Unpacking the Luggage of Social Studies: My Reflection of My Fieldwork Experience

Recently, my class has gone into a local elementary school to teach 3 lesson plans (direct, inquiry, and collaborative) on a Social Studies topic. The lessons central focus was on the idea of immigration and people moving from place to place. After completing and executing all 3 lessons within a 3rd grade classroom, I have found my favorite to be inquiry and collaborative.

Even though a direct lesson plan does not allow for much creativity, teaching the information in this style is essential for the success of the other two lessons. For the direct instruction, we found it best to have the students only fill in one word from each power point slide into a premade packet that exactly follows the power point. Since they are only in third grade, most of their writing was done slowly and meticulously, with the children having to continuously go back and forth between the screen and their papers in order to spell the words correctly.

I had the most fun implementing the inquiry and collaborative lesson plans, which allowed the students to express themselves creatively and learn while completing or exploring fun projects. I believe that having the students actively interacting with the material and with each other is the best way to teach social studies. At the end of the unit, I found that the students remembered the information that was included in the inquiry and collaborative lesson plans the best. They enjoy having fun, exploring, and being able to be creative.

I usually dislike working in a group of partners, but this experience showed me how much fun it can be when you are working with competent peers. The other two people within my group were creative and we were able to all equally contribute to the creation of the three lesson plans.


As a teacher, I have learned that I work best when I do not try to script myself. Usually, if I try to heavily script myself in what I am going to say, I become flustered and forgetful. By just knowing the power point slides and the information I wanted to teach, I was able to speak naturally and with confidence.