Helpful Hint for Groupwork

Group work is a great way for students to participate in discovery learning without you hovering over the students.  However, when students get stuck, they tend to not ask for help until you happen to walk back by. One simple way to counteract this is to to provide each group with three plastic cups (the 16 oz Solo brand cups work great) - one red, one yellow, one green.  When the students are working without problem, the cups are stacked so the green one is on top.  If they have a question but can continue working, the yellow is on top. Completely stopped, red is on top. You can visually see how the students are progressing and it differentiates between studetns with a question and those who have hit the wall. Try it!

Can't Move Forward Without Looking Back..

It's the Saturday morning after the first week of school. I am tired and my brain feels muddled. I have met over 100 new students, learned most of their names, and made judgments regarding their academic prowess based on their actions in class the two days I have had them. Right or wrong, it is how we operate as humans. This student spoke up and discussed his opinions; he will do well.  This student laid his head down and seemed disinterested; he will struggle. The truth is they both may do exceptionally well or they both may struggle.  I hope all my students do great this year. The thing I must remember is that while I am making snap judgements about my students, my students are making judgements about ME. I'm not sure I made a good impression either....

This blog is to help me identify and catalog the best US History lesson plans.  I want to achieve 100% on the End-of-Course examination program. What did I do in class this week? I went over rules and expectations because you must so everyone knows what to expect. I gave first assignments that I tried to keep to the minimum and I began talking about US History. There's is a GREAT website to find lesson plans if you are a teacher http://www.s2martsc.org/. It gives you ideas for each standard and indicator. One of the ideas for the first indicator is to activate prior knowledge by having students list everything they remember about New Spain, New France, and the 3 British colonial regions (New England, Middle, and Southern) on big pieces of paper around the room.  I totally bought into this idea. First of all, I know that students learn better when they have something to link the new knowledge to.  Second, it involved moving around.  Since my students were going to do this on the very first day of class after a nice long summer break, I thought a little movement would be a good thing.  Research also shows that movement is good.  Finally, all students would be involved.  If a student could not think of something on their own, they could place a check beside a fact that another student had listed.  Did it work? ummmmm... NO! My students walked around and listed French fries, French kiss, and France under New France...  New Spain?  Tacos...  Southern?  Cotton...(this is a cardinal sin on the EOC..  Cotton during colonial times is used as a distractor because the makers of the test know students think this).. Okay, so what do I do?

Like any good teacher, I modified and adjusted...  I went back to each sheet and talked about what they should have learned throughout their elementary and middle school years. As I went back to each piece of information, the students began to say "oh yeah" and "I remember that"..  They had the prior knowledge; it was there. They needed help to access it though. I think this is still a good beginning idea for the three reasons I listed before.  I needed to adjust the students perception of the idea a little.  They did not know me.  It was the first day.  Would a grade being attached to the activity have made them more serious or stressed? Should I have placed them in groups that had to come up with specific things and then, had them fact check with the book? I haven't decided.  I will though...

I like this activity better than the one I tried last year where I had the students in centers exploring primary sources.  It was simpler, cleaner, but the students must take it serious for it to be beneficial.  It's going in the book!

Day two of class went much smoother.  I again field tested a lesson plan from http://www.s2martsc.org/. For indicator one, the site provided terms that the students should be familiar with from previous years.  The students working in groups divide the terms into three piles (Spanish, French, British) to activate prior knowledge and complete a chart.  Based on the activity from Day one, the students were able to really think through their placement of the terms.  It went off without a hitch and will definitely be used again next year. The students had taken a GIANT step forward in just one day.  The difference?  We had looked back TOGETHER...  You can't move forward without looking back.  I hope next week goes as well!

Expect the unexpected or at least be prepared...

Today was the first day of school.  My students walked in and took their seats.  I turned on the Promethium Board in my room and a lovely blue screen appeared indiciating that I was not going to have access to the technology I had planned to use for today's class.  Ummmm.... Not good. However, I did not panic or even truly stress; I simply sent an email to our Technology guru screaming electronic-style HELP! and continued to greet my students.  Ten minutes into the discussion of class rules and procedures, Meg appeared, tinkered with my board for another ten minutes, and solved the problem.  I was back on schedule!!

Now, I am a panicker by nature, but this year, I had over-prepared. I had a slide show of the rules and procedures, but I also had a handout of them.  I knew exactly what my students were doing and had backups to the planned activities if I needed to modify.  I was prepared just in case something went wrong. Do you have a backup plan in your class in case technology doesn't work?

Anything is Possible!

I love this time of year.. Your classroom is put together and decorated. You have your first few days planned. You have yet to receive a roster, so you have no idea who is in your class. Absolutely anything is possible...
As I sat at my desk planning this afternoon, I realized that I have been limiting myself when I see a class contains certain types of students. Lower level readers? Well, remove the reading of the article from classwork... Behavior problem-prone students? Add more class work, subtract more out-of-the-box lessons to keep the peace. Higher level students? Add enrichment, more enrichment, and more enrichment.. Maybe, just maybe though Absolutely anything is possible... Maybe the limitations are my fault... I firmly believe that you must take a students learning styles into consideration whenever possible to allow that student to achieve, but teaching different shouldnt mean I settle for less. It's going to be a wonderful year!

Random Rants...

Last night, I was discussing my new approach to teaching US History with a friend and I mentioned how I would love to teach US History in all its true glory and humor. For example, we teach young children that Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492. Yay!! Here's America!! Oh wait, there are some indians here but they are our friends and we all have a big meal together called Thanksgiving. There are soooo many things wrong with this picture! First of all, Columbus sailed in 1492 and the Pilgrims arrived in 1620. There are 128 years in there that we have skipped over.... maybe we should spend a little time figuring out what our forefathers were doing out there...

Howard Zinn paints a devastating picture in a A People's History of the United States, but you really don't even have to go as extreme to point out that Columbus mutilated indians to buy the cooperation of others. He demanded the natives to bring him gold and when they promised there was no gold, he enslaved them and sent them back on ships to Spain to be sold. Columbus was not a good guy. While sailing toward the New World that he didn't know existed, he promised his crew a reward for the first sighting of land. He claimed the prize himself saying he had sighted light BEFORE the other guy and he just hadn't said anything.... Ummmm.... HELLO. Don't even get me started on how he "discovered" America. The Native Americans were here and discounting them, other explorers had already been here. How else do you think Squanto walked out of the woods and spoke to our ancestors in a language they understood??? Columbus wasn't the first or second guy here; he just got credit. We would never teach it this way though. I do however start the year with the song "Who discovered it?" from the cd Hip Hop US History. To give you an idea, the main verse is "I just discovered America" to which the refrain is "You didn't discover nothing... we were already here". Great place to start a discussion concerning exploration.

Speaking of natives who were already here... Pocahantas is said to have saved John Smith's life by placing her head over his so her father wouldn't bash in Smith's brains. We know this based upon John Smith's own account. Disney made an entire movie based upon this. Little kids everywhere love it. Little girls wander around singing just around the riverbend... Did it happen? Maybe... Maybe not... Keep in mind we know what happened because John Smith told us what happened... As the book After the Fact points out, Smith also claims that prior to joining the Virginia expedition, he was a soldier of fortune who was taken prisoner by the Turks and would have been killed if he had not been saved by a beautiful young princess... He was able to escape and flee... Wow.. That sounds remarkably like what will happen to him in Jamestown... Maybe he was this dashing guy who had the ability to get young women to risk death to save him... Maybe he exaggerated a wee bit...

More random rants later.. Don't you wish this is how we could teach?

And let's try this again...

I love history; that is the good news. It would make my days of teaching much harder if I did not enjoy the subject that consumes my life for ten months of the year. I do not enjoy the frantic pace required to cover all of US History in-depth before the students are subjected to an end-of-course standardized test that will determine whether they pass or fail in some cases and if they will have an A or a B in others. History needs to meander, to stroll, at times it needs to have a seat and just ponder the complexities of what just happened. There is not time though to do this, so I'm back to try to discover the perfect US History lesson plans.

My passage rate for the EOC last year was 66%. I do not say this proudly. It's just factual. I want a 100% passage rate. This is also a fact. I have tried to focus on only what the state tells us to focus on... I feel we have lost the beauty of the story of history and 34% of my students still did not pass the EOC. Different year, different tactic. I'm going to teach history, not a test and see if that creates the perfect set of plans. Who is with me?

My day 1 this year is not going to be the frantic center based day of last year. We are going to focus on what the students already know. 4 Facts I learned in Elelmentary School and expand from there. All students should know that Columbus discovered America , the story of Jamestown from a standpoint of John Smith and Pocahantas, the Declaration of Independence, and George Washington was our first president. Activating Prior Knowledge is a best practice afterall. Plus, even the lower students will feel successful which will lead to a positive image of the class which should lead to buy in which should lead to success in the class. It's the circle of learning. I'll let you know how it goes... what works for you?

When life is crazy, you are still a teacher...

I haven't posted in over two weeks because the life of a teacher is hectic and crazy. There are meetings to attend, paperwork to complete, papers to grade, dinners to cook, games to attend, and on top of all that, housework still exists. There should be vitamins specifically martketed for teachers. They would need to be the strongest vitamins available. Having said all that, I love my job. Teaching is the most gratifying job on the planet. Where else do you get paid to talk about what you love every day to a captive audience? The captive audience is the tricky part. The students must be there but they do not have to be engaged... that's my job.
I reverted to a notes teacher in the last posted lesson. I was angry with myself for failing my students. The purpose of this blog is to find the best lessons for US History and a boring, here are your notes, just copy and be quiet lesson is certainly not a good lesson much less a great lesson. The next class I changed tactics. I was angry that I taken the easy way out and that's not who I want to be, so I sat down and let the laundry go unfolded. I planned. I needed the students to understand the differences between the Federalists and the Democratic-Republicans. I could do that without boring the students to sleep. I decided to split the material into three parts. First, the class as a whole created a graphic organizer (thinking map - call them what you will) comparing the two political parties based upon what was in their textbooks and previous notes. When we had established a thorough list, the students were given a piece of legal sized computer paper and told to fold it in half hotdog style and cut it on the line. The students were then to create a bumper sticker for each political party. For example, a bumber sticker for Hamilton and the Federalist could say "Hamilton: You can bank on it" to signify his desire to create a National Bank. The students were engaged and thinking. Isn't that the goal? Plus, when they were finished I had great wall art because the students are so creative. I had several do a take on Jefferson - Power to the People showing his belief that the power should lie in the states, not the federal government. The students focused on all the areas that they needed to concentrate on and without a doubt will remember because they created something, laughed while doing it, and had some displayed. We weren't finished though. Next, I divided the students into groups by numbers so that the groups were not cliques. Each group was asked to create a campaign commercial for either the Federalists or Democratic Republicans. Because the students only had 30 seconds to get their message across, they had to think of a catchy way to sell the party. The students then performed their commercials while I filmed them with a Flip video camera. Teenagers are so creative! The commercials were hilarious and again, right on point. One group focused on the Whiskey Tax; another on whether or not just the wealthy and educated should be in charge. Each group involved all members and I was surpirsed to see one of the lower-level disengaged student participate in the Hoe-down as part of teh Whiskey Tax commercial. The boring note day and the fun creative day covered the same material, but this is the binder lesson. My students learned and will retain the information. I'm going to fold some laundry now and then, get back to planning so I can have the binder of perfect US History lessons.