If I could go back and change anything or something that I regret is being too friendly or not strict enough with the students. I pretty much knew I would make this mistake, but it was almost inevitable. Unfortunately, on the first day of the new semester each teacher that I am with wanted me to introduce myself and tell a little bit about myself. Although I think that there is nothing wrong with this, I wish I could change the introduction. I am naturally a person who jokes a lot and is sarcastic. I think the students already thought that I did not look much older than them and that I was a Clemson student who was more like a peer than an authority figure. It did not help that I joked with them on the first day of the semester. It took a few weeks for the students to see that although I joked with them I was still their teacher for the next few months, and I had to set rules and boundaries. Many times when I would have to be strict with them they would say "where's the the Mrs. Jones we know?" It took some time, but now the students accept that I am their teacher and not a friend. I just wish I could have established this to begin with, and not struggle for a few weeks to achieve it.

Classroom Management

Three main steps that I have incorporated into my classroom management plan are: controlling classroom set-up, putting conduct rules/expectations in the syllabus, around the room, and on the website, and contract with something they enjoy.

Controlling classroom set-up has cut down on many problems in the classroom. When students chose their seat, they sat with friends and sometimes acquaintances with whom they got into a lot of trouble with for talking and many other things. However, by getting to know the students, arranging the desks in single rows all facing the front of the class, and doing a seating chart, prevents many problems with the students, such as talking and procrastinating in class.

Another step that I liked was putting the conduct rules/expectations in the class. My cooperating teacher had the rules/expectations already on the wall, but the idea to point to them when the students are doing them is a great idea. This way they know exactly what rule they are breaking because it is spelled out right before them.

Finally, I think having a contract or agreement with them with something they enjoy is a great idea. I actually used this today in class and it worked very well. The students would not quit talking and procrastinating. So, I mentioned an interesting article that I found online last week, but only briefly enough to peak their interest. Then I told them that if they would quietly do their work I would read/discuss the article with them. This worked great, and the students quietly did their work.

Curriculum Action Plan

One area that needs to improve in my curriculum plan is my objectives. So, I plan to write more thoughtful and planned out objectives. It is easy to choose a word such as know or explain and then follow it with a simple statement, then you have an objective. It is also easy to simply make something up quickly without true thought if it is a reasonable objective for the students to achieve and/or if the instructional activities will actually achieve the objective. However, I plan to write better objectives because it is truly an important part of curriculum planning. For one of my classes, US history, it is especially important because of state standards and end of course testing. It is important to write objectives that will truly be utilized in the lesson and will allow the student to be prepared for the end of course test. For my other class, law education, it is also important to write good objectives even though their are no South Carolina state standards for this course. It is important that objective are created for each lesson and followed to make sure students are learning the proper material and are actually getting it. I plan to write better objectives and write them on the board each day so that the students and myself can know the objective and it is there for reference to make sure that we have met our objective.

Another suggestion that I will use to change my lesson plans and instruction is to use a variety of assessments. There are many ways to test students' knowledge and understanding. Typically teachers use quizzes and tests to test students knowledge. In addition to these types of tests, I use think writes, but there are many ways to test students knowledge. So, I plan to use many different assessments. I have planned a photo story, fishbowl exercises, and mock trials. Although these are not typical assessments, they are a great way to test students' knowledge. For each of these activities/assessments student must know a variety of skills and information to do well. For example, in mock trials students not only need to know trial procedure, but also the topic we are studying at that time in order to properly argue their point.

Finally, a suggestion that I will use in my instruction is to divide students by strengths. This suggestion is especially good for my law education classes because they consist of all grades and all abilities. I have already noticed that dividing students by strengths or putting higher performing student with lower performing students makes a big difference. Each student improves their skills and learning. The lower performing student learns material from a peer and the higher performing student improves his/her skills by repeating and explaining their knowledge.

One professional social studies organization that I have found very useful is the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS). The services that this organization provides are many and are aimed at providing leadership, service, and support for all social studies educators. NCSS provides or has conferences and meetings, professional development, publications, social studies advocacy, and many classroom resources. The professional development that they offer include: summer professional development workshops, powerful and authentic social studies (Pass), and state and local conferences. I will definately join this organization. I would also like to attend their conference this year in Atlanta if I am able to go. One of my cooperating teachers, who is a United States History teacher, belongs to this organization. I get to see and use many of the resources that NCSS sends him on a regular bases. On the first week of the semester NCSS sent a packet with student surverys and quizzes. These quizzes were designed to determine students interest in and knowledge of social studies. Another set of surverys were designed to help students think about their future and college. NCSS provided a pre-paid enveloped to send the quizzes back and analyzed them at no charge. So, I believe that there are many resources that are useful for my student teaching and future teaching. These quizzes allowed me to see what areas to focus on in social studies.

Action Plan

Social studies play a vital role in a democratic pluralistic society. I have chosen to teach social studies because of this fact. Social studies play such a vital role, and must hold an important place in the secondary school curriculum today because many American students do not know this nations basic history, and do not know what it means to be an active citizen. I believe that it is the role of a social studies teacher to teach her students the importance of social studies, inspire her students to have a passion for social studies, and teach her students how to be active and proper citizens.

An idea that has evolved as a result of my experiences this year and one major way that I can and have tried to transform my reality to match my vision is by always trying to set an example. One way that I have tried to set an example in these past few weeks has began with something as simple as standing and saying the pledge of allegiance. It sets an example for the students that patriotism is not only important for social studies, but is also important for being a good citizen. I also want to try to set an example of being upbeat an enthusiastic about the topic and for the students. One of the things I see is that students have no motivation about the subject or about being at school at all. They are getting ready for lunch or have just gotten back from lunch, and all they want to do is sleep. It would make everything worse if I myself was not enthusiastic or acted like I did not want to be there. So one way I plan to make this happen is to try to relate the material to the student and their current lives. I will be teaching Law Education, so this should not be very difficult to achieve. I want to ask the students questions to that will spark debate and enthusiasm. I also want to read current articles that directly relate to the student. For example while studying freedom of speech I will have the students look at articles that deal with myspace and facebook, which are very popular topics with the students. I anticipate that students will be eager to discuss whether or not they should be able to talk about their school and teacher on these popular websites.

However, teaching the importance of social studies to students will be quite difficult to do. Many students if not all see no importance in social studies especially in history, which is one course I will be teaching. I will have to try to come up with many innovative ways to get the students to be interested in social studies, and see its importance. Again I will try to relate the "stories" that I tell about history to the students' lives. If I can find some way to relate the topic that we are studying to the students' lives, then perhaps they will be see that social studies and history in particular is important and relevant.

I Believe Statement

I believe that education can be funny. By saying this I do not mean that education is humorous or a joke, but instead that educating students can be fun for the teacher and the student. I first learned that education can be fun in my tenth grade year in my Algebra II class. I had always taken honors classes, but I had slacked off in my freshman year and had taken college prep classes. So, in my tenth grade year I decided to double up on my math courses so that I could begin to take honors classes again in my junior year. This led me to take Geometry and Algebra II at the same time in tenth grade. Now it is important to mention that I did not like math, in fact, I hated it. I had always enjoyed history and science. So, I was not looking forward to taking these classes. I was also a little worried about the grades I would receive.

After a few days in my Geometry class I was relieved of my stress and fear. My teacher was a very nice young lady who was very soft-spoken and patient. I felt confident that I would do well in this class. However, my Algebra II class was a little different. My teacher was a very small, older, grumpy man. He reminded me of a little troll, who ran around screaming and terrorizing everyone. This class was already supposed to be a difficult subject, all I needed was a terrible scary teacher. On the first day of class I was given several hundred problems to complete and I was told I had the rest of the class to complete them. If I did not complete them oh well that was my problem. I was scared and very angry at this little man.

Things began to change for the better though. After awhile I began to see that this man was all talk. I guess he wanted to scare us into submission on the first day of class to secure classroom management because that was the last time he ever did that. I began to see that this was his personality, but it was hilarious to me. Whether or not it was his true self, or used to gain attention, his outbursts, mannerisms, and jokes were so funny I still laugh thinking about them. I actually began to look forward to his class, not only was it funny, but I also learned so much in his class. I became an expert in Algebra II and received an A in the class. This class stuck with me because I will soon be a teacher and I want to be like him. I want to still be myself, but also still make education fun. Hopefully one day some of my former students will blog or use some other form of technology that does not even exist to say that his or her teacher was a little off beat, but they learned a lot and enjoyed the class. At least I know that I will never forget the image of him holding a small piece of chalk in his little hand moving nervously around the classroom yelling and banging his forehead on the chalkboard.