As I perused the last major part of the teachinghistory.org website, I noticed that there is quite a bit of overlap within all of the sections, which frustrated me a bit as I felt like I was browsing through the same stuff from the past couple weeks. Not quite sure why they organized the site like this?
It seems the focus of the Best Practices section is primary sources - how they encourage historical thinking and how to incorporate them into your classroom.
One piece I particularly liked was a link to the Historical Thinking Matters website, which contained a video of a high school student doing a close reading of Huey Long's "Share the Wealth" speech. Thinking aloud and active reading skills are something I am trying to promote in my classes this year, and I've found that students struggle with exactly what it should look/sound like. This brief clip would be a great model for what I am hoping to see them do. Watch Lori Read Aloud
The video also made me want to explore the Historical Thinking Matters website further. Does anyone have any experience with it?
I think that Teaching History is a good resource, but similar to other resources like it, it is limited. The second example you give, Historical Thinking Matters, also has its limits by only listing four lessons. I would rather use Teaching History or Historical Thinking Matters as a guide for how to set up lessons or for a demonstrative video and then use select archives for specific topics.
ReplyDeleteI have never seen the Historical Thinking Matters website, but after looking at it briefly I can tell that it would be helpful, especially for new teachers. It might be a helpful tool for teachers to create websites like this for their lessons if their students have access to computers at home. It would allow students to study in a directed manner and have direct access to other helpful websites.
I really liked the Historical Thinking Matters section. I looked at the Scopes Trial segment and was impressed by the different sources the creator used. I think this is a good site for teachers to look at to emulate the structure of investigative assignments and units. The assessment section offers good questions to consider with the documents, but the teacher can create some on their own. I can see this model being adaptable for teachers who may have a fondness for certain subjects like Mr. Brinton in chapter 1 of VanSledright.
ReplyDeleteAfter considering Dr. Baker's question about why they would organize the site the way that they do, I think there may be some method to their madness. She mentioned that teachers are coming to the site for different reasons and following different paths, and I think this is where the answer lies. No matter what type of best practice you are looking for (incorporation of primary sources, mulitmedia, questioning the textbook), it can be found in almost all of their lesson plans. This would explain the crossover.
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