Journal Number Three

By: Genna Merrick

Looking back on this semester, I feel like I have grown a lot. There
have been so many opportunities for me to try out new instructional
strategies and new activities that I had no idea how they would work out in
an actual classroom. I have had the opportunity to put my knowledge of
history to the test, to build meaningful relationships with my students, and to
realize that a lot more goes into teaching history than just the historical
content. That being said there will always be opportunities for me to
continue to grow and learn something from each situation that I am put into.
Moreover, there are two topics that I would like to discuss for this last
journal: maps and how much students really remember about what they are
learning.
After our discussion in class on Friday about maps, I started to think
about how I am really using maps in my classroom and if I am actually using
them in a way that is meaningful to my students. At the beginning of the
semester, my mentor teacher and I started off with a unit comparing the
Roman Empire, Gupta Empire, and Han Dynasty. One of the first assignments
that my students did was a map that showed where these three empires are
located. They had to fill in a key and then color each empire with a different
color. The purpose that I had in mind was that you cannot learn about these
empires without knowing where they are. You need a sense of where these
places are to see how they eventually interact with each other and how later
empires build on what these early empires had created. However, when we
tested our students on this unit there was a map portion and quite a few of
my students struggled with the map portion. This map was very similar to
the one that they had to fill out early in the unit and one that we had
reviewed two days before the test. The question that I asked myself was: did
my students really learn anything about the location of these empires or did
they just fill out these maps because they were an assignment that they
knew they would be turning in for credit? At that point, I dont think I had the
answer to this question. All I knew was that my students map skills were
seriously lacking. This was something I thought could be remedied with more
practice with maps. So for our next unit on Islam we made sure to include a
map of the Middle East and had students label the different caliphates and
key cities in this time period. As we moved onto Africa, my students had to
label four different maps with the different West African kingdoms and the
Trans-Saharan Trade Routes. When I collected their notebooks, it was clear
that these maps were afterthoughts for them. The test questions having to
do with these maps were frequently missed and the maps themselves were
rarely filled out completely. I still had to question why we continue to make
our students practice map skills. I still havent really come to a conclusion
about the use of maps in my classroom. Im not sure how I can make my
students realize that map skills are important and that they should be able to

label where the different oceans are and what cities and regions the Silk
Road passed through making some areas wealthier than others. As the
semester continues, I plan on continuing to use maps in my classroom and I
hope to come to some conclusion as to how to make maps more meaningful
and relevant for my students.
The second topic that I want to discuss is how much do my students
actually remember about what they are learning. In world history, there is a
lot of interconnection and overlap with different regions. For example when
we ended our discussion of Rome, we told our students that the Byzantine
Empire comes to power in the former Eastern Roman Empire and that we
could come back to them later in the semester. Last week after we finished
up with Japan we moved back to Europe, the Middle Ages, and the Byzantine
Empire. As we began our discussion, I expected my students to remember
how Rome fell, how Constantinople came to power, and how Christianity
came to be a universal religion. When I went to recap this earlier material, I
felt like only a few students remembered anything about Rome or about
Christianity. I got so many blank stares that I wasnt sure that any of these
kids even remember that we did indeed discuss Rome at the beginning of the
school year. Then I remember that you can never assume anything when it
comes to what our students know. I started to ask myself how we could
ensure that they actually remembered the material that we covered way
back in September. Ive come up with a couple of options. The first one is
some sort of pretest. So I would create a short test that my students should
be able to answer based on the fact that they have already learned about
the material. I think that this would give me a good gauge of what my
students remembered and what I need to spend more time reviewing or
reteaching. Im still not sure that this is the best way to see what they
remember. I know that some of my students do poorly on tests and
examinations so a pretest would not accurately show me what they
remember. Some of my other students are just pretty good guessers. They
know how to play the system and this doesnt show me what they actually
know either. Another option that I could go with could be a foldable where
they write down everything they remember about the fall of Rome and then
they go around the room asking their classmates what they remember and
hopefully once they have talked to everyone they remember what I need
them to so that I can build on this knowledge and teach them some new
material. Again this does not necessarily show me what everyone
individually remembers about the fall of Rome, but I think it does give the
students a bit more of an interactive assignment than just taking a test. Then
my students would have something they could look back on instead of
flipping through their notebooks to find their fall of Rome notes. At this point
I still dont really know which way is the best way to approach this situation. I
think that as I move through the tail end of this semester and move into next
semester I am going to have to come up with ways to ensure that all of my
students remember what I need them to remember about what we learn
early in the semester and how that builds on what we learn later in the

semester. The challenge next semester is that I am going to have a bunch of

students that had the other history teacher and might not have covered
everything that we covered. Its going to be hard to find a way to balance
that out with those students that Ill have for both semesters.
I feel that these two topics are areas that I want to come up with ways
to change what I have been doing. I want to make sure that all of my
students learn how to use maps in meaningful ways and that my students
can come up with ways to ensure that they are indeed remembering things
done early in the year or in the semester. I think that thinking of ways to do
this will not only benefit my growth as a teacher, but they will benefit my
students as well.