final rationale

8/3/2019 Final Rationale

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Lisa Liuzzi

Statement of Teaching Rationale

In order to keep students interested in social studies, and to make sure their social

studies education is meaningful to the rest of their lives, students need to learn more than

just facts to be regurgitated on a multiple choice test. Social studies classes need to be

interesting to students in order to teach them skills they will apply to their adult lives. The

assignments and activities students complete in my class should teach them to realize the

causes and effects of certain events, think for themselves, and value the opinions of

others, while wanting to fix problems they see in the world and learning how to do so.

Students do not just need to learn facts, but need to know how to use them to

interpret causes and effects and make connections across time periods that will mean

more to them than dates and names. For example, a student who is pushed to use

knowledge of the Great Depression to make inferences about the future of the economy

would feel much more involved in their education than one who is simply taught to

memorize names and dates related to the Great Depression and the descriptions of

government programs made to counter it. Not only would such a student feel more

involved, but s/he would be able to use the connections they have made in their future,

hopefully making more educated financial decisions based on the knowledge and

connections they have made about past economies. My role in this process would be to

construct activities for my classes where the main point of the lesson is for the students to

make connections instead of just memorizing material. Such a lesson would be a

worksheet activity where students researched and compared the crash, government

response, resolution, and lingering effects of the Great Depression and compare the same


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information (minus the resolution and effects) about the current economic crisis.

Including a worksheet, essay, or class discussion about what should be done to end this

economic crisis would fully connect the two and make students feel empowered by

making their own decision about the future.

Another necessary skill for students to learn is how to maintain a critical

perspective on information and opinions presented to them. A critical perspective entails

students wanting to learn for themselves, which is a trait that will continue to motivate

them throughout their lives. Students need to do their own research instead of blindly

relying on information given to them in order to understand the ways that information on

any topic can be misconstrued to push certain agendas. For instance, I plan to create

assignments where students will research the facts behind stories they hear in the media,

so they can see first hand how it often misconstrues stories in an effort to attract viewers.

I would use one of the various methods of discussions, changing them around from time

to time to stimulate a discussion of the students findings, and pose questions about why

information is misconstrued without taking any more part in the discussion than is

necessary for the students to share to their ideas.

Besides being critical of information, students also need to value and seek others

opinions while maintaining a critical but respectful perspective of them. It is my goal for

all students to feel comfortable sharing their opinions, and to discuss why people have

dissimilar views, which requires an understanding of differences in religion, culture, and

especially socio-economic status. I believe such an understanding will best be attained

through regular class discussions, in various formats, so everyone can find a format that

they feel comfortable contributing in, and hopefully that will help them be comfortable in


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any format. I also want my students to realize how peoples lives in their community and

others across the globe are similar and yet different from each other, and why these

similarities and differences occur. In order to provoke this realization, I plan to give

assignments in which students will conduct interviews of their family and others in the

community and elsewhere. With the differences in answers given by the classes

interviewees, I will encourage discussion, explain any viewpoints that I feel are under-

represented, and play devils advocate when necessary to encourage tolerance of diverse

ideas. It will also be necessary for students to learn the difference in socio economic

statuses across the globe, which I think they would best understand through the use of

documentaries and videos showing poverty and wealth in other nations, followed by

discussions of what they saw and why those disparities occur.

It is also very important to me that students learn to value various opinions while

learning to articulate and defend their own. The critical perspectives used to formulate a

well-founded opinion are all useless to others if one cannot express their views. Students

will learn to do this by coaching and by my example, and will reinforce these skills

through contributing to group work, holding respectful, productive discussions, giving

well-organized, interesting oral presentations, and creating and defending an argument

orally and in writing.

As a pre-service teacher, I understand how important my personal teaching style

will be to how much my students develop these skills in my classroom. I learned a lot

about the way I would teach a classroom through the things I took note of in my field

observation placements. One thing I learned was that teachers who deliberately bite their

tongues while having a classroom discussion lead students to formulate their own


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opinions, while those who try to validate discussions or even lead students to certain

conclusions leave the students feeling more as if the teacher told them the answer. I

realized this because the teacher asked me to lead the discussion very early on in my field

placement, so I was too nervous to interject, but the students held a very productive

discussion without me. I also realized I give very detailed examples with numbers or

examples I felt students could relate to when describing things to classes, which my

cooperating teacher noted as a very helpful trait. When listening to teachers I often found

myself making mental notes of the more detailed example the teacher should have given

because of blank stares I saw on students faces. Organization is another very important

aspect of teaching to me. Not only do I feel that I am much more efficient at things I do

when I am very organized, but I believe that many students would benefit from being told

how to organize their work for a class, and even being responsible for submitting their

notebooks to be checked to ensure their continued organization.

Another skill I find extremely important for teachers to cultivate in their students

is the ability to know how to solve huge problems they see in the world around them, and

the desire to do so. This semester we have read about teachers pushing their students into

their communities to address problems, and the students felt empowered and surprised by

their own abilities, for example: in Investigations: Discovering the World Through

Primary Sources students went to town hall meetings where issues concerning them

would be discussed, and in another article students solved a city-wide problem and were

extremely proud of themselves for doing it. Even things like community recycling pick-

up, or other day to day town hall kinds of problems can be used to teach students to fix

problems they see. Without a teacher that assigned her students to find a problem and fix


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it, those students would have never gotten over their fears and embarrassment of calling

and making appointments with city council and others, and would not have gained the

skills necessary to research solutions to their problems. This crucial step is necessary if

students are ever to venture farther into fixing the worlds problems, as they will now feel

empowered to do so with the interpersonal and research skills needed to solve smaller

problems. Of course, there will always be students who will grow up to be Paul Farmers

without any push from a teacher, but I hope that by showing students problems in the

world and giving them experience solving them on a smaller scale, they will be willing

and able to solve worldwide problems.

I want to be a social studies teacher because of how much my teachers influenced

my thinking and were the only reason I ever believed I could get a college degree. I

know that only the teachers that care about their students overall development will have

such a profound effect on them and I intend to learn as much as I can about them in order

to do so. Overall, I hope to give my students the skills they will need to succeed in life,

such as organization, the ability to solve problems, a critical perspective and respect of

facts and opinions, and the ability to articulate and defend their views.

final rationale

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