Exploring: Lesson Plans

This week, I decided to explore the "Teaching Materials" section of teachinghistory.org. This section includes a lesson plan search engine and lesson plan reviews, commentary on new teaching methods and approaches, and a spot where you can email questions to a master teacher (as well as browse questions already asked).

I thought lesson plans would be a great place to start since they are the blueprints of the classroom. A click on the "view all" button led me to a page where I could browse selected plans or filter for subject, time period, and/or grade level. First, I tried fine-tuning for Westward Expansion (as this is my current unit with the sophomores). No hits. At first frustrated, I then realized that these were only the plans that had been reviewed and the Lesson Plan Gateway was designed to search the web for anything not readily available on teachinghistory.org.

On my way to search through the gateway, I saw a lesson plan review that caught my eye. This plan, called "Examining the Korean War," encouraged students to explore multiple viewpoints. Here is the plan:

OUT: Examining the Korean War

I was really excited by what I read. The plan challenges students to "open up the textbook" much like we did for Christopher Columbus. I have struggled with ways of presenting challenges to textbook authority along with content, and this integrates the two perfectly. The review is also very helpful for teachers who are still learning to incorporate all the characteristics of an appropriate and dynamic plan into one lesson.

My question for all of you is do you see any lessons that you would love to try out with students? Do any of them seem unrealistic based on the resources you may or may not have available to you? 

Also, please explore the "Ask a Master Teacher" section. Did any of the topics create questions of your own? Is there something we would like to "ask a master teacher" from the site?

Exploring: Introductory Videos

With all the options presented on the homepage for this website, I had a difficult time choosing where to start my exploration. Then, I found the introductory videos! I believe these might be a new addition to the site this week and I think they will be the perfect way to get acquainted with teachinghistory.org.

I would urge all of you to watch the following two videos:


What is Historical Thinking?



Digital Classroom

In addition to these videos, please watch the other video that applies to you (elementary, middle school, and high school). Each segment discusses how the site will help you navigate all of its features.  What do you think? Would you find this site helpful? Do you like to create your own original lesson plans or will you adapt the resources this site provides you? How comfortable are you, at this point, with incorporating primary sources into your classroom?

An Introduction to Teachinghistory.org

Welcome to my experiment with blogger.com! Throughout our semester, I will be using this blog to help you explore all of the great resources available on teachinghistory.org!

Teachinghistory.org, sponsored by the National History Education Clearinghouse, is a fantastic resource for elementary, middle, and high school teachers of history. It is designed to aid teachers in developing quality lesson plans, finding historical content, and using best practices. Upon first impression, the site is a little overwhelming, but they do try make it navigable. Search engines are featured for various types of content and tabs are included at the top so that you can easily shift to the specific type of material you'd like to browse.

Each week, I will explore a different element of the website and try to discuss how I might use it in my own classes. Feel free to comment throughout the semester on both teachinghistory.org and my use of blogger.com :)

I'm hoping teachinghistory.org is going to help us keep our history classrooms from looking like this:
Bad History!