Thursday, August 9, 2012
Hey JUNIORS!! #1 Letter to Editor
Okay, Junior American History, Here is your Question for the Week.... "In YOUR life, what would cause you to rise up and actually form an organization with the full-fledged goal of breaking away from the authority?" Can't wait to see your BLOG response!!! Have fun with it and remember NOT to publish/post until you believe it to be the best work -- no one should post before Thursday! (unless lots of work outside of class was done!)
Wednesday, August 8, 2012
2012-13 STARTING NOW!
As this school starts, I am so excited with new ideas and methods to experiment and tweak throughout the year! Asking the students to hang in there with me and have a great time exploring all there is to offer in the Social Studies world! So much to be gained other than the content! Driving questions that are challenging me this year include:
- If something is "Googleable" why would we spend precious class time teaching it?
- When we ask students to summarize, do we actually want to know what's important to them?
- What do you suppose students think they are supposed to be doing when we ask them to analyze?
- Do you ever ask your students questions you don't know the answer to? Why not?
- Think about all those things we teach kids claiming "you'll need to know this someday." With the exception of teaching it, when's the last time you needed to know any of that stuff?
- Do your students need more information, or skills in how to critically evaluate the information that surrounds them?
- How much of what's really important in life, is taught in a classroom?
- Why do we usually teach all the boring facts first and save the interesting stuff for later?
- When we cover material, what is it that we think we have accomplished?
- Is being told something the same as learning it?
- What would content area teaching look like if it were taught the way an art teacher teaches art?
- If state testing went away tomorrow, would we actually teach differently?
Mrs. Nelson and I are now professionally trained in Project Based Learning; we are super excited to start building projects together for our Juniors. Putting together a well thought out project that is authentic, academically rigorous, includes applied learning, encourages students to be active explorers, build adult relationships, and have a worthy assessment is quite a challenge. We are ready to put our best foot forward in engaging the students in an awesome learning experience!!
Friday, March 23, 2012
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
Seniors and Juniors
The Seniors have been CrAzY busy as researchers; first challenged with the assignment of creating their own essential question regarding a president. Next, they researched and developed their own conclusions to write their OWN research! There are so many questions in which I cannot wait to see the answers!
The WWII museum is nearly completed!! The projects will hopefully be done this week and the museum will come together this week or early next week JUST in time for the Fish Fry! They have also created an essential question based on a WWII topic of their choice, next they explored various Web 2.0 activities, and finally used their imagination to CREATE! I cannot wait to see this unfold!
The WWII museum is nearly completed!! The projects will hopefully be done this week and the museum will come together this week or early next week JUST in time for the Fish Fry! They have also created an essential question based on a WWII topic of their choice, next they explored various Web 2.0 activities, and finally used their imagination to CREATE! I cannot wait to see this unfold!
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