Thursday, July 11, 2013
Step 1: I am no longer using the term 'Unit'.
The term itself, 'unit', appears innocuous. After all, it simply means a chunk of material that is grouped or unified. It is a term that most of us have been hearing since our first day of kindergarten. Why, then, am I choosing to focus on the concept of a unit, as I begin transforming my classroom approach to history?
I am not sure when the term unit was first used in an educational setting, but the word instantly makes me think of textbooks. Textbooks, in many ways, immediately reduce the chances that a history teacher will create a classroom environment where inquiry is valued over regurgitation history (RH).
What do textbooks do? A text breaks information down into discrete packages. A text often consists of two dozen units. And each unit is broken down further into a dozen or so sections.
As soon as we allow ourselves to embrace a textbook approach to history, we begin a process that inevitably moves us far away from creating meaningful history classes that embrace the thinking skills and epistemological attitudes that are associated with the discipline of history.
Throughout my career, I have thought of the courses I teach in terms of units. In my Western Civ class, for example, I teach 6 or 7 units, including units on the Industrial Revolution, French Revoltuon, and World War I.
By embracing a textbook, unit-centric approach to history teaching, I have allowed myself to fall into the trap of viewing content as something that is delivered to students in a variety of ways, such as through lectures, powerpoints, worksheets, and video clips.
Teaching for regurgitation creates a learning environment where students are passive, intellectually detached receivers of content. In this setting, content often appears to students as inert and without meaning.
Thinking of content as units that I deliver to students is a mistake, likely a fatal one if my overarching goal is to cultivate historical thinking skills among my students.
Units, in regurgitation history classes, often end with a test that attempts to measure student acquisition of factual knowledge. A looming end of unit test creates pressure on a teacher to teach all of 'the facts' to students so that they can have success on the end of unit test.
Well intentioned teachers, often obsessively, consider the following question: "How can I ensure that all of my students learn the facts that they are going to be tested on ?"
We need to reconsider this approach to teaching and testing. And, beginning in Sept, I am going to stop using the term unit, replacing it with the term investigation.
Obviously, replacing the word unit with investigation means nothing if this change is not accompanied by numerous other changes. Nevertheless, I think this change captures something important about the change in philosophy that I am embracing. In the coming days and weeks, I will connect other, more substantive, changes to the concept of an investigation.
UNIT= Usually Not Inquiry Teaching
Wednesday, July 10, 2013
Read, Write, Act, Read, Write, Act...
For the past few weeks I have been reading anything I can find on the topic of history education. In the process, rather than highlighting or underlining, I have been tweeting inspiring quotes, messages, and research findings. Reading, as a solitary pursuit, is a thing of the past, if you want it to be.
Many of the ideas that have resonated with me have been noticed by others, commented on, favorited, and retweeted. A couple of hundred (thousand?) tweets later, and I find myself interacting regularly with dozens of teachers who are committed to thinking about teaching and learning, discussing what they do, sharing resources, and, most importantly, collaborating. Out of this has come #inquirychat...More on #inquirychat later!
Along with reading, I've also been participating in many discussions about the nature of history and the opportunities, challenges, and realities of teaching this subject in a school setting.
When I read as much as I have been, I need to spend considerable time processing and thinking about the ideas that I am interacting with, being exposed to. Otherwise, it is my experience that these ideas fade and the status quo remains. Bringing about meaningful change is challenging!
This blog and my various interactions on Twitter document the change that I am looking to see. Change, to occur, must be articulated and, ultimately, integrated into our daily lives. This is a dynamic process that, more often than not, requires tremendous will power and vision.
Many of the ideas that have resonated with me have been noticed by others, commented on, favorited, and retweeted. A couple of hundred (thousand?) tweets later, and I find myself interacting regularly with dozens of teachers who are committed to thinking about teaching and learning, discussing what they do, sharing resources, and, most importantly, collaborating. Out of this has come #inquirychat...More on #inquirychat later!
Along with reading, I've also been participating in many discussions about the nature of history and the opportunities, challenges, and realities of teaching this subject in a school setting.
When I read as much as I have been, I need to spend considerable time processing and thinking about the ideas that I am interacting with, being exposed to. Otherwise, it is my experience that these ideas fade and the status quo remains. Bringing about meaningful change is challenging!
This blog and my various interactions on Twitter document the change that I am looking to see. Change, to occur, must be articulated and, ultimately, integrated into our daily lives. This is a dynamic process that, more often than not, requires tremendous will power and vision.
Tuesday, July 9, 2013
Lesh, Wineburg, and SHEG
Since finishing Bruce Lesh's book, I have also read Sam Wineburg's Historical thinking and other unnatural acts. As I said in my first post, authors invite us to change. Change, though, usually requires effort, persistence, realism, and support (I need to explore 'realism' since I have a tendency to try to change too much too fast!).
Reading Wineburg exposed me to his work with the Stanford Historical Education Group (SHEG), whose Reading Like an Historian approach and curriculum capture well what I would like to do in my history classroom. In fact, if I hadn't stumbled on the SHEG website and their free American History curriculum, I am not sure I would have the know how to restructure my Western Civ course. I am relying heavily on this curriculum, as well as the thinking behind it, as articulated by Avishag Reisman in her Stanford dissertation (pdf).
SHEG has over 70 American history lessons on their website. I have been looking at SHEG's American History lessons to learn what a course genuinely focused on historical thinking would look like. I can say with certainty that historical thinking has not been the main focus of my lesson planning or of my instructional design and decision making (why? what has? More on this in future posts). My goal is to evolve as a history educator. Reading, writing, reflecting, especially through this blog and Twitter, and lesson planning are at the heart of my transformation.
Reading Wineburg exposed me to his work with the Stanford Historical Education Group (SHEG), whose Reading Like an Historian approach and curriculum capture well what I would like to do in my history classroom. In fact, if I hadn't stumbled on the SHEG website and their free American History curriculum, I am not sure I would have the know how to restructure my Western Civ course. I am relying heavily on this curriculum, as well as the thinking behind it, as articulated by Avishag Reisman in her Stanford dissertation (pdf).
SHEG has over 70 American history lessons on their website. I have been looking at SHEG's American History lessons to learn what a course genuinely focused on historical thinking would look like. I can say with certainty that historical thinking has not been the main focus of my lesson planning or of my instructional design and decision making (why? what has? More on this in future posts). My goal is to evolve as a history educator. Reading, writing, reflecting, especially through this blog and Twitter, and lesson planning are at the heart of my transformation.
Monday, July 8, 2013
Template for Primary Source Reading/Analysis
Sourcing
A-What type of source is
this?
B-To whom was this source written?
-Knowing A/B, I
wonder…
-Knowing A/B, I predict…
Immediate context
A-In what year was this source written?
-Knowing A, I wonder…
-Knowing A, I predict…
A-What was going on in Europe in 1610? (example)
-Knowing A, I wonder…
-Knowing A, I predict…
In paragraph 1, how would you describe…(example)
What
does this source reveal about Galileo? (example)
What
does this comment tell us about Galileo? (example)
Having read this source,
what are some connection or extension questions you can think of?
-general structure of this heavily influenced by SHEG_Stanford's work.
Thanks for taking a look! Curious to get some feedback. Is this too structured? Not structured enough? I recently worked through a primary source using this template. I can post that if there is interest.
Thanks for taking a look! Curious to get some feedback. Is this too structured? Not structured enough? I recently worked through a primary source using this template. I can post that if there is interest.
Sunday, July 7, 2013
First Post
Last summer, I focused on writing 750 words every single day, after stumbling on a website called 750words.com.
If my Twitter activity (see @joetabhistory) doesn't already give you a clue, when I am interested in something, I can really become obsessed. And quite quickly, I became obsessed with keeping alive my daily streak of writing 750 words.
For the most part, I established this habit and continued with it until about February of 2013, ending with a 200+ day streak. Juggling a brand new course, Economics, and writing each night started to consume too much time.
While the bulk of my writing was never shared with anyone, I did consciously work on honing my writing and critical thinking skills by submitting as many as ten letters to the editor to my local newspaper, where I discussed various topics in the news. At least five were published.
This experience was powerful. Writing regularly was stimulating, addictive, and, at times, difficult. Thinking deeply about a topic without putting pen to paper or turning on a computer to type is rare for me. It always has been. But this experience pushed me to a new level. Daily writing reconnected me with the process of writing and editing (which has helped me work on writing with my students!) and reminded me how important daily reflection is.
This summer, rather than repeating what I did last summer, my goal has been different. This year I am more focused. I am committed to growing as a history teacher. What has led me to this point? Many things, but for now I will mention two books.
When it comes to books, and I sense this is true for most people, simply reading a book rarely leads to change. Nevertheless, there are some books that really speak to you. Books like these are special. They are invitations to grow. While the author is inviting you to grow, it's still just an invitation, not growth in and of itself. In the past six months I have read two books that have really impacted me: Brush Lesh's "Why won't you just tell us the answer" and Sam Wineburg's "Historical Thinking and Other Unnatural Acts". Reading, and re-reading, these books plus writing about the ideas in them is part of my process of growing as a history teacher.
Another part of the process I have found has been Twitter. Over the past few months, I have discovered how powerful Twitter can be as way to connect with other teachers. I have started participating in various chats, including #sschat, #edchat, and #wrldchat. Though on Twitter you are limited to 140 characters, as opposed to 750 words, that really is not a limit!
Genuine discussions and connections occur here. The dynamics of Twitter are definitely different than a traditional meeting or workshop. I think this is actually one of the reasons, at least in my experience, Twitter interactions seem to surpass traditional professional development.
I will definitely continue writing, and I look forward to one more outlet to grow and learn.
If my Twitter activity (see @joetabhistory) doesn't already give you a clue, when I am interested in something, I can really become obsessed. And quite quickly, I became obsessed with keeping alive my daily streak of writing 750 words.
For the most part, I established this habit and continued with it until about February of 2013, ending with a 200+ day streak. Juggling a brand new course, Economics, and writing each night started to consume too much time.
While the bulk of my writing was never shared with anyone, I did consciously work on honing my writing and critical thinking skills by submitting as many as ten letters to the editor to my local newspaper, where I discussed various topics in the news. At least five were published.
This experience was powerful. Writing regularly was stimulating, addictive, and, at times, difficult. Thinking deeply about a topic without putting pen to paper or turning on a computer to type is rare for me. It always has been. But this experience pushed me to a new level. Daily writing reconnected me with the process of writing and editing (which has helped me work on writing with my students!) and reminded me how important daily reflection is.
This summer, rather than repeating what I did last summer, my goal has been different. This year I am more focused. I am committed to growing as a history teacher. What has led me to this point? Many things, but for now I will mention two books.
When it comes to books, and I sense this is true for most people, simply reading a book rarely leads to change. Nevertheless, there are some books that really speak to you. Books like these are special. They are invitations to grow. While the author is inviting you to grow, it's still just an invitation, not growth in and of itself. In the past six months I have read two books that have really impacted me: Brush Lesh's "Why won't you just tell us the answer" and Sam Wineburg's "Historical Thinking and Other Unnatural Acts". Reading, and re-reading, these books plus writing about the ideas in them is part of my process of growing as a history teacher.
Another part of the process I have found has been Twitter. Over the past few months, I have discovered how powerful Twitter can be as way to connect with other teachers. I have started participating in various chats, including #sschat, #edchat, and #wrldchat. Though on Twitter you are limited to 140 characters, as opposed to 750 words, that really is not a limit!
Genuine discussions and connections occur here. The dynamics of Twitter are definitely different than a traditional meeting or workshop. I think this is actually one of the reasons, at least in my experience, Twitter interactions seem to surpass traditional professional development.
I will definitely continue writing, and I look forward to one more outlet to grow and learn.
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