September 19th, 2007 walkere
I’m always looking for primary documents to use in class. Documents that are already in electronic form are the best - it saves me the time of typing or copying and editing the documents.
The Virginia Center for Digital History has a small collection of primary documents that are suitable for secondary social studies classrooms. The goal of the website is “helping secondary school teachers … find primary resources on the web, related to their curriculum.”
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September 19th, 2007 walkere
Most kids today have computers and internet access at home. Why not create a class website to help bring your classroom into their home?
There are tons of things you can do with a class website and dozens of reasons to make one. However, you may think that it’s too hard, too time consuming, or too costly.
Some advanced projects would be hard and time consuming, but a simple class website is not. You can set up a free website for your class in about 15 minutes. Check out the guide I wrote on Associated Content, A Guide for Technologically Impaired Teachers to Create a Website to Accompany Their Classes to learn how.
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September 18th, 2007 walkere
As I looked at my schedule the day before school started, I noticed that one class was titled “US 1 LEP.” I thought “Hmm… LEP? Does that mean what I think it means?”
In my interview, I talked with the vice principal and supervisor about my experience working with students who had poor reading and writing skills. I talked about my experience working with inclusion classes and students with IEPs. Nowhere did I tell them I had any experience working with ELLs… and that’s exactly what I got.
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September 16th, 2007 walkere
In a previous article, I outlined an introductory lesson plan that engaged students in creating a timeline of major events in US I. So what to do if you teach World History or US II?
Here’s a suggestion of ten to twelve major dates for those two courses.
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September 16th, 2007 walkere
This lesson plan is an attempt to spice up an otherwise bland section of the textbook - Central and West African Kingdoms, circa 1450. This section is intended to provide students with some background on what the world was like when Columbus sailed west and sparked the colonization of the Americas.
The lesson begins with a simple reading prompt. It is an excerpt from Gomes Eanes de Zurara that I found interesting. In discussing the discovery of Guinea, he describes Africa as being sparsely populated by nomadic peoples. He makes no reference to the large kingdoms (Benin, Songhai, etc) or to Timbuktu.
The students task, then, is to research African civilization at this time period and write a letter to the King of Portugal to convince him that de Zurara was wrong.
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September 15th, 2007 walkere
I’m planning on doing a webquest like lesson on Monday, so I’ve been poking around the internet to see how other people have been using technology in their classrooms.
I found an article at A History Teacher with a cool tip. Apparently you can use a Google service to create a custom search engine for your students to use. You can hand select what sites are included in the index, and then students can use it as if it were plain old Google. This would probably help keep them on track, and I might look into using this later in the year.
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September 15th, 2007 walkere
No Child Left Behind has been a major topic of discussion for educators for years. Every faculty meeting has something to do with test scores, AYP, and improving performance.
Now that NCLB is coming up for renewal, it’s returning to the public discussion, too. So what do we do with the law?
Undoubtedly, some educators would like to scrap it altogether. That might not be such a bad idea. It’s bad PR, though. Even though we know that NCLB is a poor measure of student achievement and school success, the public (i.e. the media and politicians) perceive it as a real way to enforce accountability on corrupt and ineffective schools.
Rather than completely scrap the law, we need to look for other ways to enforce accountability. The proposed changes to the law, that would allow for different measures of student success, is a step in the right direction. To be truly effective, though, the law needs to move away from standardized tests and move towards authentic assessments.
In my opinion, electronic portfolios are the way of the future and they should be the way to go. Check out my article No Child Left Behind: The Needs of Children Vs. Politicians to get a better idea of what I mean.
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September 15th, 2007 walkere
There are countless ways to write up your lesson plans. Some teachers and administrators like long, detailed lesson plans complete with an outline of information to be delivered. Others like the short and sweet one week summary, with objectives, activities, and assignments.
No matter what type of lesson plan you prefer, it will help make your life easier to have en electronic template (probably in MS Word or Excel) to begin with. This way you can type up your lesson plans, save them to your computer, and avoid making countless copies of a blank template that you got from a co-worker four years ago.
Here are two different blank templates that you might find useful.
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September 15th, 2007 walkere
There is a lot to be done in the first few days of school. Contact information needs to be collected, schedules need to be ironed out, and procedures need to be learned. It’s common to spend a few days on non-sequitor “back to school” lessons before diving into the “real” curriculum.
I developed this particular lesson plan for the second or third day back at school. I used it in a US I course, but it could be easily adapted to US II or World History. The driving concept behind the lesson is that students don’t like the idea of memorizing lots of dates, but they need to have a relative idea of when things happened. Solution? Create a short timeline (10-12 major dates) within which students can organize events they learn later.
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September 14th, 2007 walkere
When I graduated with a Masters of Ed in May, I didn’t think I’d have that hard of a time finding a job. I had good credentials (M. Ed from Rutgers). I graduated with honors and aced the Praxis exam. I also wanted to work in an urban district, which I thought would cut down on the competition a lot.
I was a bit surprised when August rolled around and I hadn’t gotten a single interview. I finally got a call back from one district (the one that hired me) in mid-August and one other call back a few days later. Why was this process so drawn out and tough? Was it something I did, or is there something wrong with the system?
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