Teaching High School Social Studies

Presidential Knife Fights for Review

2013-05-28T06:11:00.002-07:00

OK, so this assignment was a little outside of my comfort zone, but I tried it and the students loved it! I got the idea from a blog post about "What if all of the Presidents were involved in a massive knife fight to the death? Who would win and why?" Geoff Micks went through and developed stories and reasons for all 44 Presidents about why they would or wouldn't win this arena-style Hunger Games death match (very entertaining to read).

So, taking this idea further, I showed the students the example and had them come up with their own examples using people from our second semester of study. The ideas I have gotten back thus far are really creative! Hide-and-seek, water balloon fight, Hunger Games, chess matches, basketball games, etc.

What does this have to do with academia? Well, in Bloom's Taxonomy, SYNTHESIS is one of the higher-order levels of thinking. This exercise has students use information they know to create a hypothetical situation involving abstract ideas and then EVALUATE it by backing it up with evidence. So there you go: two of Bloom's higher levels in one review activity. I've found most review activities to be either rote memorization or recall activities.

Your Students Can't Google w/o Being Taught

2013-03-07T05:15:00.000-08:00

Have you ever watched a student do a web search? It is pathetic! They use Google like they use people: they ask it a question.

Even though Google is smart enough to figure out what they mean, it is still the wrong way to search. I don't know about you, but in Indiana, I don't believe there are any standards on how to do a web search. So its just one of those things they will need to know how to do, but schools aren't teaching.

Maybe you do the same thing? Did you know all of the tips and tricks below for executing a web search? I sure didn't know every single thing, but now I use most of them and can find just about anything I am looking for! Give 'er a try! (sorry for the size. I am not a Blogger expert by any means and I'm not sure how to make it larger, but if you download it, it is pretty large!)

(h/t to HackCollege.com for the infographic I have used in class for the past two years. They have other great stuff as well!)

Speed Dating Review Exercise

2013-02-28T11:10:00.000-08:00

No no, nothing fishy going on here! I found an idea from Twitter and decided to try it out myself in the classroom.

I am always looking for new ways to review material before a test. Lots of stuff gets old really fast with as many tests as we give. Fortunately, this is a new activity I like and the students like it too. It is fast-paced and requires 100% engagement for it to work, so students that usually don't contribute are forced to on a smaller scale.

It is more of a "speed-networking" exercise, which is becoming more and more popular in the business world as a way for clients to meet a lot of prospective businesses at once.

Here's how its done:

Beforehand, use a bracket-generating site like challonge.com and create a round-robin tournament for your students.
Go here and download the accompanying sheet for students to use.
Come up with enough terms/information for students to research (1 per student)
Assign each student one term. Give them around 8-10 minutes to create a 30-second description.

Make sure they focus on putting their term in context of what you are studying. Do not, I repeat, DO NOT just provide a definition.

Find a way to time each round. I use online-stopwatch.com. Set the timer for 1-minute rounds.
Project the bracket on a screen or find another way so each student can see the schedule.
Have students gather with their partner, and each of them have 30 seconds to "introduce themselves" to their "date". I usually call out after 30 seconds so they know when to switch.

Student A describes themselves while Student B writes lists them on their sheet. When Student A finishes describing themselves, Student B will circle "yes" or "no", as in "Do you understand this material?" Then, they flip after 30 seconds.

After the minute is over, repeat step 7 for the next rounds (however many you have).

It will get loud. Students will be engaged. It will be awesome. :-)

Great PSYC Videos for Review in Class

2013-01-17T08:25:00.000-08:00

These psychology videos I stumbled across are fantastic!! I am planning on using these as review videos before a quiz. They are great for Introduction to Psychology classes, but they may be a little too easy for any AP PSYC classes. We are discussing the history/approaches, so here is one about said topic:

There are plenty more of these videos at education-portal.com. They have plenty of other subjects in the social sciences, math, physical science, etc. I am going to be linking to these Psychology videos at my YouTube page for students to view.

Nice Flipped Resources

2013-01-10T10:58:00.000-08:00

After doing some research over Christmas (excuse me...HOLIDAY break), I came across this really nice Flipped Classroom resource document. Love love LOVE that it is in Google Docs as well. (h/t to Dan Spencer (@runfardvs) of Jackson (MI) County ISD for the link and the document.

Flipping Out Over the Flipped Classroom?

2012-12-14T10:39:00.000-08:00

So I have been really weary of this entire "flipped classroom" ideology overtaking education right now. There are multiple issues to get around before it can take shape. BUT...all of the resources out there have really got me thinking that there may be something to this. It is raising test scores, it allows teachers to individualize instruction, and students seem to enjoy it if it is done "correctly" (as in, not just replacing lecturing at school with lecturing at home). Our principal is pushing it, our teacher of the year just received an award for implementing it...

...could there be something to this??

So in these next few months, I am going to be researching how to implement this strategy in a social studies setting (which is what I am doing currently). I will share interesting resources that I find and document my journey as I find my way into a flipped classroom. I already model the flipped method in some chapters in US History, but to do a full-fledged implementation may be a little tougher. Any suggestions in the comments would be helpful.

Out With the Old...

2012-12-06T09:45:00.000-08:00

I've decided to change the way I am running my classroom next semester. At our school, we receive 90% new students when we change semesters, so it shouldn't make a difference to them.

I don't completely agree with the concept of flipping a classroom. If every teacher did it, students would not have enough time at night to watch every video. Plus, most teachers just post a video of themselves lecturing, either in front of a board or on a screencast. All this does is shift the responsibility of teaching onto the students. This can be helpful for some things as a supplement to the lecture, but not every lecture needs to be done this way. Students will lose interest very quickly.

I give my students three objectives each day of things they should learn. At my school, they're referred to as "Learning Targets." These targets start with higher-order thinking terms such as "Analyze", "Evaluate", "Critique", and "Construct". The students take these home and either use their book or resources I provide online (thus, differentiating their instruction as well). When they come back, I lecture on the targets just to make sure they were able to comprehend everything themselves. That way, it frees up a lot of time in class to practice "Historian Skills" like Sourcing, Close Reading, Contextualization, and Corroborating sources to make a story whole and complete. I use the Stanford History Education Group's resources for this. They're excellent and highly recommended! We will also practice map skills with the content (WWII in Europe, Pacific). I am sure I will come up with more variety as the semester moves along.

Possible Pros:

Frees up class time from lecture for more activity-based learning
More interesting for students (and the teacher!)
Plenty of resources to choose from and introduce/experiment with.

Possible Cons:

Lower-end students will not do targets at home and risk falling further behind
Some students enjoy structure (i.e. special education and those with cognitive disabilities).

Any thoughts? Please post in the comments below. Thanks!

Assignments, Grading, and a Life...OH MY!

2012-11-25T13:20:00.004-08:00

So...this is my first blog post in quite awhile. I didn't think that it served any purpose until now. I made this a part of my teaching goal for the year to be more reflective on my teaching. Legally, I feel I need to put this in my first post: these posts are my opinion only: not that of the school, dept, other teachers, etc. So...here we go!

Lately, our US History team has been having some problems being aligned in our assessment of material. We took a look at our gradebooks and found that some of us were giving way more writing assignments, some were giving more tests, and some hadn't given many homework assignments at all. We are currently taking steps to address this, but it got me wondering what other teachers do. I will describe my structure below.

I give out a set of "learning targets" (basically objectives) at the beginning of each chapter over what a student should know in each particular chapter. We accomplish these in class in addition to maps, analyzing primary sources, and short video clips (2 - 10 min) to elaborate on topics, but never to completely explain something. Homework is a set of key terms and students must complete an "Identification" over each of them (5 per section). At the end of the chapter, there is a quiz over the Identification terms and a test over the learning targets.

This system gives me a lot of structure, but it also results in a lot of assignments (which results in a lot of grading). I was much higher on the amount of assignments given than my fellow department members were. So I am looking for suggestions to implement in second semester. I want to switch it up.

What is your classroom like? Do you have any structure? What sorts of activities do you do? How do you incorporate "higher-level" thinking activities such as analysis into your class? Please leave some advice in the comments section below.

New Direction

2012-11-18T13:43:00.000-08:00

From now on, this blog will be my place to improve my teaching. I am so glad that it has a purpose now, because before, I wasn't really comfortable with what I was doing. I will post once per week reflecting on my classroom and things I am doing. Hopefully I will be able to solicit advice from readers/fellow teachers, and maybe even convince you to be more reflective of your teaching as well.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Interactive Map Brings Substance to Emancipation

2012-06-13T14:10:00.001-07:00

If you're like me, as a high school US History teacher, not a lot of emphasis is placed on the Emancipation Proclamation during the Civil War. (Indiana divides it into two parts: 8th grade focuses on pre-colonial to the Civil War; 11th grade focuses on Civil War to the present with a small review of 1754 - 1865). Because of this, the Emancipation isn't presented with a lot of heart, meaning, or substance. One day the slaves were slaves, the next day they were free.

Fortunately, it wasn't that simple, and a new interactive map from the University of Richmond details and aggregates tons of information into a visual reference.

Look here for the original article on the Chronicle of Higher Education.

How Does It Affect Education?

Anything that can be represented visually is great for teaching a generation that has a screen in front of them for 1/2 of the day. This is a good way to show that emancipation of the slaves did not happen overnight. There are also lists of the data the map is representing, so you can have students look deeper into the data if you wish.

Zone Out During Life? You're Not Alone

2012-06-13T07:35:00.001-07:00

Well, at least I know I'm not the only one...

An article on the PsyBlog takes a look at several studies on the subject and found that people approximately zoned out 5.4 times in a 45 minute period. However, they weren't always aware that they were zoning out (ever read a page and not remember a thing you read?)

So the researchers devised a system to catch these people, and found that minds wandered about 13% of the time while reading. However, what is more disturbing, is that in another experiment, mind wandering occurred in almost half of the participants when they were asked in everyday general life.

How Does It Affect Education?

Well, it doesn't bode well for activities in the classroom, especially with the "need satisfaction immediately" generation we are teaching. If one in two of your students are mind-wandering, or half of your students are zoning out at any given moment, how can you keep students on task?

Some suggestions: keep activities fresh, focus on student-centered learning, and follow up with students about what they just learned.

Do you have any ways to keep students (or yourself) on task? Comment below!

Summer Book Club on Twitter #sschatbook

2012-06-12T10:39:00.001-07:00

Some quick words of advice: if you haven't signed up for Twitter yet and you are an educator, do it. Start building your PLN. It was the best professional development I have ever done. I only wish it counted toward my Professional Growth Points as an Indiana educator. Sadly, they lag behind in the technology world.

Once you do get on Twitter, be sure to search for #sschat to connect with fellow social studies educators (there are also #histchat, #psychat, #mathchat, #scichat, etc. if you want to get more specific.). #sschat is having a book club this summer, and they are reading one of my favorites. I like it because it is essentially an educational psychology book, but it can be applied to everyday teaching!

Daniel T. Willingham's book "Why Don't Students Like School?" is a great look at how most teaching is not conducive to how the human mind works, and how to rectify it. I have read it before, but I plan to read it again as a part of this book chat. We are reading 1 chapter per week for 9 weeks. The first chat is on June 24th. See the promotional flyer on Google Docs.

"Everything Comes Down to Poo - Toilet Psychology"

2012-06-05T11:45:00.000-07:00

University of Melbourne professor Nick Haslam is pushing the bounds of psychology where it has never gone before...literally. In the June 2012 issue of The Psychologist, Haslam argues for more research into human excretion. Although disgusting (at least in this blogger's opinion), I do agree with the points he makes:

“In 30 years of studying the field I rarely came across any recognition that human beings are creatures who excrete. Much of what we psychologists care about is on the mental side of the mind/body divide, but even when we go corporeal we eliminate elimination. Psychologists have examined the psychobiology of eating, sleeping and sex at great length, and devoted numerous journals and professional associations to them. We have investigated how substances cross from outer to inner but largely ignored traffic in the other direction.”

He also argues that some gastrointestinal disorders are linked to psychological abnormalities, how excretion is linked to social attitudes, and how men and women view excretion differently (men are more open to discussing it, women tend to keep it hidden).

Check out Susan Perry's summary of the article in the MinnPost.
Give Haslam's article a read for yourself: it's pretty interesting (and free)!

How Does It Affect Education?
Well, this might be an interesting way to grasp students attention at the beginning of a unit. There are multiple units that can open with this as Prof. Haslam has used multiple examples of how excretion is tied to psychology.

Wordpress vs. Blogger vs. EduBlogs

2012-06-05T11:22:00.001-07:00

As evidenced by my lack of a library of posts, I recently decided to begin a blog about education. Currently, I am planning on implementing this task as a goal for my school next year. I feel it will ~~force~~ allow me to stay current on trends in education, read/comment on other blogs about US History and Psychology, and be reflective on my own experiences in the classroom. BUT...there are so many blog sites out there. Which one to choose?

Steven Anderson (one of my favorite blog reads and Twitter follows) recently posted an entire article about it on his blog, which I found very helpful and motivational. His first point of note confused me to no end, however. I wanted to go with one of the big boys, but which would I choose, Blogger or Wordpress? Plus, a Twitter follower told me he had recently started blogging on EduBlogs.

I decided to set up a blog on both of them and see which one I liked. Here is what I found:

Blogger

Pros

VERY simple to use (owned by Google)
Already use Google a lot, so this fits in seamlessly
WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) interface - no coding required.
Completely free with the ability to monetize through Google AdSense

Cons

No official iPad application (but there is one for iPhone?)

Wordpress

Pros

New interface is very user friendly.
iPad app is very useful
Opensourced (if you're a techie and can use that stuff)
Automatically link to social media accounts (Facebook, Twitter, etc) to write links to your newest post

Cons

HTML code is intimidating
Basic service is free, but it costs $$$ if you want to upgrade (themes, no ads, etc. all will cost you)

EduBlogs

Pros

School friendly (could be used with students)
Cool iPad app similar in design to Wordpress
Uses WordPress engine to run its blog.

Cons

Free iPad app won't let you post unless you are an EduBlog Pro user, which costs $$$

Even though Blogger does not have an "official" iPad app, I felt strongly enough to start my blog on that site. But now, how does one use Blogger on their iPad?

Blogsy (available in the App Store for $4.99). Time and time again, this is considered the best app for blogging on the iPad. It has cross-platform capabilities, so even if you decide to go with another site to host your blog, chances are Blogsy will support it.

So there you go! Now that I have settled on a decent space to write a blog, be on the lookout for more and more posts!

Majority of Students are Bad Researchers

2012-06-01T07:36:00.000-07:00

Sarah Kessler on Mashable.com recently posted this article on students' research habits according to popular bibliography site easybib.com. After reading the research papers I received in my government class (which I am no longer teaching next year), I can confirm that the majority of students follow this trend.

How can we correct this as social studies teachers? I assign research papers in my US History class and I am planning to in my new Psychology course. In the rubric, I state that sources must only come from reputable sources. BUT...if the student thinks that some of these sites are reputable, then this is a problem. How do we teach them otherwise during their last two years of high school? In my opinion, it needs to start in the last few years of primary schooling.

The infographic from the article is below:

Technology for Technology's Sake

2012-05-31T10:40:00.000-07:00

I recently came across this article regarding technology in my Zite magazine from Education Weekly by Paul Barnwell. I agree with its premise, but it brings me back to the old saying: “don’t throw out the baby with the bath water” (even though I can’t stand that phrase. Who would do that?)

To me, teachers use technology to serve any of the three following purposes: 1) to enhance students’ learning. 2) to replace and/or make learning easier 3) to make learning “fun” and more interesting from their perspective.

1) Teachers that use technology to enhance student’s learning are the ones that get it. Finding interactive maps of the American Revolution will help a student understand the course of the war better than a map in a textbook. Using Twitter as a means to connect with students outside of the classroom for retweeting relevant content that connect with what you’re studying or what you have studied is a great way to bring the content you’re learning into their “stream of consciousness” mindset.
This is where the article falters. This is what Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter are good for. While I absolutely would not recommend a teacher becoming friends with their students on Facebook (or follow students’ Twitter feeds), a teacher can create a fan page on Facebook to connect a class outside of school. I post my videos on YouTube for students to view as a refresher on a topic or to catch up if they were absent. These are both examples of moving learning toward being 24/7 and disproving the notion that learning only takes place inside of a brick-and-mortar building during certain times of the day.

2) Technology certainly makes learning easier, if you know how to use it. Those that move to paperless classrooms aren’t necessarily hampering their learning, but simply making it easier (and more environmentally friendly). I post many things on my Google Docs account for students to view if they forget a group they have been assigned or what their topic is. I then post the link on our class Moodle page. Always available, 24/7.

3) If teachers are only using technology for this purpose, be warned. Technology should not be a gimmick that grabs students’ attention purely for the sake of being the “cool teacher.” In Daniel Willingham’s book Why Don’t Students Like School, an excellent read, he states that

Whatever students think about is what they will remember…memory is the residue of thought.

In the case of Mr. Barnwell’s article, will students remember the content they were have supposed to have been exiting with or will they be more enamoured by using their cell phones in class?

One cannot simply say all technology is good or all technology is bad. Technology in the classroom is like fire. If one can harness its power and use it to enhance learning, it can be a very powerful tool. If someone uses it who doesn’t know how, they’ll end up getting burned.

Formal Introductions

2012-05-30T14:45:00.001-07:00

Good evening. Soon...I finally decided to hop aboard the blog train and start one of my own. There are many other great blogs out there (a couple that inspire me are and ), but something I really miss in life is writing. I've written professionally in the past (if you call writing a free-lance column in the local paper as a teen professional), but now that I am a teacher, I feel as though I could contribute something to other teachers out there and grow with them.

So allow me to introduce myself: I'm Scott. I recently completed my 3rd year of teaching in Fort Wayne, IN. I have taught US History to juniors and US Government to seniors for the past 3 years. Ive recently come across a new challenge and next year I will be taking over my school's psychology courses. PSYC was my favorite subject in college (Purdue University graduate), so I could not be more thrilled to take over this class.

This blog will develop and morph as it finds it's legs, but I am picturing it focusing on teaching US History, Psychology, a little Government, educational technology, and anything else I find interesting in education.

I am on Twitter

I am on YouTube

I hope you will follow my adventure into teaching.