and then we wrote about the teacher we imagined, three qualities we think a social studies teacher should have, and what we believed social studies is. Going through this experience brought me back to high school with my global history teacher Ms. Panzer. I was already very interested in the topic but she made the material engaging and provided multiple means of instruction. When I thought of the qualities a teacher should have I thought of:

1. Inquisitive because as a teacher we should want to learn more about what we are teaching. 

2. A good sense of humor because in order to intrigue students we may have to step out of comfort zone and maybe dress up as the people you are learning about or an activity that may be silly, but worth the experience because the students will find the learning experience more meaningful.

3. Knowledgeable, as teachers we should be up to date with what we are learning and willing to put in necessary research to either keep up to date or to find the answer to a student's question. In addition I believed that the discipline of social studies is the study of U.S. history, global history, and though the use of maps, primary sources, and secondary sources. These ideas are what I thought were important and when I joined my group, The Social Studies Squad, I found that we shared similar views. After sharing in our group every group shared and I loved listening to everyones group name. After we shared I found out that this activity was a think-pair-share and I feel like this was a great activity because not only to get to know one another, but also to share one another's point of view on social studies because we may have a different experience with social studies and could bring something unique to our group during our discussion. During this activity I learned that my peers and I had a similar experience and understanding of social studies. I enjoyed listening to how we all thought a teacher should be opened minded and use different teaching strategies. Overall today was a great day back and I look forward to learning more !