Global Education and Humanities are important aspects of social studies to include in your classroom. Global Education is defined as the significance of the interdependence of human civilization. Humanities is defined as the study of human culture.
Before beginning this project with Nicole, I was very unsure of what either topic really was. I thought that humanities had to do with the study of humans but I did not know what it included.
Let me begin by stating that global education is about education around the world in different countries.
Global education has five perspectives. These five perspectives are interdependence and globalization which is the understanding of complex social, economic, and political links between people, identity and cultural diversity which is an understanding of self and one's own culture, and being open to others culture, social justice and human rights which is an understanding of the impact of inequality and discrimination, the importance of standing up for our own rights and our responsibility to respect our rights, peace building and conflict resolution which is an understanding of the importance of building and maintaining positive and trusting relationships and ways conflicts can be prevented, and finally sustainable futures which is an understanding of the ways in which we can meet our current needs without diminishing the quality of the environment. All of these topics help create better citizens who understand personal and universal needs.
When dealing with humanities, there are only specific subjects in which humanities is included in. Humanities can be brought up in art and music, literature, religious studies, history, and philosophy.
To incorporate both these topics into the classroom, you could use Skype. There is a specific Skype designed for students to use in the classroom that enables them to communicate with students in other classrooms around the world. Another way to incorporate these topics into other topics is to use geography and literature.
What is geography? Geography is an area of science that studies land forms, features, the inhabitants of a region, and Earth. Geography is very important for students to understand and be taught. It is important because students need to understand what is going on in different countries in the world as well as where these countries are located. By teaching geography, the students will become better citizens who better understand the events occurring in the world and the significant impact it has on the earth.
Geography can be incorporated into several different subject areas. When teaching literature, it is very easy to have students locate where this book is taking place on a map. Throughout the year, you can also assign a book to each student to complete a research project on. The students will read the book, find the location on a map,and then complete research about the author and the location. The students may present this to the class as a final project.
As a lesson to add to my unit plan, I created an Artifact Bag that goes along with my lessons on the American Revolution. This is a picture of the outside of my artifact bag. During the American Revolution, the British arrived in harbors around Boston to attack the colonists. This is a representation of those times. Remember, this project and the three artifacts in the bag will lead to an important person during the American Revolution.
The first artifact in the bag is a copy of the Declaration of Independence. This was very important to colonists because it declared their independence from Britain. This document was also signed by a variety of men.
This is a map of Boston during the time of the American Revolution. Boston was a main location for many battles and important meetings during the war. This is also the birth place of a very important founding father.
During the American Revolution, many important figures used pocket watches to keep track of time.
All of these clues take a little bit of thinking and a few more clues and a large amount of research to figure out who they are about. In the end, students do enough research to figure out that the person is Benjamin Franklin.
Before learning about economics, I believed that economics was just about how much net worth a region had. However, I have learned that it is so much more.
Based on this definition, as an educator, I need to tell my students about all resources from our region and other regions that are not unlimited. During a lesson on economics, I will teach the students about how the world is broken up into different regions just like New York State is broken up. As an educator, I will also have to teach the students about money, net worth, water supply, food supplies, and natural resources such as oil. It is important for students to understand what each one of these things is and how it is used in different parts of the world. Part of economics also has to do with the population in a region versus the amount of natural resources in that region.
Economics can also be brought into science, history, career education, ELA, and many other subject areas.
Within these subjects, it is easy to include the topic of scarcity. Scarcity is when there is not enough resources for everyone in that area to use. For example, you can use bread. Tell your class that there is only a limited number of loafs of bread being delivered on that given day and ask them to discuss what will happen if there are only a certain number of loafs of bread. Discussing major issues within our society and other societies is very important to the growth and understanding of the students.
When talking about scarcity, it is important to include that scarcity is essentially supply and demand. Supply is how many resources there are and demand is how many resources the people need. To teach this, the teacher could tell the students that there is only one pencil in the class and that whoever bids the highest, gets to have that object. After one student has bought the object, tell the class that there are several more but at a lower price. This will demonstrate what supply and demand is.
Here is the link to my two slide!
For my final lesson, I taught a cooperative lesson plan. For this lesson, I had the students split into groups of 5 and one group of 6 to complete the task. The assigned task was to create playing cards, just like baseball cards, with important facts about figures during the American Revolution. This activity worked very well and from my observations, the students appeared to learn a lot and have fun. The students were able to recall information that was taught during the direct and inquiry lesson with little prompting.
After the lesson was finished, the students were asked to fill out a self and group evaluation form. I went around the room and asked the students to share what they feel they can improve on the next time they work in a group. It was very rewarding to hear that the students understand that working as a group mean that they need to work on listening skills and being thoughtful to everyone.
From teaching an inquiry lesson I have learned that it is not an easy task. An inquiry lesson has a great deal of thought that must go into it. For starters, the students must recall the scientific or inquiry method. Generally, this method is taught in science class but can be applied to all different topics.
I found it to be very difficult to convey to the students that it is okay for a hypothesis to be wrong and that many times, our first guess is not always right. However, it was easy for students to understand the mystery part of it all and doing research on an individual is very exciting and interesting. For the lesson I taught, I could have been more clear on the directions before beginning the lesson. This would have helped the students to better understand the task at hand. I feel that I could have also made the reading of the clues a little more difficult. This would have promoted higher-order thinking.
