From Our Classroom to Yours
Authors: Lindsey Anderson, Kandace Campbell, Stacy Lynch, and Kristen Mugrauer
Faculty Supervisor: Dr. Sarah R. Hartman
Abstract:
The project “From Our Classroom to Yours” consisted of ten college students representing the College of Coastal Georgia (CCGA) traveling to Jane Macon Middle School to enrich the Social Studies content by capitalizing on students’ natural development of socializing and physical movement. Once a week during our college class, we would improve our content knowledge, and we would use our classmates to ensure that our activity ideas were plausible. For thirteen weeks, the ten college students went into three classrooms, totaling an impact of seventy-five students. While in these classrooms, the CCGA students implemented lessons which incorporated physical activity into the Social Studies content being taught. We worked with the seventh grade teachers and used the Georgia Performance Standards to create engaging, energetic, and effective lessons. By incorporating physical activity into the Social Studies curriculum, we exposed the students to new techniques and strategies for learning the content. The students were hesitant to participate at first, but by our second visit, they had warmed up to the idea of incorporating physical activity into their Social Studies class. By the time the thirteen weeks were over, the students were begging us not to go. Almost immediately, we saw a change in the students. These bored and discouraged seventh graders transformed into engaged students who were ready to learn. However, it took a little longer to see improvements in the students’ work, but after some time the chapter test scores started to rise. Eventually, when the time came for the students to take their benchmark exams, we saw improvements there as well. As future educators, we thought that the most impressive result of the project was that the students showed excitement about furthering their education.
