EDU 222

Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History What is 'Gilder Lehrman'?  Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History is a nonprofit organization which focuses on history education for grades K-12, as well as some services for the public. They have over 70,000 documents to use, as well as a variety of lesson plans. What Is It Good For?  Gilder Lehrman has a search engine for lesson plans, videos, and essays, primarily.  You have to choose either a time period, content type, topic, or keyword. There is also a search engine for just sources.  What Would A Typical Class Using 'Gilder Lehrman' Look Like?  Any sources you use from the collection provide the following information: summary of the item, people associated with the item, historical era, keywords and subjects, and the "sub era"— or, the more specific time period. Here is an example. Each lesson (hyperlinked is an example lesson) begins with a couple of essential questions— to ...

DocsTeach and Archives.gov What are 'DocsTeach' and 'The National Archive'?  DocsTeach is a website which puts its focus on primary documents. It categorizes them so they can easily be found with keywords, and they are ever expanding. There are currently more than 10,000 documents on their website. The website also offers some lesson plans revolving around specific documents. Archives.gov comes hand in hand with DocsTeach, as they are connected. The National Archives has a section for educator resources, where you will find a number of different helpful resources. Among these are National History Day resources, working with primary sources worksheets, and opportunities for visiting students in the classroom. What Is It Good For?  DocsTeach is best for its primary documents , and the lesson guides that come with them. On their lesson plans, they even have a classification system that includes the lesson's placement on Bloom's Taxonomy, what hi...

EDUTopia What is EDUTopia? EDUTopia is a resource for teachers for the betterment of their students, to encourage active learning. EDUTopia highlights activities, approaches, and practices that work effectively. EDUTopia currently is putting an emphasis on fact based research, assessing quality effectively, as well as effective and creative use of acquired information. They provide a number of articles as well as videos for teachers. What Is It Good For?  EDUTopia is a great resource when looking for answers to questions you have as a new or even experienced teacher. There are separate categories including: New teacher, Social and emotional learning, Brain based learning, Integrated studies, Project based learning, Technology integration, Comprehensive assessment, and Teacher development. How Can I/Would I Like To Use It? Here are a few of the articles I found most helpful: How Restorative Justice Helps Students Learn  - A strategy for discipline tha...

Stanford History Education Group "SHEG" What is the Stanford History Education Group (SHEG)? The Stanford History Education Group (or, SHEG) is a website run and contributed to by Stanford staff, students, faculty, and visiting scholars. SHEG provides a number of resources for teachers, including pre-made lessons and pre-made assessments (with rubrics!). What Is It Good For?  SHEG is best used for their pre-made lessons, which include historical subjects as well as civic subjects. Each lesson plan introduces the topic effectively, outlines some things to discuss, and provides worksheets. They are somewhat bare bones at times, allowing the teacher plenty of room to expand and change around what they need. What Would A Typical Class Using 'SHEG' Look Like? This would be a great resource at a time when you are unsure/unable to plan your own in depth lesson in order to get a great foundation for a subject/concept you are teaching. You are given bas...

Facing History What is Facing History? Facing History places a priority on educating students on subjects that deal heavily in racism, prejudice, and antisemitism. Facing History believes that educating students on these subjects will create a "more humane and informed citizenry". These lessons are essential not only to inform students of our world's history of oppression as well as to potentially act as a preventative measure. Facing History offers educator resources (lesson plans, library with ebooks, activity and classroom engagement strategies) as well as professional development opportunities (workshops, courses, seminars, webinars...).  What Is It Good For?  Facing History has a large database of lessons, units, books, and feature collections stored in each 'topic' — time period or overarching theme. The units, lessons, books, and feature collections are well thought out and engaging. The website also has a large database of teaching strateg...

RUBRICS - not only do they allow for teachers to understand how they are grading their projects, but they are also helpful to students themselves to understand exactly what is expected from them. A good rubric can only be formed from a good project— meaning a good project should already have the bones which allow for a rubric to be realized. What makes a good rubric? What makes a bad rubric? Let's discuss.  A GOOD RUBRIC IS... Clear Concise Detailed Not too complicated EXAMPLE This rubric is clearly labeled, with understandable and relevant categories as well as a 1-4 scale that students will already be familiar with, most likely. Each category is detailed, but easily understandable for the student. This rubric may have too many categories, but other than that it is reliable and helpful.  A BAD RUBRIC IS... Unclear Wordy Not wordy enough Unhelpful EXAMPLE This rubric is unclear. The side categories are somewhat difficult to understand, as ...

We live in an age which values its own history enough to create collections of artifacts, pictures, and important documents of the past. We also live in an age where we have countless resources at our fingertips. One of the most incredible things we currently are able to take advantage of is a combination of these two things: online access to museums. The Smithsonian keeps an archive of all (or most of) its exhibits, and as an aspiring educator I was excited to take advantage of finding historical pictures, documents, and other exhibits which I could use to highlight my unit. I chose three pieces from the Smithsonian to incorporate into three different lessons. https://www.si.edu/spotlight/knowing-the-presidents-andrew-johnson For my formative unit, I chose a helpful spotlight exhibit of Andrew Johnson. Many students aren't as aware of Andrew Johnson— unlike Nixon and Clinton, who hold more recent relevance— so this spotlight exhibit will be helpful to students to gain an i...

For our presidential impeachment unit, the family and friends interview  project for this unit is a mini project which involves interviewing family and friends who were alive and aware during either Nixon's attempted impeachment or Clinton's attempted impeachment. These interviews can help shed light on not only the events themselves, but also the way that American citizens perceived them at the time. It's also a great way for students to strike up a conversation with their friends and family about what they're learning! I see tremendous value in talking with friends and family members about an event that happened in the past for a couple of reasons. 1) It makes the event more real.  Although history is entirely made up of events that truly did happen, it can be hard to visualize an event happening until you speak with someone about how they saw and experienced it. It is one thing to discuss these events passively, it is another to seek out the event in the eyes of ...

One of my personal favorite lesson plans that I ever had for a class was for an AP US History class, where the topic of that class was World War One— specifically, the viewpoints that each country involved had for the conflict. The lesson began as a lecture from our history teacher, where he talked us through the different things which were occurring at that particular time in World War One. He talked about the different conflicts between countries, and what events led to those conflicts. He discussed different alliances, as well as which countries were and weren't involved at this time. This lecture didn't last very long before we were asked to do our own research on a country— a country we were able to chose for ourselves. I chose France.  Each of us, with a partner, spent a good amount of that class researching that country's specific alliances, enemies, conflicts, etcetera, in order to represent that country for next class in a classroom-wide debate. Never had I...

When we came into class on Tuesday and immediately received a beautifully illustrated card with a mermaid on it, I wasn't quite sure what we were in for that day. Each table received a card with some sort of person on it— a mermaid, a superhero, a circus trapeze artist, etcetera— and an assignment: create an object that would be helpful to this particular person. On the back of each card, a story told in pictures to illustrate the life and personality of the person on the front of the card. We quickly worked together to craft an underwater microphone/cellphone, and then promptly received three more cards, with the instruction to not flip over the card. Two mermaids of different social classes, a superhero, and a circus trapeze artist were our four "students" in this simulation. We were asked to create a GRASPS ( G oal, R ole, A udience, S ituation, P roduct, and S tandards) assignment for each of these four students, taking into account their different situations and ...