We just started a new unit in Social Studies called Exploring the World. We started by looking at pictures from a bird's-eye view and discussing how we can look at the world in different ways. How maps, globes, and google earth can show the world. The students are fascinated by this and LOVE exploring the world from our classroom in Dominion City, Manitoba. We have been participating in Mystery Skypes since October of 2012 and connecting with classrooms around the world. It is interesting when students say, "It is like they are right here in our classroom but they live so far away." How cool is that?
Today in Social Studies we were talking about how maps, globes, and google earth are all very different ways of looking at the world and how the each offer different perspectives of the world even though they all do the same thing (allow people to see the world). This really made me think about teaching. I don't know if you are the same kind of teacher as me...but my mind drifts...often. Maps got me thinking about teachers. Teachers are kind of like the variety of maps...we all function to do the same thing but do it differently. As my class and I are brainstorming ideas for our venn diagram about maps, I start thinking about all the early years teachers down my hallway and how we are all so different (different personalities, different teaching styles, different ways of engaging students) and how we are all fundementally the same (we all want students to succeed in and way beyond the walls of the building and try to prepare them for this).
Looking at things from a bird's eye view offers a different perspective. You are backing away and looking at something from a distance. When you look at something from a birds eye view....you see it differently. As I finished recording the student's ideas on the SMARTboard...I stepped back....I observed my class from a distance (I've been doing more of this lately...I recommend it, it's interesting). This is what I saw: Four boys spinning a globe to find out where they would live when they grew up. One boy's finger landed on Hawaii and they all agreed that would be a pretty sweet place to live. One girl was telling a few others about Florida and what it was like there when she went to Disney. Another student was telling others about her first time on an airplane and what it looked like from above. A student was showing two other boys where he lives on google earth using our SMARTboard. Another girl was telling about her trip to Alberta and how everything was so flat. I saw my class differently than I have ever seen them before. They didn't change, I just changed the way I was looking at them. "Mrs. Collette, you need to spin the globe to find out where you are going to live when you grow up." I spun the globe, closed my eyes, and put my finger on the globe. I couldn't help to think of a quote a saw on twitter a couple days before: "I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I've ended up where I need to be."
Today in Social Studies we were talking about how maps, globes, and google earth are all very different ways of looking at the world and how the each offer different perspectives of the world even though they all do the same thing (allow people to see the world). This really made me think about teaching. I don't know if you are the same kind of teacher as me...but my mind drifts...often. Maps got me thinking about teachers. Teachers are kind of like the variety of maps...we all function to do the same thing but do it differently. As my class and I are brainstorming ideas for our venn diagram about maps, I start thinking about all the early years teachers down my hallway and how we are all so different (different personalities, different teaching styles, different ways of engaging students) and how we are all fundementally the same (we all want students to succeed in and way beyond the walls of the building and try to prepare them for this).
Looking at things from a bird's eye view offers a different perspective. You are backing away and looking at something from a distance. When you look at something from a birds eye view....you see it differently. As I finished recording the student's ideas on the SMARTboard...I stepped back....I observed my class from a distance (I've been doing more of this lately...I recommend it, it's interesting). This is what I saw: Four boys spinning a globe to find out where they would live when they grew up. One boy's finger landed on Hawaii and they all agreed that would be a pretty sweet place to live. One girl was telling a few others about Florida and what it was like there when she went to Disney. Another student was telling others about her first time on an airplane and what it looked like from above. A student was showing two other boys where he lives on google earth using our SMARTboard. Another girl was telling about her trip to Alberta and how everything was so flat. I saw my class differently than I have ever seen them before. They didn't change, I just changed the way I was looking at them. "Mrs. Collette, you need to spin the globe to find out where you are going to live when you grow up." I spun the globe, closed my eyes, and put my finger on the globe. I couldn't help to think of a quote a saw on twitter a couple days before: "I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I've ended up where I need to be."