In the two week time of my clinical experience, the concept of social studies was

American Government. I chose to teach about the organization of the government, more
specifically the branches of government. It is important to know how our government works and
how it is truly led by the people. The goal of the lesson was to learn how and why the branches
were created, who are in each branch, the job of each branch and how they check and balance
each other.
To acquire a gauge of student prior knowledge, I opened the lesson with the question,
What do you know about our government? Students answered that we have a president and
that we vote. Then I asked, What do you know about the branches of our government? To my
surprise, one student named all three branches. I asked them, How do you think these branches
of government work? Why do we have them? However, none of them could tell me what the
branches were responsible for or why we have them.
To learn about why we have branches of government, we first needed to learn about the
constitution. Consequently the lesson was introduced through a video which quickly explained
the constitution in relation to the division of power. It also mentioned how it is a powerful piece
of our democracy which outlines our government. The branches basically derive from this
document since it states there should be more than one power in our government, based on the
dissatisfactory and unfair kings rule over America. The students seemed to enjoy the video. Part
of their classroom rules, they are allowed to come to the carpet for videos. They sat cross legged,
faces eager towards the screen. Based on my previous observations, they have trouble keeping
quiet, however they were paying attention. The video had interesting graphics and a clear voice.
It was easy to follow and entertaining to watch.

From there, the lesson shifted to a brief over view power point about the branches of
government. Each slide had the branch name, who is part of the branch and their responsibilities.
I asked them to keep in mind the question, How do each of these branches keep each other in
check? The slides were enough information to inform them without overwhelming them,
however, more information about the branches would be read in the articles later in the
individual assignment. The articles had informative content that detailed how the branches work
with one another to divide the power and make our government successful. I modeled how to
read the articles to answer the questions about the relationships between the branches and how
we should cite our sources. The students always wanted to be picked to answer a question in
class, so when we answered the question about the constitution together, all hands were in the air.
The student who formed the answer to the constitution question without a doubt paid attention to
the video. Their answer had accurate relations to the branches of government and links to why
the constitution exists. The rest of the class added some points and together we summarized all of
them and wrote it on the board. I asked them why they thought it was important to include where
we read this information. Only a couple hands rose to answer. One student stated that it is
important to show that they did not just come up with an answer out of their head.
The main purpose of reading the articles were to further their understanding of the
branches of government, but it was also to teach them how to use multiple sources to answer a
question or become more informed. The students were used to completing work online or on
their chrome books. They read the articles with ease, besides a few students who ventured off to
find games within the article site, and answered the questions correct information. When the
games became a trend, I asked the class if our assignment included games. They all agreed that it
did not and that we should not be on them. It became apparent that most of the class could add

more facts to fulfill their answers. By pausing and drawing the class together, we talked about
how we can answer these questions with more information since there is a lot from what we read
in the articles. A few of them also had trouble citing their sources so again, I brought the class
together again to discuss the citing process.
My teacher wanted to collect their work for a grade in her class, consequently I do not
have numerical data to explain student outcome. However, I while walking around and helping
students, the majority met the mark. Most students answered both of the questions with correct
information and cited their sources as instructed. While showing me their work, they also wanted
to tell me about what they learned through the articles that they did not include in their answers
to the questions. Those students were like spouts of information and evidently were very
interested in branches of government. They asked more questions about the president and how
voting works. We talked briefly about this however we ran out of time. Their interest and
questions was a good start to a follow up government lesson.
The class as a whole liked to talk throughout the day, even during independent work.
When this issue arose to an immediate problem, I clapped to get their attention and went over the
class expectations one more time. They were quiet, but later the talking started again. My teacher
then stepped in to discipline them as her class and talked with them that this is an ongoing
problem that they needed to address and resolve. I would have to work on my classroom
management skills. I need to practice how to phrase expected behavior and how to bring to
attention misbehavior.
Besides the talking and the games, the lesson went well. The students grasped the
concept, they understood what they were asked to do, the content and how to do their
assignment. Even though they did not know anything about the branches but maybe their names,

they learned a couple important aspects about the power the branches hold and who are apart of
them. I could probably have given them more questions since they seemed to read quickly. Or I
could have written in the rubric to include more than one relation between the branches and how
they divide power. For younger students, I would maybe have less questions and maybe focus on
one or two branches of government. The checks and balances can be a little confusing, like a
web, so it might be beneficial to understand branch by branch how they relate and their powers.
There is also vocabulary and word structure in the questions and articles that are not on grade
level for younger students. I would have to find lower grade reading and ask the questions
differently. For the fifth graders however, they understood the relation and vocabulary with no
problem.