A Whole New World



 I can't believe we are already a few weeks into the school year. My 25th year. And yet I'm feeling like a first-year teacher in so many ways. 

There have been big changes, any one of which would've thrown me for a loop if I'm honest. 

Block scheduling. 

Teaching virtually. 

Pivoting for hybrid learning. 

My colleagues and I are leaning on each other. We are taking this one day and one week at a time. I'm incredibly proud of the work we are doing. 

I've made a Bitmoji Classroom (sorry, not sorry--it's a fun way to introduce myself to my students but it's not central to the work we're doing). The classroom contains links to our school website, National History Day Symbaloo Webmix, and other links. It also holds a daily agenda slide. I've upped my tech game by creating it. Housing the classroom in our Schoology page was an tech accomplishment for me, too. I update it daily with an agenda slide that updates when I complete it in Google Slides.

My Bitmoji also made an appearance in one of our first activities--a Virtual Locker.



The locker went over very well. The students enjoyed making it and it stands as a clear reminder that I am striving to know the young people behind the screens. We shared in breakout rooms and discussion went well. 

We are reading nine,ten: a September 11 story again this year. I love seeing my students all stare at their screens when something suspenseful happens! It is solid evidence that I'm building connections with them.

We are learning the language of historians through the Stanford History Group's Thinking Like a Historian series. This vocabulary lays the foundation of our work this year. Gamifying the vocabulary with Gimkit has been successful.

Finally, my A day classes started National History Day Speed Topic-ing. This is the first time I'm working with students that have already completed an NHD project as 7th Graders. My 8th Graders last year mentored these students with their projects and I'm really excited to see how this impacts our learning this year.





Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Historical Perspective and Peel the Fruit Thinking Routine

Image
Practicing historical perspective is an essential social studies skill. Historical perspective is being able to step into a historic situation and examine the motivations, biases, and beliefs of a person or group of people. Students have to revert to the beliefs of a group of people even if those beliefs completely contradict the views we have today. They must weigh decisions based on the situation of the time, not necessarily how situations are viewed today. The C3 Framework for Social Studies states that "Historical understanding requires recognizing this multiplicity of points of view in the past, which makes it important to seek out a range of sources on any historical question rather than simply use those that are easiest to find. It also requires recognizing that perspectives change over time, so that historical understanding requires developing a sense of empathy with people in the past whose perspectives might be very different from those of today." http://www.so
Read more

Name That Executive Role!

Image
Students today learned about the many roles of the head of the Executive Branch, the President of the United States. I found several images of former Presidents in these roles--can you guess which is which? Post your answers below or email them to me. Choices: Commander-In-Chief Chief Executive Political Party Head Chief Diplomat 1.  President Eisenhower 2. President George HW Bush (on the right side of the picture) 3. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt  4. President Reagan meeting with British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher (this one's a bit of a giveaway!)
Read more

Industrial Revolution Haiku

Students have been learning about the Industrial Revolution in the mid1800s and how it changed life in New England. Today students processed their learning by creating haiku poems on the subject. They were challenged to think about and evaluate this topic within the structure of a haiku, a 3 line poem with 17 total syllables--5 in the 1st and 3rd lines and 7 in the second line. The poems have been impressive and some will be posted here soon.
Read more