Mrs. Slaviero's Blog

Oh what a night! The first OneTROY National History Day Celebration took place this past Thursday with Student Historians from Larson, Smith, and Boulan Park and it was a huge success! When teachers from our Middle Schools decided to take on National History Day projects this year I promised I would do everything possible to help make NHD run smoothly for them and promised myself that I would plan a sharing event for all.  The Celebration was an opportunity for our students to share with the community their thinking and learning about the 2018 theme of "Conflict and Compromise". Siblings, parents, grandparents, principals, teachers, a School Board member, members of the Teaching and Learning Department,  Deputy Superintendent and Superintendent were in attendance. They were able to interact with our students while seeing the amazing work our students created this year. But, what exactly did students do?  Student Historians · researched and selected a topic of...

Student Historians will continue work tomorrow on their National History  Day research. We are at the point in the process that all of the students will experience frustration and a setback or two of various degrees. This is what I've termed "The Wall". Creative, open-ended projects are messy.  Project-Based learning is messy.  One "correct" answer doesn't exist to solve the problem.  The learning that takes place doesn't follow a prescribed plan and it's not linear.  This is disconcerting to students, especially those that have found great success with traditional education. Parents and teachers want to help students but the best thing we can do when the going gets challenging for them is to walk our talk. We consistently tell our students that we believe in them and in their abilities (and we mean it). We let them know we think they are capable of great things.  It's our time to show them.  We cannot rush in to ...

This week in NHD featured "The Shift". The Shift is moving from my planning what we are doing the entire class period to the students taking responsibility for their own planning. Our agenda: *Noodle Tools--write to-do list (we will do this one together to model it--you will create individualized to-do lists from now on) *take survey (if you haven't already) *see Symbaloo updates (links to previous category descriptions, etc.) *search MS Media Databases (they're on Symbaloo ) *write research question in Noodle Tools *write 1-2 checklist items of your own This project, as previously stated, is multi-faceted. Students need to have some general guidelines so they aren't overwhelmed. What they equally need, though, is the parameters to take on planning themselves . To-do lists are an excellent way for students to clarify what needs to be done and note when these tasks are completed. (Many students know how to do this, but just as many do not.) I in...

Creating a large-scale endeavor like a National History Day project takes time. Going through the process for the first time can be overwhelming for teachers and students alike. It's critical to remember, though, that it is a journey. These projects are rigorous and require many steps. Too often we expect immediate gratification--this is not the type of project that will offer quick results.  Students will be thinking, reflecting, pre-searching (to use a colleague's term), researching, selecting a topic in US History they are passionate about, locating primary and secondary sources, writing a research question, developing a thesis, grappling with this year's theme and applying it to their topic, writing digital note cards, keeping track of resources, developing a project, ensuring they place their topic in historical situational context, creating a process paper to reflect on their experience, and possibly back-tracking and at any point if they lose focus.  Students...

I've been trying to come up with a way to update our National History Day journey when the name jumped out at me--I suddenly remembered "This Week in Baseball", a sports show I used to watch with my Grandpa when I was a kid. (Google it for some great baseball memories!) "This Week in NHD" it is! I met with all 8th Grade US History students again yesterday and we completed a few business tasks--we logged onto NoodleTools, the website that will help us organize our sources and ideas this year, joined the Schoology 8th Grade NHD Group I made for all 8th Graders so that I can easily send every student, not just my students, information and resources, gave a brief overview of the project this year, and shared the Symbaloo Webmix I created for them.  This Webmix is going to become an essential resource. The necessary resources are all in a user-friendly format, color-coded and organized for ease of use. I will add tiles to the mix as the need arises and I look...

I created an Explain Everything video for all schools to use when introducing this year's National History Day theme. Teachers can show this to the whole class at once and pause regularly so that students will be able to work throughout the class period. I will have students complete this introduction BEFORE I even discuss the NHD project! Frontloading students to think about the theme and provide examples using think, pair, share activities worked REALLY WELL last year. It prevented students from feeling overwhelmed and frustrated, uncertain that they could ever think of a topic. This year's theme is more challenging than last year's theme and that makes this method of delivery even more  necessary for student success. By the end of class students will have a list of topics to begin to research. They will also be able to find a topic that speaks to them and sparks their interest.

My Student Historians will, once again, complete National History Day projects this year. I'm eager to give them the opportunity to explore student-centered, project-based learning that is rigorous and challenging.  Our Media Specialists have been invaluable to the process and they will continue to help this year. There are, I'm pleased to say, two new twists to this endeavor. One change is that all of the 8th Grade US History teachers in the district have decided to join us. Every student in the district will complete projects!  The 8th Grade Language Arts teachers in the district met with us History teachers today and they will, to varying degrees, be working on this project within their Language Arts classes, too! We will now give our students a cross-curricular Capstone project opportunity that is authentic and based on student choice. The expertise and knowledge of our Language Arts and History teachers working together will help our students' projects shine e...

The Student Historians that competed at the Michigan History Day State Competition have so much to be proud of! They presented their projects and answered the judges' questions with detailed and knowledgeable responses.  The final results revealed that two of the three projects placed 3rd in the State of Michigan in their division and these students were alternates in case one of the top two entrants was unable to attend the National History Day Competition this June! (They found out today that the Finalists in their categories will all be attending and their projects are no longer needed this year.) Every one of my Student Historians has now capped off a fantastic year of learning and can look back on their experience with a great sense of accomplishment. Each and every one of my students created a persuasive and analytical project on a person in US History that was significant to them . I couldn't ask for anything more! My goal was to replicate a Genius Hour project ...

National History Day projects have wrapped up for all but a few students in my classes. Six students are competing next Saturday in the Michigan History Day State Competition and had time to reflect and enhance their projects between the March 4th District competition and the State Competition. These students represent three different projects: a group website centered on Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall and his work toward equality for African-Americans, a poem about the achievements of the Culper Spy Network during the American Revolution, and a dramatic performance about former First Lady Jackie Kennedy's stand to save Lafayette Square from demolition. As I've previously written, the National History Day process has been a new endeavor for me and for my classes this year. Since none of this process is familiar to me I've had to reflect on each component during and after in order to put it into context and, more importantly, decide if it was a worthwhile project...

Tuesday was the Big Day--my Student Historians hosted a National History Day School Event! Students dressed professionally and displayed their Historical Exhibits, Documentaries, Websites, and Papers in the Media Center for our school community to experience. (There was one Dramatic Performance and this student performed in front of a small audience.) What a day we had! Special thanks to our Media Specialist, Mrs. Chatel, for all of her help with research and detailed explanations of how to complete our Annotated Bibliographies--we couldn't have done it without you! Mrs. Loch, a Media Specialist from two of our Middle Schools, came to help determine which projects would be eligible to enter into the Michigan History Day District contest. She previously taught Social Studies and had entered students into the contest. (Some were even selected for the National Contest!) She has been incredibly helpful this year and I'm grateful for her support! The Social Studies te...

I am not the only educator in my extended family and get-togethers invariably turn into opportunities to talk about education. One of my cousins is an Assistant Professor in a health field at a university about one hour away from me and I greatly enjoy discussing our profession with him. K-12 educators like myself often justify what we do in the classroom because we hope it will “help our students in college and in the real world”—talking to my cousin lets me know if I’m on the right track, even though I would theoretically teach students years before he would. Our conversations lately have centered on the need for student-led and student-generated assignments. I began Genius Hour in Effective Teens last year (I will be giving students the opportunity to complete a modified US History student-led project this year, as well) and shared with him the tremendous benefits I’ve seen when my 8 th  Graders are in charge of their learning. Genius Hour is the antithesis of tellin...

Student Historians worked with Popplet for the first time today. The app creates concept maps that can include text and images. Concepts, called Popples, can also be color-coded. The app seems fairly easy to use--I created one about the 3 levels and 3 branches of government while my students were creating theirs (I did add a few pictures later, though, and that took longer to do). I was realizing that searching for pictures of people like our current Supreme Court members, for example, was a very worthwhile activity. Students (and adults, for that matter) need to know who our country's leaders are. The lite version is free and lets you create one map at a time. The map can be downloaded but it then becomes a PDF or JPEG and can't be edited. My Effective Teens are also working on a Genius Hour Popplet and we managed to get around this "one map" issue by moving the second map to another part of the screen. :) My first impressions of Popplet are very good. I've b...