Reflection after a lesson is important aspect of making progress in teaching. After including an engaging strategy into a Social Studies lesson, I would make mental notes of what worked well and maybe what I would change for next time. The reflection below is on my whole Professional Inquiry Project and includes what I learned throughout the process.
What I Learned...
The topic of my PIP project was to research strategies and activities that could be used to engage students in Social Studies. I learned that there are endless strategies that can be used to spark an interest and curiosity in students. I also discovered that students can be engaged at different levels, whether it is on an intellectual, behavioural or social level. Some of my students could easily be engaged on one level, but that it would take extra effort to reach another level. It was important that I got to know and understand my students before I incorporated a strategy into a lesson. The strategies did not always engage all the students in the same way. I learned to anticipate what activities would increase the engagement for some students and also what students I would need to spend extra time challenging.
Student examples of the I See, I Think, I Wonder activity we did for the Social Studies concept of Rights vs. Needs and Wants using the picture below:
I found strategies that I could integrate into my lessons to help students learn the objectives through a variety of means. Some of the engaging strategies that I was able to try with my students helped them develop the Benchmark Skills and Processes of the Social Studies program. Students were able to practice working together, thinking critically and communicating information. Mostly what I and the students enjoyed about the use of these strategies in our Social Studies classes was that it was exciting to learn in different ways. They came to know that the activities in Social class would involve learning in ways other than me telling them the information or them getting the information from the textbook.
An example of the Concept Attainment strategy the students used to form their own definitions of the concept of "What it means to be a good citizen." After they sorted out the examples they were challenged to add their own to each list.
The result was students that were more interested in Social Studies class and showed more initiative in their own learning. I was excited to discover that many of the strategies that I found and used could be implemented in a variety of subjects, across different grade levels. Each strategy will have to be manipulated from group to group that it is used with regardless of age just to meet the needs of the students.
For Next Time...
While I was researching I came across so many instructional strategies for a variety of activities. I found it difficult to try and decide which to include in my lessons. I wish I could have tried more of the strategies I found and with different grades. I think it would have been neat to work with other groups of students and different objectives to understand how the strategies can work in other situations. In the future I will hopefully have this opportunity and so saving the resources in a toolbox seemed like a good idea.
Next time I have the chance to use the strategies I found with my PIP, I would like to put more of an emphasis on the skills of the strategy. Students should know what skills they are practicing as they use the strategy to learn Social Studies content. I think it is important that students think about how to communicate with others appropriately in an "In-Out Circle" along with thinking about the subject matter.
My PIP research helped me create a toolbox of strategies to use throughout my teaching career and it gave me the opportunity to try them with students.