@clclyne Colinda Clyne

In my response to Joe’s post, I outlined how I plan units using backward design, starting with the enduring understandings for the course, the exam and culminating assignment and a list of tentative assignments by unit. It took us a long time to flesh out the EUs, and they remain a work in progress since we have only had the new curriculum since September. Here is the link if you are interested https://docs.google.com/document/d/1UZJifkrX2E4KhErKIKhHIVGdFZzsORSbBMu5gYMRu0M/edit?usp=sharing The assignments are tentative as I like to have some flex (for reasons again explained in my response to Joe’s post). Each unit task uses the content of the unit as the vehicle through which students demonstrate their understanding of the historical thinking concepts. For example, the first assignment for the junior students is a personal time line. I like to start where they feel confident, knowledge of their own lives, and stretch them just a bit to try on historical thinking hats. So they choose an event for its historical significance, and analyse it using the criteria: well remembered, long-lasting, impact far reaching and reveals something. They then choose any one other of the Big Six, and explain how this one other thinking concept fits with a particular event. It is not earth-shattering, but a connection that I think is a nice segue into the critical thinking I am going to be asking them to do. https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1VhUTdTRbhbZkxIcWJhX01nRFE/edit?usp=sharing For each big topic in the course, I pose a question that we will work to unravel. For the first unit which starts with the Great War, How did Canada change the war? How did the war change Canada? As we investigate the topics from specific battles to conscription to suffrage to seats at the Paris Peace Conference, students circle back to the essential question. The battle of Vimy Ridge is linked to Canadian pride and ingenuity on the battlefield, which led to the reputation as storm troopers, which led to international recognition separate from the Dominion, which led to increased autonomy. As much as possible, these little bits are gathered through inquiry and primary source investigation. This is still very much a work in progress for me. I am only back in the class since last year, having spent the last 10 years as a department head of Special Education (which has meant a guidance role for students with learning issues), and before that I mostly taught either congregated classes of special needs students or English. So much has changed, including my own perspective. And there is a real challenge in history, as the science curricula, of balancing the massive amount of curriculum with the time it takes to develop skilled investigative thinking and clear, concise reporting. I completely agree with Kaelyn that there is such a pressure of time, in the class, because inquiry takes longer, and on the teacher, because setting up inquiry takes longer. But every time through, it gets just a little bit better.

@PattiStrukel

Building Depth

Posted on February 23, 2014 by pstrukel

Reply

Whether or not I have designed meaningful learning activities determines the quality of my students’ learning, the energy of interactions in my classroom, and the depth of my students’ thoughts. The reality that hits me is that all of these components are – to some degree – controllable. Thus, I need to accept the responsibility for this mammoth task. What separates meaningful learning activities from those that are less fruitful is depth. Are students able to grow in their understanding? Are all students’ brains activated throughout the class period? Do students walk away from class feeling as though it was worthwhile to invest themselves in the work?

With apologies to James Carville, I offer this (to myself as much as anyone): it’s the depth, stupid. When a lesson has depth, it demands inquisitive thinking. In our recent unit on the 1920s, a handful of lessons achieved this. Prior to examining these, I should also mention that there are days as a history teacher in which the learning outcome demands exposure to an array of cultural figures and trends. One day of our 1920s unit bombarded students with names relating to art, literature, and music of the time. While these met the content needs, I had to make sure to offset the information overload with images from Georgia O’Keeffe and Frank Lloyd Wright, students being coached to swing eighth notes, and discussion about how playing rhythms that aren’t printed on the page are emblematic of other 1920s’ behaviors.

Although my last post shamed the textbook, it was invaluable as a resource for two of the activities we did as a way to streamline the information-gathering process. While students could have certainly used other resources to mine for ideas, it was convenient to use the predictability of textbook pages, especially when some of what they needed to gather was “hidden” in the plain black font of the book.
In “People of the 1920s” each student prepared to offer the perspective of assigned identity, visited with numerous other students, then completed a series of questions to reveal discoveries about the fears, changes, and consumer practices of the decade. When I designed this, it was necessary to select characters who offered perspectives on all of these topics and manipulate student interactions enough that I could feel assured that they would hear perspectives on all of these key ideas.

Using primary documents is a priority in my class. It requires students to construct meaning and offers them a more authentic feel for historians’ work. I modified Harding’s “Normalcy” speech, as presented through Teaching American History, offered some guiding questions for the document, and then asked students to compare Harding’s vision with what happened during his Presidency: Normalcy Activity . The culminating activity was a paragraph and directed students to use information about our foreign policy (specifically relating to tariffs) as well as the actions of Harding’s cabinet members.

Other activities offered insight on the 1920s and provoked student thought. When we examined racial discrimination of the 1920s, we watched this Twin Cities Public Television piece on the Duluth lynchings to discover the way that the Great Migration meant that racial cruelty sometimes moved north too.

The most challenging – and fun – activity aimed to demonstrate the broad spectrum of values that conflicted with each other during the 1920s. Prior to embracing historical inquiry methods, I would have been content to list these for students to record and share some examples of them. I probably would have been delighted to see them parrot my words on an assignment or test. The fact that I could write “1920s Speed Dating,” on the weekly calendar and draw a heart around it (on Valentine’s Day) made it even sweeter, but the activity offered a chance for students to uncover the clashes of the time. In working through these identities and knowing that they were going to converse with classmates, students needed to employ inference, apply personality, and even improvise a little during the activity. The result was a vibrant activity in which most students were able to uncover – for themselves – the diversity of ideas and people that emanated from this era. In future years, I would prefer to have students prepare their identities in advance so that the scaffolding of recalling the toxic and magical combinations they witnessed could be a more directed piece. However, 1920s Speed Dating, was a tremendous success in its ability to engage my sophomores and enrich their understanding.

When a teacher tosses students into inquiry activities, it seems as though students need to trust that the confusion they experience – and there will be confusion – will be short-term. With that in mind, a teacher needs to be content with letting this cloud of discomfort linger. Every student won’t feel like an ace right away, and some may only gain a surface understanding of the “punchline” in time. The payoff comes with the growth students experience, the interest that high-energy activities can generate, and the depth that offsets the zany pace of studying hundreds of years in 36 weeks.

http://mrsstrukel.edublogs.org/

@joetabhistory

Blog of Month February- Planning for Historical Thinking

Since the summer, I have spent many hours thinking about and discussing what I want to do more of in my history class. After thousands of tweets and many blog posts, now is the time for me to focus on specifics, to focus on what exactly I want to do in my classroom that is different from what I have done in the past. The History Blog Circle is an attempt to collaborate with others who are at various stages of a similar process, a process that at its core focuses on teaching students how to think like historians.

Starting last month and continuing indefinitely, I will continue to dig deeper as I explore what it means to think like an historian and how to set up a classroom that emphasizes this approach to teaching students about the past, present, and, I suppose, even the future.   

When I try to imagine change, I have found that sometimes it is helpful for me to start by defining what I don’t want to see. From there, I am often in a better position to conceptualize and articulate my vision, where I want to go and how I am going to get there. For the time being, that is going to be my approach with historical thinking. What are classrooms like where historical thinking is not occurring or only rarely occurs? And what can I do to avoid creating a classroom like this?

Students are quiet. Lots of teacher talk. 

I start with a basic assumption: When students are not writing or talking, I am severely limiting my opportunities to get them thinking about the past, to teach them specific historical thinking skills, and, in time, to assess their thinking, providing the feedback that is essential to help students become historical thinkers.

That is not to say that when I lecture students are not thinking. What, though, are they thinking about? I suspect that more often than not when we are talking, or ‘lecturing’, the chances that students are actually thinking about the topics we are discussing are often quite small.  If we cannot get students thinking aloud or on paper, then we cannot do much teaching. The best we can say that we are doing is talking; we are not teaching.

Assignments need to emphasize more than regurgitating content

Even a student with exceptional memory is not really learning much of value if all she can do is repeat what her teacher or her textbook says. As Grant Wiggins repeatedly reminds us, remembering is not understanding. Expecting and accepting recall of information as the main evidence of learning signals to students that the learning we value is primarily the learning associated with remembering, as opposed to understanding.

If superficial learning is the goal, then, indeed, little understanding is needed for students to demonstrate that they can remember content well enough to spit it back on a test. Knowing this, it is essential for me to consciously get students thinking on paper or out loud in class. Only then, can I push students to evaluate their thinking, the thinking of their classmates, their teacher, and all of the texts, written and unwritten, that we encounter in class.

Units and Lessons Need to Revolve around Questions

The Stanford Historical Education Group (SHEG) does this well. @William ABerry11 also discussed this in his post. I am still learning the best way to incorporate the SHEG model of lesson planning into my routine since the vast majority of the existing SHEG lessons do not connect to my Western Civ course.  When examining the SHEG lessons, you will notice that every lesson has a central question at the top the lesson plan. This approach, I think, is superior to structuring a lesson around a series of learning objectives, as many of us were taught in college when we first learned how to lesson plan.

I have noticed that the SHEG questions are usually fairly limited. They do not carry over into multiple lessons, the way that one of Grant Wiggins’ Essential Questions (EQs) does. I am also pretty sure that many of SHEGs questions revolve around why and how questions, as opposed to should or would questions.

As long as you are not attempting to build a lesson around a closed ended question, then this approach should work for you.  The bottom line here is that we set students up to construct a response to the lesson’s central question, requiring them to defend their position and support it with evidence derived from their analysis of primary and secondary sources.

How I have typically planned

Throughout my career, I have never planned my units and lessons in ways that are aligned with the best practices spelled out by Grant Wiggins and SHEG.

I like that Wiggins focuses on student understanding and transfer. He is eloquent in his articulation about why teaching discrete facts and isolated details is not meaningful. When I think about my history class, I have generally been content with teaching students information. When planning, I have typically started by making decisions about what I want to tell, or ‘teach’, students in class.

 In recent years, with the advent of department tests, my planning has revolved almost completely around the department tests. I have decided what to tell students by looking at the test. This is not what a good history teacher does. In fact, this is not what a good teacher does. What, then, do good history teachers do?

I have to decide what big ideas and essential understandings I am going to focus on in class.

I have been reading Grant Wiggins’ text Understanding by Design, where he discusses how teachers can teach students in a meaningful way, as opposed to providing them with superficial instruction that for all intents and purposes is a waste of time.

Wiggins emphasizes teaching for transfer, teaching students to use the concepts and skills they learn in your class in new and varied situations. Wiggins asserts, and I agree, that this type of deeper, lasting learning is not common.

Why? Wiggins premise is that it is not common because of how teachers teach. And, to tie these comments back to this month’s topic, how teachers teach is connected with how they plan their units and lessons.

If I am honest, I do not plan to teach for understanding, in the manner discussed by Wiggins. What do teachers who plan and teach using UbD principles do? What do they do that I do not do?

More to come…

@WilliamABerry11

Link to William's post.

@KaelynBullock

Challenges of Planning for Historical Thinking

This is my first year of putting Historical Thinking skills to the test. Now that students have turned in their National History Day projects, I have mixed results about how skilled they are at this point. You can read some of my thoughts on my blog.

In some ways, my quest for historical thinking is going reasonably well. This week I am looking forward to EdCafe's. Students picked up a short article about a war of religion from The Flow of History website. This weekend they are doing light research on a modern religious conflict. Wednesday they will lead small group discussions comparing the two religious conflicts.

Recently I set out to plan units on Reconstruction and Absolute Monarchs. In both classes I have decided to begin classes with “hooks” of primary sources to begin class and get students to explore the topic and a key question. The rest of class is spent digging into the content via lecture. On the assessment I am sure to include an overarching questions that  must argue something about the era. Not too bad.

I would criticize my own approach above by saying its too teacher-centric. As I went to plan these units, I wanted to find big, non-googleable questions. I wanted the students to work to find some sources and I wanted to introduce new sources that would challenge their thinking. I wanted them to create and present products.

Why does my reality fall short of my ideal?

As I plan, I run into some pressures and problems. First, I love these two eras. I think they are full of so much rich, interesting content. I don’t want leave anything out.  Second, I struggle with time. I think the scope of my courses are too big. I know Common Core standards alleviate the need to cover everything, but after teaching this content for eight years, it is hard cut things out. But how far will I really get if I start at the beginning of time and just barely make it to World War II. Third, at our school and in the media we are bombarded with messages that students are too stressed out. School work is a major contributor to that stress. From what I remember of my high school history classes there was little homework and very few projects. We mostly took notes, studied them, and took a test. That sequence of events is not very stressful. I strive for more than that in my classroom. I want deep thinking and rich projects. That can take up a lot of class time and/or a lot of home time.

I’m certainly not giving up on teaching historical thinking skills, simply acknowledging the many challenges that stand in the way. Do others of you feel those pressures? Have you found ways to overcome them?

Historical Thinking Planning

     Historical thinking: how can we get students to engage in it? How do we even plan for something that students have a hard time doing? Hopefully this entry and some experiences, both positive and negative in my years of teaching might help others on this issue. So here goes!
     The first thing I do is look at what standards I have to teach for that particular unit. I know there has been a lot of issues with the Common Core, but to be honest, standards are standards and as much change that I have seen in education with the content still does not diminish my ability to teach historical thinking. I usually take those standards and make them into learning goals with "I will be able to" statements. For example:


Content Statement: 19. The United States followed a policy of containment during the Cold War in response to the spread of communism.

Is turned into a learning goal:


I will be able to cite reasons for the Cold War and examine how the US responded.   

     Then I figure out what vocabulary I want the students to know and apply to that particular learning goal. Here is where your professional judgement kicks in: how much vocabulary do I include for each learning goal?? History has the pitfall of drowning students in vocabulary. I had my curriculum director who asked me this question: what vocabulary would you be embarrassed to find out that your students did not know after leaving your class? Now it does not mean you cannot work in the vocabulary during the unit. However I usually have 5-10 words per learning goal. I think if students are going to be engaged in historical thinking they have to know the people, places, events and content that is specific to that time period.
      While I am not the biggest fan of textbooks, I do believe they can add to your arsenal of tools to use when getting your students to think historically. First, you can use it to give them an idea of sequencing which is important in historical thinking. Second, reading that type of informational text is a part of the Common Core and will allow you to do good reading activities that will engage the students. For example, Stump the Teacher is one of my favorites! Have students read 5-7 pages and then try to stump you with questions on anything. It is great way to have your students dig into the content. But remember, historical thinking is not just the text. You have to get your students out of the book and have them engage in primary document reading.
     The second thing I look for are good primary documents. Reading, discussing, analyzing and sharing thoughts on these documents is one of the key features in getting students to think historically. They have to be able to look at the past through the eyes of people who lived it and these types of documents are truly invaluable to that process. A couple of pitfalls here. First, don't give your students lengthy documents that are overly complicated. Make sure to read the document first and if you have to, cut the document down to size. There is nothing wrong with selectively editing a document so your students get the main point of the author (s) without taking away from the meaning. Here is what I did for the Atlanta Compromise Speech by Booker T. Washington:
Atlanta Compromise Speech parts
     Secondly, don't let your students read these alone! Have them in groups to pull the collective genius together. They need to bounce ideas off each other and work through them no matter how difficult they are. You can mix ability group your students too so some of the better readers can contribute to the rest of the group. This has really worked well for me.
     Another tip for primary documents is to hand out note cards or post it notes so if students don't know a vocab word that is in the document, they can write it on the card/post it and you can define it for the whole class. Planning for this takes time and you really have to match the document (s) with your learning goal. Also, to get students to really think historically, using these documents takes a lot of time for them to process so you have to use your documents strategically. 
     I think writing and writing often is key in historical thinking for students. I always plan a lot of writing during my units. Now having said that, it does not mean that only lengthy essays are needed here. I do a lot of formative writing pieces: exit/entry slips, "answering" the learning goals, summarizing, etc. The more students learn how to incorporate "evidence" into their writing, even if it is a few vocab words here and there, the closer we can get them into the historical thinking mode. Incorporating this type of writing really helps you to show students that writing about history is key in historical thinking.
     Once I have most (if not all) of this planned out, assessing the students' historical thinking is next on the planning agenda. I have moved away from the traditional tests of MC, T/F, fill-ins etc in favor of short vocab quizzes with broader, more "historical thinking" type of assessments. What does that look like? Here is an example of our Take Home Open Note assessment for the 1920s:
20s Assessment
     I think the use of political cartoons and thesis defense (even if you give it to them) is very helpful in teaching historical thinking. I think giving students broader, less "this is the correct answer" type questions really adds to the historical thinking mindset. I pitfall of doing this, especially if it is a "take home" or "open note" assessment is the fear of plagiarism or cutting and pasting. However, if you frame your questions in terms of the learning goal and you write good questions, students still have to demonstrate knowledge of the material and you can (and really should) check for students copying, especially if you have your students turn things in digitally. 
  As history teachers, we naturally think historically and the difficult task is to transfer that natural ability to our students. Modelling, using a variety of sources (not just the text) and having the students will all help to engage your students in the historical thinking process. Here are some helpful resources in your journey to historical thinking:
Books 
Choices 
     If you have questions or comments, feel free to contact me:  
Twitter
+Michael Wolski 

 

February's Topic: Planning for Historical Thinking: Unit and Lesson Planning

February’s History Ed Blog Circle Topic= Planning for Historical Thinking: Unit and Lesson Planning

Last month we discussed some of the reasons that we value teaching our students to do more than simply recall facts. In the upcoming months, we will explore some of the ways that we have and can bring our ideas to fruition.

February’s theme focuses on the decisions we make before we engage with students. How do you plan units and lessons that promote historical thinking? What strategies and tips can you suggest? What pitfalls should we avoid?

If you did not get a chance to participate last month, I encourage you to join us! As before, if you'd like to post directly to this blog, please let me know and I will add you as an administrator. If not, just send me a link to your post, and I will add it.

I look forward to your contributions! (@joetabhistory)

Feb's Topic Poll