SSED Week Two

This week in Social Studies methods, I feel like I am finally getting the hang of having an online class.  This is the first online course I have ever taken, and it is an entirely different world than what I am used to.  Keeping involved and being an active member of the class looks completely different in an online class than in a face-to-face classroom.  However, I have really enjoyed learning how to use the discussion board to share my ideas and to see how others are thinking about the same things I am but in different ways.  I also have found several interesting teaching blogs online that give honest feelings of teachers dealing with tough situations involving challenging students.  However, I have found most of them to be encouraging.  Either these teachers are really great writers, or they really care about the students in their classrooms.

My creation of a concept visual to help me portray the difference in conceptual teaching and topical teaching was a fun experience.  I enjoyed this assignment primarily because I enjoy creating things, and I also love when I am given the freedom to express my ideas using my own creativity.  This assignment was especially effective for me personally because I am an auditory learner in the sense that discussing and hearing myself speak about things really helps me organize information in my brain.  All the assignments that require voice overs and verbal explanations have been my favorite ones so far.

Our focus this week was mainly on the Professional Teaching Standard regarding to the fact that educators facilitate learning for their students.  We discussed the differences between concepts and topics, and why learning concepts is much more valuable to students' learning than only learning topics.  Students have a desire to know why the information is relevant to them.  They want their teachers to explain to them the "big idea" and why it matters.  By teaching students conceptually, educators give students the connections they crave and facilitate a much more effective learning atmosphere.  Students care about concepts, but they don't care so much about topics.  Students desire relevant information, and will probably ignore whatever they believe is irrelevant.  When students care about what the teacher is teaching and believe that they are being taught relevant information, effective learning will take place.

This week was the first time that I deeply pondered the difference between concepts and topics and how they are so involved in lesson planning.  I have had to come up with concepts for lesson plans, and I have been asked to involve "x" amount of topics and standards and integrate them.  But this week was the first time that I believe I actually grasp the understanding of the difference in teaching concepts and topics.  Through my elementary years, I was taught topic to topic, with no relation.  I had no connection to my learning experience.  My concept visual was a flower with the center being the concept and the petals being the topics.  As an elementary student, my mind had free falling petals without any organization or relevance.  In my future classroom, I plan to give students topics that I have already tied together into a larger concept.  The topics and the facts are important, but they are not important alone.  I plan to be able to answer a student confidently when he or she says, "Why does this even matter?"  I hope that my students have coherent flowers floating around in their brains, so when they need to reference a petal they will know exactly what flower they need to find.