Who are You?

How do we get to know each other?

This is a question teachers ask themselves at the start of each year.  We may have some information on our students, but how do we get to know their background, thoughts, accomplishments, talents, fears, and ambitions?  How do we make it fun, creative and interesting for everyone?

The t-shirt template

Make a T-Shirt??????

At the beginning of our teaching Social Studies method class, I did not know what to think when Dr. Smirnova said we would make a T-shirt to share with the class...do I have to design an actual t-shirt?  Do I take my fabric markers and start going nuts?!?!  In actuality, this was a digital t-shirt.  We were supplied with a template and asked to answer the following questions...using pictures only!!!

1.  What are the countries of your heritage

2.  What Social Studies teaching or similar experiences have you had?

3.  What has made you proud?

4. What make you anxious about teaching students?

The t-shirts were then presented to the class and we used an inquiry based format to elicit thoughts and ideas from others about the things we tried to represent on our shirts.  It was really interesting to see and hear everyone's responses.  I guess that is what I enjoyed most;  that it was not just words, it was not just pictures but an exciting way to use both to gain insight and understanding of each other!

My Future Class

I think this would be a tremendous activity to do in a classroom.  Of course questions would be designed that would be appropriate to the grade level.  It really forces some creativity and gets students thinking about who they are and learning about the other students in the class.

I believe this could be adapted for any grade level.

Suggestions of adaptations:

• Use cutouts from magazines or even clip art pictures to have students glue onto a paper t-shirt to share with the class.
• Use 3 focused questions that focus on the student's family, background, favorite things,  friends or pets (for younger students).
• Older students could include future plans, career thoughts or job activities.
• Students could create digital t-shirts in conjunction with a computer lab activity in order to teach technology as well.  Print outs could then be shared with the class.
• Instead of t-shirt, students could create a collage out of pictures in response to specific questions about them.
• The options are only limited by your imagination......

BE CREATIVE, BE ENTHUSIASTIC..IT IS CONTAGIOUS