My Early Cold-War StoryMap assignment

StoryMapJS

My Early Cold-War StoryMap assignment

Unknown 14.52 Komentar

It's always hard to find the right balance between what I expect students to do on their own outside of class with what I hope to accomplish with them in class.  Recently I've been focusing on developing skills (reading, writing, and critical thinking) in class, and shifting the responsibility of mastering content to the students.  (Of course in practice it's never that simple.  The skills we practice in class always are driven by the content we are studying, so the two always mesh.)

Here's my workflow for our unit on Cold War origins: The bulk of our lessons this week are focused on an extended whole-class activity with a set of primary source documents.  The activity involves reading a series of 2-3 documents, ascertaining their meaning, then writing a paragraph comparing the two while answering a question.  We then move to the next series of documents, do the same activity, then compare that second series with the first.  Finally, to tie everything together, we do the same thing one last time, then write an essay incorporating and synthesizing all nine documents.

At home, students keep up with their textbook reading (there will be a reading quiz), and complete a small project.  For the assignment, I gave the students eight Cold War events to discuss and describe.

1. Yalta Conference
2. Potsdam
3. Formation of the United Nations
4. Truman Doctrine
5. Marshall Plan
6. Berlin Airlift
7. Formation of NATO
8. Korean War

To learn about these eight events, I pointed the students to the extraordinary materials from the U.S. State Department's Office of the Historian for background information.

The students are to present their findings in a StoryMap.  StoryMapJS is a form a presentation software, and a StoryMap lets you tell stories visually on a map.  I've used StoryMapJS earlier this year and loved it.

You can see a link to the project here.

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We take our quizzes in class on our smartphones

We take our quizzes in class on our smartphones

Unknown 06.08 Komentar

My students take quizzes in class on their smartphones.  How's that working out so far?

One goal this year has been to take advantage of the fact that the most powerful computers in our classroom reside in my students' cellphones.  Almost all my students have them, and when they don't have them they either share with a classmate or I give them one of personal devices (my iPad or Chromebook) or a school computer.  So far this year I've used cell phones to deliver instruction, teach digital citizenship, and help my students get organized, conduct research, collaborate, and practice and review.  I've also used it to assess.

As part of my assessment, I deliver my reading quizzes with Quia.  Quia is an online testing program.  There are other quiz platforms but I've used Quia for years and think it's terrific.

So far I've been very satisfied with the results.  Students take quizzes on their devices and get instant results.  The program double-randomizes each question, so each student gets questions presented in a different order, and the answer choices for each question are scrambled as well.  I can easily modify questions so that different sections see different questions.  And when students are absent from class I can easily set up a quiz for them to take.  Quia generates data-analysis reports so that I can see areas where my students struggle, and can then remediate accordingly.  Finally, the actual time I need to set aside for test administration is reduced because there is no time wasted passing out and returning paper quizzes.

What I really like most about Quia is that it adapts to my review strategy.  I've been doing a lot of reading about "retrieval learning" (also known as the "testing effect") published by Purdue University's Cognition and Learning Lab.  They have shown how testing can be used as a study and review tool, in addition to an assessment tool.  So I give my students lots of review quizzes.  Here's my workflow: After students have taken a quiz, I change the settings on the quiz so that it shows answers.  Then I move it into an "Unlocked Quizzes" folder on Blackboard.  The expectation is that students will study for review quizzes by practicing with the quizzes in this folder.  Once moved to the Unlocked Quizzes folder, these quizzes are fair game at any time.

One obvious question is test security.  Students discussing test questions from one period to another is a concern with any type of test, but with these cell phone quizzes I address the issue in several ways.  I discuss that one part of digital citizenship is respecting our school's Honor Code, which prohibits receiving or giving unauthorized assistance.  Students also must take quizzes in class,  keep their devices on their desks, and place them face down on their desks when they are finished.  I make it a point to circulate through the classroom so that students know that I am monitoring their activity.  I also weight quizzes differently: Each regular reading quiz (which is scheduled and announced) is worth 15 points, but review quizzes from the Unlocked Quizzes folder (which are not announced and assigned randomly from class to class) are worth 45 points.

Another concern is network reliability, so whenever a student's phone freezes, they simply stop the quiz and retake it at some other date for full credit.

So the mid-year verdict: Students seem to like the instant results and I like the ease, facility, and flexibility of smartphone quizzes.

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OTD in 1933: FDR's First Inaugural

FDR

OTD in 1933: FDR's First Inaugural

Unknown 13.02 Komentar

You're probably studying FDR with your students right about now, so today is a timely anniversary.  Today is the anniversary of FDR's first inaugural.

There are a wealth of terrific resources to mark that occasion, and more importantly, to put FDR's inauguration and that speech into historical context.

CSPAN has this 20 minute video of newsreel footage and the address itself.

Other great resources on the address (including audio and video clips, pictures, artifacts, and teaching lessons) were produced by the National Archives, FDR Library, and Library of Congress.

Of course we want to put FDR's presidency into context, and material from Miller Center at the University of Virginia is a good place to start.  This essay gives a round-up of the issues facing the nation in 1933, and then includes excerpts from the address showing FDR's plan for addressing them.

You probably want to discuss how FDR made it to the White House in the first place.  This link to the 1932 general election results is useful because it shows FDR's popular (+7-million) and electoral (472-59) dominance over President Herbert Hoover.  It would also be useful to get students to see the strength of the Socialist and Communist party candidates that year: combined they got almost 1-million votes.  Ask student to speculate the likely cause: guide them to the conclusion that those voters were likely frustrated with capitalism because of the Great Depression.  Don't forget to show them this map; it's striking!

Other points you will want to discuss with your students:

• FDR was the last president to be inaugurated in March.  The date was changed to 20 January by the 20th Amendment.
• This is the speech where FDR said, "All we have to fear is fear itself."  (This 0:29 clip cuts right to this line.)

• FDR was the only president elected and inaugurated four times.
• Hitler came to power just months earlier in January 1933.  Gilder-Lehrman compares the two here.

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Amazing collection of Lincoln resources (courtesy of Ford's Theatre)

Amazing collection of Lincoln resources (courtesy of Ford's Theatre)

Unknown 09.04 Komentar

In a terrific blog post to encourage teachers to bring students to visit, Ford's Theatre has assembled an amazing collection of resources useful for any unit on President Lincoln and his era.  The resources are available elsewhere, but what makes this so valuable is that they are all in this one place.

One set of four short videos (shortest: 3:40; longest: 9:36) is from the theatre's YouTube channel.  They were produced and donated to the theatre by the History Channel, and they discuss different aspects of President Lincoln's times: the challenges he faced upon taking office, the way he responded to those challenges as chief executive, how Lincoln's relationship with Frederick Douglass influenced his views on slavery, and how the movement to build a memorial to President Lincoln after his death culminated in the monument on the west end of the reflecting pool.  Here's the video about Lincoln and Douglass:

Also included are videos giving viewers an inside view of the what theatre looks like, and links to interactive exhibits on Lincoln's funeral train and artifacts from his assasination.

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Fun history-quiz app from the National Endowment for the Humanities

Fun history-quiz app from the National Endowment for the Humanities

Unknown 08.33 Komentar

EDSITEment, a service of the National Endowment for the Humanities, has developed a history quiz app that deserves a serious look.

It's called Mission US, Think Fast About the Past.  It's an role-playing, interactive U.S. History game that asks you to answer questions as you move along a scenario.  I played it and I found it engaging and informative.

You can download Mission US for free from the Apple iTunes app store.

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My first Storify assignment: Student work

Storify

My first Storify assignment: Student work

Unknown 10.48 Komentar

I assigned my students to create a Storify discussing the impact World War II had on four social groups: Japanese-Americans, African-Americans, Native-Americans, and women.  Storify is a type of presentation tool.  You can embed pictures, websites, video, and audio into a Storify.  It's free and easy-to-use.

The first student project just came in (submitted through Google Classroom).  It looks terrific!  Click here to see it.  And click here to see the assignment sheet I gave my students, and the list of online resources they were to use.

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An online peer grading option

Peergrade.io

An online peer grading option

Unknown 08.21 Komentar

Old: Students write essays then hand them in.  You shuffle them, then pass them back for a peer grading activity.  Is there a better way?

Peergrade.io might be the better way.  With Peergrade, students submit their assignments electronically, then the site distributes them out for peer grading for you.  Student evaluators use your rubric to assess the essay.  The essays are then returned to the authors with the the student feedback.

What makes Peergrade sound so promising is the teacher reports that it generates.  You can find out whether students are grading the papers they are responsible for, and using an internal algorithm it tells you whether some students are grading too easy or too harshly.  What makes Peergrade so cool is that it is not limited to text files.  Sure, students can submit .doc and .pdf files, but they can also submit images (like with .jpg files), audio files (like with .mp3), and video (like with YouTube videos and .mov files).

One issue of concern: Peergrade is free but only for classes of up to 20 students.  Above that and a fee structure kicks in.

Peergrade doesn't have video tutorials yet but click here for its FAQs.

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