Celebrating Failure in Rm 613

Created using Canva . One of my favorite projects is Down with the Sickness, where students research the effects that disease have on both past and present societies. I still consider it as my top project of the 2015/2016 school year, which I described in a previous post . With a year of experience, I was able to streamline the project and improve student engagement as shown by the end of the semester survey: "I really liked the medical aspect of our history class because it wasn't a typical kind of study for a history class. I had never done anything like it before and it was a lot of fun."  "I enjoyed researching different disease and learning more in depth about how the CDC and the WHO deal with these situations. Creating an infographic was fun because I prefer to show people what I've learned through graphics/art." Contagion Activity with link. I liked creating the infographics and I really enjoyed learning about different disease...

This year marked the 15th anniversary of the September 11th terrorist attacks, but it is also the first time that I had a group of students who had no memory of the attacks. In fact, almost  every teacher is experiencing this  as students are born farther and farther away from 2001 and it has completely transformed the way I discuss 9/11 with them. When I first started teaching, I would start class by showing the following video:   Then follow up by discussing what I remember about that day and what I witnessed. I was also a very history-oriented child and I collected every magazine and newspaper that discussed 9/11 over ten years so I would show them those materials; I'm working on compiling them into a scrapbook for students to look at. Students would then share what memories they had or the memories of their parents, but most of the time they would ask me specific questions about the event, like why it happened, how the world changed, etc. Many times it too...

If I learned anything from ISTE, its that caffeine is an absolute necessary. With so many activities, sessions, social events, and adrenaline, I needed coffee to stay alert and focused so that I could absorb as much learning as necessary. Here are some of my final takeaways from #ISTE2016: No matter your expertise, there is always something new to learn . During Glenn Wiebe 's session about Google Tools in the Social Science, I learned about  Google Public Data , a resource that gathers public data into one place;  Google Arts and Culture , a collection of resources from around the world; and  Chronicling America , a collection of US newspapers from the Library of Congress. Wiebe even walked us through a lesson where we determined the relationship between three separate images by utilizing Google Streetview and Google Public data; this ended up being an excellent example of push and pull factors that lead to migration. What I loved about this session is that...

Created by Wordpandit.com As I was on my way home for Thanksgiving, I was flipping through Pinterest, I came across the image to the right and I thought to myself: Darn it. That's what I should of done for my government PBL... To back up, one of my first projects as a teacher at a fully project-based school was titled: We, the People of Mars ... This project was geared towards my sophomores in World History and the driving question was "How can we as inhabitants of a new planet create a functional government?" The goal was for students to investigate different types of governments around the world to create their own unique government for Mars.  My inspiration came from the PBL training provided BIE,  where my colleagues and I created a project according to their organizational format. After a very helpful brainstorm with another teacher, they pointed me in the direction of Mars One , an international project that hopes to one day settle humanity Mars that would ...

A few weeks ago I taught my students about choices; how unlimited wants and limited resources force us to make decisions. This is the basis of economics and dictates every person's life, whether they know it or not. Just like every other person, I too have to make choices in my life, whether professional or personal. So I'm excited to announce that this fall I will be teaching social science at Minarets High School ! For the longest time, Minarets has been my dream school with their deep integration of edtech and project based learning. I fell even more in love with it when I presented there for the Google Summit in May so when I found out about a social science position opening up I eagerly put in my application. I'm so excited for what the future holds for me at Minarets High School with all the new things I have learn, new people I get to meet, and new students I get to teach. Despite my joy, I'm heartbroken to leave Woodlake High School, the place of my first ...

For whatever reason, I have always wanted my students to do a children's book, but never found the time. Then, with the SBAC testing and my department's agreement to try out project based learning, I threw my project idea into the ring and we decided to do a children's book regarding a US topic during the Cold War. I imagined using Storify to have students create their books, since my goal is to integrate technology whenever possible, but with no technology access during SBAC testing we decided to go "old school" and I'm so glad we did. I don't think my students would have been as creative and free to express their ideas if we had used technology. The first step of project was to have students select their Cold War topic, which they did using Google Forms. I was eager to try the Choice Eliminator, but found out quickly that the add-on does not work as quickly as I hoped so I ended up having to quickly problem solve and adapt the form so students made the...

As the school year races to the close, I have reached another milestone in my career by finishing my second year of teaching. With BTSA completed and my tenure gained, I can now smile at the memory of walking down the halls of Woodlake High School in 2013 and realizing that I would be a "real" teacher. Yet with another milestone gained, I can't help but feel a sense of incompleteness. I'm not sure where this feeling is coming from; last year, I eagerly waited for summer to arrive, but this year I'm wishing I had more time. It may be coming from my recent experiments within my classroom. In the past, I have done versions of project based learning, but I recently embraced student choice and did my first 'official' PBLs. I'm still waiting on my students' completion of the most recent project, but overall I have felt a greater sense of satisfaction and happiness watching my students on their own, rather than my direct instruction. As a result, I'...

“Picture a classroom...the first thing most of us think of is a square room with rows of desks….this traditional classroom space is the product of an industrial-era model education. Just like factories, schools were designed to categorize students by age and (supposedly) ability, then deliver curriculum in an assembly line format.” As a history teacher, this statement made by Kevin Brookhouser in his The 20time Project hit me in the gut. While my classroom does not look as Brookhouser described, elements of my instruction still did. I was increasing rigor within my content, but I still had to teach my students in way for them to do well on our CST style benchmarks despite the recent inclusion of short responses. This had been weighing heavily on my mind so when I heard this quote at the Google Summit in Minarets, I felt guilty and ashamed that I was not making my students "future ready." Thankfully, I was not alone in my concerns and convictions regarding the way to teach...

I wanted to update my blog with the results from my RTI for this exam: Based on the results of this RTI compared to those from the previous RTI, I had a higher rate of students increase their scores. My mastery level compared to the previous RTI improved by at least 10%. It is also worth noting that with the previous RTI I only had students retest with a 69% or lower while this time around I had students with a 79% or lower. But still, more students increased their scores. Compared to my colleagues, I had less students “master” the material with retesting, meaning they received an A or B. I’m not sure if mastery is something to look at when discussing retesting, but still my scores were lowers. At the same time, I had less students eligible for retesting; for two periods of world history I had nine students and for two periods of US I had eleven. Overall conclusion is that RTI within the classroom was more successful for the students with more students passing. Whether o...

History has been in a very interesting situation the last two years. With the introduction of Common Core and the dissolving of CSTs, history teachers have found themselves in a realm of possibility with no clear set of content standards. Maybe “realm” is too powerful of imagery for some, but for me I have found Common Core to be a blessing within my history classroom.  Within the last year, my department has been evolving with finding the balance between old content standards and the new CCSS. Since CCSS implementation has been relatively vague for history, we have began experimenting and one of our earliest experiments was with Document Based Questions ( DBQs ). The very first DBQ I did with my students was: Needless to say, the first DBQ was filled with failures, both mine and students'. The biggest failure of all was when I saw how much students struggled to critically think. The Hook Activity, for example, became a painful process when I had to slowly pull the answer...