Resource Blog #4

https://www.atlantahistorycenter.com/explore/exhibitions/cyclorama-the-big-picture#

                I tried to go for a different type of resource this time, finding websites began to get boring so I landed upon finding a field trip opportunity for my students. Acquiring information from an event or place, enticing the interest of my students, and a chance to see some wonderful bits of history. The Cyclorama of Civil War battles, coined the Big Picture, is a place you can schedule your students to come and watch a show and learn tons about the civil war and the history of the painting itself. The 10,000-pound painting that encompasses an entire room, was like going to the movie theaters for the 1800s, is now a way for us to learn and experience history. This resource is primarily a social studies resource, heavily focused on the history of civil war with no scientific or mathematical opportunities for learning unless you wanted the students to calculate an estimate of the mass of the painting. This could however be an opportunity for literacy students to come as well, especially if your students are learning about the varying forms of text. This being a painting, which can be classified as text, would be an excellent opportunity to show your students how a painting can hold just as much information as a book.
Word Count: 216

Synthesis Blog #4 Journal Club Reading

Summarize:
This article at its core, was and is a resource on how you can bring together science and literary sources and for novels to increase interest in both science and reading. It gives examples of good and not so good literary works to be used or not used in the classroom for varies reasons.

Connections:

• Connects to the history article I read in the sense that they had similar reasonings of why certain material works and others don't.
• Reminds me of other works I have read in the past. Ex: Dark Life
• This article not only references how science and lit relates, but also references how in these science novels, it is not uncommon for politics, economics, and other social studies elements within the texts.

Critiques:

• Gave ample amount of examples of text that relates to science and literature relations.
• They effectively tie those examples back into the big picture.
• I do wish the article provided science teachers more strategies and options on how to incorporate literacy elements in science instead of focusing on bring science into lit classes at the conclusion. 

Explanations:

I think the most important thing to draw from this article is the potential to incorporate reading into our separate subjects, in this case the science field. There are a multitude of options that we as teachers can use to provide our students further understanding on our subjects and to be working on our students reading strategies, which will help them understand and analyze all texts. I see this as a great way to provide students with supplemental text to aid in their understand of topics we are learning in class. I could also see this as a way for some formative assessments, allowing my students to pull out information and quotes that relate to our subject and topic.

Word Count: 303

Resource Blog #3

For this week’s resource blog, I went with a less traditional form of text, a Podcast. “The Daily” podcast is a ran by the New York Times, suggested by my current social studies professor, Joe. I found that this was an excellent resource for my content area, as they post as their name states, daily, with the exception that they do miss a few days sometimes, with news updates about things happening in the USA and global events. I find this as an excellent way for students to start thinking about what is going on in the world around them and being able to tie current content and standards into real world problems and events as a teacher. They have been doing this podcast since last year, so you could even take podcasts from the past and use those topics from then to bring up past issues that relate to the current topic. I can see other content areas using this resource as well, if the discussed topic relates to their field. For example, the amazon rainforest fires were talked about in the podcast, could be used in science class when learning about the importance of the environment or even when learning about how trees oxygenize our planet. Overall great resource that provides consistent and updated information, however it is the New York Times so there is bias, but a good dose of Fox News in the morning with my cup of joe, before I leave and listen to the Daily on my drive to school keeps me well balanced.


https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/20/podcasts/the-daily/elizabeth-warren-rally.html


Word Count: 255

Synthesis Blog #3

I found it very helpful in understanding this text when we discussed in the classroom and used the strategies for the reading. As far as the text itself, very useful in understanding how we should manage the use of a textbook in our future classrooms. Whether it be used more heavily or more as a reference every now and then I think is the choice of us teachers. I do believe that we can all agree using the whole textbook like the reading is not a healthy learning space for us or the students. How I wish to run my future classroom is using the textbook as a supplemental resource, just like resources I will supply my students and I hope to get them to gather for themselves. In social studies, I feel like it would be trivial to simply use the textbook. Afterall, it contains the standards in it, and even has questions I could use to supply my tests. Practically doing my job for me. I know that it be devaluing my students, would make me hate my job, and therefore make my students hate my class. I see the value in the textbooks. Excerpts from the textbook would be great way to introduce some vocabulary that students are not aware of. As from the reading, our tasks as teachers are make sure our students understand what is being talked about it the classroom, not worry about that later when they pass or fail a test.

Word count: 248

Resource Blog #2

https://www.discoveryeducation.com/community/virtual-field-trips/

My new resource for our second resource blog comes from the Discovery Education website. They have a section called virtual field trips. This section of the site specifically focuses on high quality video productions that works for any subject. It takes you through a tour of a subject, ranging from STEM subjects, literacy, history, technologies, and even college readiness programs. They are varying long videos that take students through that subject, in a combination of a simulation/documentary styled video. This resource was good for either social studies or any other content area. It allows for an overview video to aid in reviewing for a subject or introducing a subject. I would not allow these virtual field trips to take the place of teaching, but I still thought this was a valuable asset to teaching my content area as the videos were interesting and I think would hold the attention of middle schoolers.

Word Count: 156

Synthesis Blog #2

      I found that, even though I consider myself an avid reader, that I had some trouble with some of the passages that these teachers used to challenge their students. As I continued through the chapter, I found that I recalled myself thinking the same way as the students. For example, on page 284 of the text where a student is calling out the teacher for the teacher expecting them to “know what they know and know what they don’t know.” I remember thinking with the same reasoning in middle and high school about my teachers that would say that. Now as a future educator and a college student, I understand the value of self-monitoring now, simply because it is a necessary skill. College professors do not baby you and that is either a make it or break it point for students in my opinion. As a future teacher, I hope I can break my students for relying on me for the answer, but instead, get them invested enough that they want to find it for themselves. Achieving that will require me to use the strategies in this chapter, by assessing where my students are on their reading levels, and building the type of relationship with my students where they are comfortable to ask me to explain a text and walk them through it.

Word Count: 223

Resource Blog: Social Studies

Resource Link: https://teachinghistory.org/

                For this resource blog, I found this website that is a gold mine for teachers K-12 whom are teaching social studies. There are separate sections for the separate grades that one teaches that takes you to the grade specific part of the site. In those separate sections, there are lesson plan ideas, list of good primary sources to share with students, videos of professional speakers, and even has some online activities that students could do. Another great tool that this site had was the ability to communicate

 with historians and what the sites call a Master Teacher, someone who has been teaching for a while and draw from their knowledge and experience.

Word Count: 120