Digital Primary Sources in the Classroom

If I assume that I have ideal access to internet, projection, and other strong technology in my classroom, then I think that I will certainly use digital primary sources in my classroom. The versatility they offer, the imagination they encourage, and the innovation with which they are presented are all factors that would enrich an student's educational experience and comprehension exponentially. One of the most important parts of hooking a student on the past is to help them feel like they can relate to it. I think that digital primary source resources accomplish just that: they enable students to be enamored by the reality behind the sometimes-hypothetical lessons in a social studies classroom.

Using primary sources can be done in a number of ways. I think that the best way is to have students divide into small groups and work through a certain source with guided questions. This way, they are engaging in collaborative learning, being guided by good scaffolding (assuming the questions are well-thought out!), and getting to really dive into the sources.

Other ways students can engage with primary sources is to reproduce a unique version on their own. They can recreate propaganda for a modern day issue or a historical issue, allowing them to create and process the information at a high-level of thinking.

Primary sources are certainly what have given me a love for history and I hope that they can be an integral resource in passing that love along to my students. Given the new technologies available and the ocean of resources available, they are easier to find and use than ever!

Social Studies Autobiography

            I am the oldest child in my family. This fact may seem like a random tidbit, completely unrelated to my educational experience and my possible future in teaching; however, it has been the largest contributing factor to my educational upbringing. Being the “guinea pig” of my family’s educational decisions landed me in three pre-schools, a public neighborhood elementary school for 1^st and 2^nd grade, a private, classical, Christian school 3^rd through 8^th grade, with only twenty four students in my entire class, and then a 2,000 student, white-minority public high school. Through this journey around the educational options in Durham, North Carolina, I learned to love social studies, but I also learned to appreciate different qualities in good teachers. I hope to meld these good qualities together as I learn to teach, taking the best parts from all my experiences and giving them to my students.

            In my small school, I learned the importance of caring for students. I had teachers who stuck with me in my moody middle school days and who caringly let me explore my growing passion for history. Likewise, in high school I learned to important value of diversity in education. Though this also resulted in some less-desirable classroom experiences, it taught me to widen my worldview and to listen to and learn from unexpected sources. This experience, while not unique to my social studies classes, certainly impacts my knowledge of this subject matter in particular, because I had classes taught well from a textbook and others taught through the people around me, in differing opinions and in discussion of our understandings of the world.

            I think that this freedom to be open in conjunction with a deep desire to care for students and know their interests can combine to make me the best teacher possible. I love the connections that a well-rounded social studies education helps students to make. I especially love hearing and watching students make connections within American history, realizing the intricate ways various events affect the world around them as well as their lives today. In my own history major research, I learned to love to work with primary sources. This part, in particular, is a skill I would really desire to teach high school students. Delving into original documents, newspaper articles, and advertisements not only transports students visually, which I think is important, but it also gives them incredible independence in engaging with materials.

            In this course, I hope to learn more about what a good social-studies classroom looks like, and how the teacher is involved in facilitating that healthy, engaged, and challenging environment. I also hope to have a firmer grasp on what it looks like to teach and, therefore, have a better idea of whether or not I can see myself teaching in a classroom. I certainly care about students. I certainly love history, government, and social context. I am not, however, anything like my favorite social studies teachers, who were loud and fluid in their teaching and innovative and challenging in their thinking skills. I hope that our trial lessons, class conversations, and projects will create a space in the teaching sphere in which I will fit. I think that the two most important characteristics of a social studies teacher are the ability to help students make connections for themselves, recognizing the foundations for their everyday lives, and caring for students’ academic and personal success. In teaching students to make connections, a social studies teacher prepares his or her students for success not only in academia but in the real world. By investing in the lives of students, teachers can serve not only as advocates for the budding minds in their classrooms, but also as planters of knowledge who can encourage a personal connection between students and material which inspires students to be lifetime learners.