Outstanding Teachers

There are many skills and attributes necessary to be an outstanding teacher.   Above all, I believe to be an outstanding teacher, I must have high expectations of my students and also demonstrate that I genuinely care and respect my students.  Attempting to understand the needs of students is also essential because it allows a teacher to plan and deliver lessons that are appropriate for students’ skill levels.   An exceptional teacher also consistently assesses their students’ progress and changes instruction methods based on the assessment data they collect.      

The best teachers are also interested in collaborating with others to better meet their students’ needs.  In addition to an ability to gauge student needs, an outstanding teacher must also be committed to designing creative and engaging lessons, which provide active learning opportunities to students.   Finally, I believe an outstanding teacher must be committed to professional development to continue learning how to become an even better teacher.  Above all, I believe an outstanding teacher's primary goal should be to encourage students to become lifelong learners themselves.

Differentiated Instruction

During my student teaching experience, I co-taught four classes of world history where approximately one-third of students had special needs.  I collaborated frequently with my co-teacher to develop appropriate accommodations for the students with special needs and also communicated with students’ case managers about their progress.  One example of a lesson I planned that differentiated instruction required students to take on different roles within the group.  The lesson focused on the French Revolution, and required students to work collaboratively in groups that represented different social classes involved in the French Revolution. 

The groups’ roles included a leader who was responsible for creating a constitution summarizing the demands of the group’s social class.  One group member was responsible for researching and preparing a debate presentation.  Another role was the reporter, who was responsible for developing questions to ask students during the debate.  One student had the role of graphic designer and had to produce a visual supporting the group’s assigned debate position.  The final role was the music producer who had to choose and explain about a song that summarized or represented the woes and demands of the group’s social class.  Groups were assigned across ability levels so each group included students whose ability level was appropriate for each of the group roles.  No matter what the students’ role was for the project, each student met the objective of explaining the interests and perspective of social classes during the French Revolution.  Students completed peer evaluations throughout the project to help me identify struggling or uncooperative students.  This enabled me to offered these students additional support and encouragement. 

Thoughts on Teaching "Worldmindedness"

Social Studies and the World: Teaching Global Perspectives. Merry M. Merryfield and Angene Wilson. Washington D.C.: National Council for the Social Studies, 2005.

               In their book, Social Studies and the World, Merry M. Merryfield and Angene Wilson offer a strong rationale and a variety of objectives for teaching global perspectives in world history.  Their rationale is multi-faceted and is largely predicated on the importance of understanding an increasingly integrated and connected world in the 21^st Century.  Global education is multi-disciplinary and focuses on the past, present and future.  According to authors, the aims of a global education is to prepare students to participate in human affairs, both local and global.  To do this, teachers should seek to teach students to appreciate the similarities and difference of both diverse cultures and perspectives, understand world systems, examine global issues and actors worldwide, and also examine international power structures.  Teaching world history also prepares student to participate in cross-cultural interactions and aims to reduce prejudice.  Like all social studies education, the study of world history should incorporate changing technology in to the classroom and give opportunities to students to develop their research and thinking skills.  The most significant objective for teaching global education is creating cross-cultural awareness and respect for multiple perspectives.  I believe that these objectives are unique to teaching globally.  

                While the authors' rationales supporting global education seem logical and positively aimed at encouraging student to contribute to the world in a positive way, teaching global perspectives has also been criticized.  While Merryfield and Wilson identify and counter many criticisms of global education, it is important to be aware that some topics are controversial and local community issues should be considered when choosing course topics.  One response to the criticism of global education that I disagree with is the concession that because global education focuses less on Western civilization and places the U.S. within world history, it “de-exceptionalizies American history” (21).  In many ways global education can help student appreciate the U.S. to a greater extent as students come to understand the value of living in country that offers many educational opportunities, political stability, and security.

                Merryfield and Wilson frequently use the term “world-mindedness" to describe their overall teaching philosophy.  They recommend that student should develop an awareness and ability to participate in cross-cultural interactions.  It seems the skill set that accompanies worldmindedness, according to Merryfield and Wilson, can only be learned through engaging in cross-cultural interactions.  Having spent two years abroad, the teaching philosophy really speaks to me.  I believe it is essential when teaching global education to seize opportunities to gain exposure to different cultures, even within the United States.  These experiences are invaluable in teaching how diverse cultures affect people actions, and international relations.  Exposure to another culture fosters an appreciation and eventually an ability to approach situations from various cultural perspectives. 

               I feel that the only negative aspect of the teaching philosophy of worldmindedness is that it is exclusive in requiring teachers have had cross-cultural experiences and can apply what they have learned from these experiences in the classroom.  While I believe the meaningful experiences with other cultures certain help teaching of global education, I don't think they are absolutely essential.  I often discuss my own experiences living in Thailand and Brazil when I am teaching.  I know drawing on these experiences helps me be a more effective teacher, but I do not think these experiences should necessarily be a requirement for social studies teachers.  Teachers who are interested and open to cross-cultural experience can certainly teach effectively as well and also work towards gaining cross-cultural experiences for themselves and their students when they design their curriculum.   

Overall Merryfield and Wilson's book has made me conclude that world history is best taught from a thematic approach.  This allows student to understand the importance of historical events and developments over time and relate what they have learned to the present.  Possible units of study for a world history class would include the study of economic systems, political power and institutions, technology, the environment, and cultural units on social organization and religion.   In each of these categories it is essential for students to understand how systems changed and global connections were made throughout history.

                I believe teaching social studies should focus on many levels of student identity and teaching from a global perspective allows for this.  Students develop as individuals, community members, American citizens and most importantly citizens of the world.  The activities Merryfield and Wilson describe to help students identify how their own perspectives and experiences shape their worldview would be quite helpful but could also incorporate reflection on how American culture and institutions shape an individual’s worldview.  I understand one goal of global education is to appreciate how culture influences individuals, however sometimes it easier to identify cultural influences when considering a larger group.

Getting to Know Students

            In order to help my students be most successful, I believe it is important to learn as much as you can about them and get to know each student as an individual.  Taking an interest in students not only helps in planning appropriate lessons, but it is also essential in developing positive relationships with students.  I believe students are more likely to succeed if teachers take an interest in their lives and students feel their teachers care about them and their academic progress.  One way I get to know students at the beginning of a school year or semester is by having them complete student questionnaires.  One example of a questionnaire I have used is posted under the Course Materials tab above.  I also make every effort to learn every student’s name as quickly as possible.  I have found these efforts have really helped my classes start out on the right note.   

            It is also important to understand student ability levels so I can plan lessons that are appropriately challenging for my students.  It is also important to get to know students’ interests and ambitions so one can design lessons that engage students and relevant to them.  Finally, I believe it is important to learn about students’ cultural backgrounds because this influences their background knowledge and perspectives on content mater.  It is important to encourage students to discuss their unique experiences and points of view so all students learn to appreciate the value of diversity. 

What to Teach

                Deciding what to teach as a social studies teacher can be overwhelming.  With the abundance of content knowledge, particularly in history, increasing each year, social studies teacher have to face the reality that it is impossible to teach everything they feel is important.  So how do we make the difficult decision of what to teach and for how long?  I approach this daunting task by first looking over the curriculum objectives and state standards for the school I am teaching at.  I then note, what absolutely has to be taught.  I then look at my planning calendar and list out my lesson objectives for each day.  Most of my lessons have approximately three objectives.  The most important objectives for a unit I usually introduce first, so I can reinforce these objectives throughout the unit. 

                I also always keep in mind the skills I will be focusing on developing for each unit.  In all of the units I teach I focus on writing, reading, critical thinking and discussion skills.  In some lessons I put a stronger emphasis on developing technological literacy, research, and cooperative learning skills.  All teachers have to recognize that in addition to teaching content you must help students develop the fundamental skills they will need throughout the rest of their lives. 

                After I decide what skills we are going to focus on developing in my unit lessons I then focus on developing essential questions and themes for the unit.  What are the big ideas I want my students to learn?  Based on the answer to this question I am then able to look over the content for the unit and decide what content best relates to my big ideas and what content is less important.  I rank my unit objectives in order of importance then and when I am developing my assessments, I make sure they also reflect this. 

                It is very difficult to decide what content you simply do not have time to teach.  I do believe however it is more important for students to study some topics in depth than study as much as possible in a superficial way.  When teaching history it is important to introduce students to detailed analysis and evaluation because over-simplification of history tends to obscure its truth.  I have found students become more motivated when they have the opportunity to realize that people, much like them, experienced and played a role in the course of past events.  This helps make history more relevant and interesting.

                What to teach is not a simple question.  I am often torn about not discussing a particular perspective or the experiences of a particular group, but as a social studies teacher I know we cannot teach everything.  Just as English teachers must choose what literature to have students read, history teachers must decided what content is most important.  I believe that teaching from a variety of approaches and perspectives allows students to appreciate the complexity of history and prepares them to independently be able to learn about what may not have been covered in as much detail in class.  Are there basic facts and ideas all social studies teachers should cover?  Absolutely.  The challenge is determining what is most important to teach, when we are passionate about what we teach and it is all important and interesting to us.