Class Management

First Step: Warm-up question or Quote of the Day
In order to get class started, I think it is best to have a warm-up question to get the students going. One of my teachers in high school used a quote of the day which we were forced to copy and then we would discuss it as a class. I really like the quote of the day because it is something different that not many teachers use.

Step Two: Pickup Trash
It seems students love to throw paper at each other or at the trash cans. An idea I thought of while student teaching is make a student who is throwing trash during class must come after school to clean up the room. This also pertains to any student that likes to leave their trash in the floor too. This makes students want to keep the area clean around their desk and stop tempting them from throwing paper at each other.

Step Three: Talking
I am having this problem in some of my classes right now. Students will not quit talking. My plan is to ask the students what I as a teacher can do to stop the talking. When they give me options then I will ask them to sign a contract about talking and the consequences that come with it. I think this could work because the teacher is giving the students a chance to help make the rules for talking by giving them a voice on the problem.

Adapting Instruction

The first suggestion I found useful was with my Boston Massacre Reenactment. It is good to practice or make a dry run of the reenactment with the students first. After the students know what do to then the teacher should step aside and let the students do the reenactment by themselves. This makes the students more dependent on each other and not the teacher. It is also a good idea to do many reenactments with the students, and have different jobs or parts during the reenactment for each student. This gives students different view points of how each side felt during the conflict. It is also a good idea to have some students as spectators in order for them to see the different view points at the same time.
The second suggestion I found useful that I plan on using in my classroom is going over the plans/expectations for the debate the day before the students participate in the debate. This gives the students a chance to gather information in order to prepare for the debate. It would also be a good idea to go ahead a put the students in their debate groups a couple days before hand so they have an idea of who they are working with, and what they need to work on to prepare for the debate. Another good idea to do would be to model a good debate to the students by showing them one that was taped from the previous classes or one that can be found on the internet.
My third and final suggestion I found useful to use in my classroom is to use Google Earth and map activities. I found this out early this week in my classes that students do not work well with maps because they do not know how to read them. In order to teach students to read and interpret a map it is best to start out by using Google Earth. Google Earth is an exciting program that will help students interpret and understand how to use a map than a regular worksheet. Map activities would also build up the students’ map skills if they are given plenty of practice on it, because practice makes perfect.

South Carolina Geographic Alliance

The South Carolina Geographic Alliance is an organization I plan on getting involved in. I think it is a great organization because it is trying to get more geography in the classrooms no matter what Social Studies class. I talked to my cooperating teacher today about the organization, and she told me she was a member. I was even more impressed with the organization after my cooperating teacher told me she was involved with it. I was very impressed with the Geofest she went to when because she got to see the Hunley submarine and learn all about it. Hearing my cooperating teacher peaked my interest even more about the organization. I think the Geofest would be a great way to expand knowledge about geography in order to teacher it in the classroom. The organization also offers other professional development besides the Geofest such as workshops and the Summer Geography Institute. The Summer Geography Institute is a great way to learn what other teachers are doing in the classrooms as well as learn new methods and strategies to teach geography to the students. Another great thing about the Summer Geography Institute is it gives each person three hours for graduate school. It is a steal to get three hours for around $300 dollars for graduate classes. The speaker gave us a lot of maps that I plan on using while doing my student teaching, especially when I get to teaching world religions by using the Middle East map. I also plan on using the maps from the CD she gave us as well. Above all I think the South Carolina Geographic Alliance is a great organization that I plan on participating in to help increase teaching abilities.