Halstead. Blog Post 21

Overview: Using primary sources in the classroom is one way to make history real for students. All too often, students express that they hate history, often because they find it "useless." Using primary source documents connects students with the past, but learning how to analyze them also provides valuable life skills. Above is a picture of the Bill of Rights, which I elaborate on in my screencast.

Screencast: Screencast 21

Big Question: How can we help students make use of primary source resources?

Interactive Site: Docsteach is another excellent source for primary source documents like the Library of Congress Website. It is backed by the National Archives and designed specifically for providing teachers with the type of primary source resources they can use for the classroom. The collection is not as extensive as the LoC however, and more image based.

Halstead, Blog Post 20 (Loewen Chapter 13)

Overview: In Chapter 13 of Lies, Loewen describes what he believes to be the ramifications of teaching history incorrectly, uninterestingly, and in some cases lazily. His primary argument in the chapter is based on war-support statistics for the Vietnam war as a product of education. His conclusion is essentially this: the blase, always-positive version of U.S history that is given in America results in a type of indoctrination-lite, whereby educated people are more likely to believe in and support the status quo. The photo above shows Donald Trump, Emanuel Macron, and their wives in a recent diplomatic visit. I elaborate in the screencast below.

Screencast: Screencast 20 (Long)

Big Question: What can educators do to prevent the outcomes described by Loewen?

Interactive Site: Insofar as statistic sites can be considered "interactive," this blog's interactive site presents data from Pew Research that runs counter to one of Loewen's assertions. The Republican Party is no longer the party of the educated. There has been a complete reversal of that trend in the last two decades. I touch on this in the screencast.

Halstead, Blog Post 19

Overview: Chapter 12 of Loewen's book discusses the myriad of reasons for the shortcomings of textbooks. While he presents many problems, Loewen does not seem to zero in on many solutions. He does, however, provide some excellent insights. The photo above is a simple stock photo of a glossary. This seems to be the most useful function of textbooks: a giant compendium of facts. In this capacity, textbooks may still be useful to teachers who want to break the mold.

Screencast: Screencast 19

Big Question: Who is to blame for the shortcomings of textbooks?

Interactive Site: The interactive site I have chosen for this blog is Khan Academy. Khan Academy is an online resource designed with the sole purpose of providing tutorials and educating people. The videos are in-depth and the site provides resources like quizzes for students to test knowledge. Since textbooks speak in vague platitudes, it is up to teachers to find more interesting, in-depth resources for our students. Khan Academy is one among many.

Halstead, Blog Post 18

Overview: The graph above shows the unemployment rate between 2007 and 2017. The dots highlight the peak of the recession and all-time high unemployment for this time period, as well as the low unemployment after nearly a decade of recovery. However, this graph is very poorly designed. The X and Y axis are not consistently labeled, and the X axis uses both months and years in its timespan. Like Chapter 10 of Dr. Cantu's book, this graph helps demonstrate the importance of teaching students economics. Students must be able to understand how the economy affects history, as well as how to analyze data and graphs and identify bad information.

Screencast: Screencast 18

Big Question: How can teachers make a "boring" topic like economics interesting for students?

Interactive Site: The interactive site I chose for this screencast is called Investopedia. Specifically, Investopedia has a simulator which uses real-time stock pricing to allow students to manage a virtual stock portfolio to see how the market works. It is an excellent tool for teaching students how the market functions and how traders make decisions.

Halstead, Blog Post 17

Overview: The importance of geography to history cannot be overstated. Students have a hard time connecting to ideas or stories when they cannot connect them with a "where." Often, it is the charge of history teachers to bring history to a place for students. the image above shows the most accurate world map to date and can be used to demonstrate to students the true scale of the continents.  The screencast below explores the idea of connections between geography and history.

Screencast: Screencast 17

Big Question: Should we attempt to integrate geography into upper-level history courses?

Interactive Site: The interactive site for this blog is Google Earth. This interactive globe is an excellent way to introduce students to continents, nations, and places. The level of detail is incredible, and major cities even have 3-D rendering of the structures, as well as images at street-view. It is an easy and fun to use tool.

Halstead, Blog Post 16

Overview: There are many photos I could have selected that represent the same type of Americana as the one above. This particular photograph shows 11 men seated on a steel girder and enjoying their lunch. We know almost nothing about the identity of these men or what their lives were like. We know the name of the man who's building they were constructing, however. The photograph is commonly misattributed to the construction of the Empire State Building but was actually taken during the construction of the Rockefeller Center. To many, this photograph represents the indomitable spirit of American daring and progress. Viewers rarely stop to think about the men that lost limbs or lives for poor wages, building a skyscraper for a billionaire.

Screencast:  Screencast 16

Big Question: How do we introduce students to the idea that "progress" is unsustainable?

Interactive Site: This interactive site features a world population counter. While increases in  population used to be attributed to American progress, we realize today growth at this rate is unsustainable. This site is ecologically minded and is an excellent way to demonstrate to students that our current conceptualization of growth and progress is unsustainable.

Halstead, Blog Post 15

Overview: The top image shows a protestor in the Black Lives Matter movement, standing in front of a detachment of St. Louis police officers during what would come to be called riots after the death of Micheal Brown at the hands of a police officer. The bottom image shows voters in voting booths. Both could be characterized as civic participation in the United States, and it is important that students understand the various ways they can participate civically. Chapter 9 of Dr. Cantu's book highlights the National Standards for Civics and Government, which are voluntary standards focussed on civics in education.

Screencast: Screencast 15

Big Question: How can we promote civic participation to our students?

Interactive Site: The interactive site for this blog is called The Redistricting Game. This game demonstrates how redistricting works in a way that is fun and engaging. It is a great tool to use when discussing state and local politics, as well as partisan districts and gerrymandering.

Halstead, Blog Post 14

Overview: The picture above shows Bill Nye (center, red bow-tie) leading a march in the "March for Science" movement. Without understanding the events of recent history, the appearance of movements like the March for Science,  Black Lives Matter, and the Women's March might be entirely confusing. At best, a lack of understanding of recent history might leave an average person to ignore or misunderstand the motives of various protests movements. At worst, that same lack of understanding might drive harmful conspiracy theories and foster the creation of radicalized hate groups. The screencast below elaborates on the need for establishing relevance using recent history.

Screencast: Screencast 14

Big Question: How can teachers integrate recent history when it seems like there isn't enough time?

Interactive Site: The interactive site I chose for this blog demonstrates Loewen's point about a curious refusal to touch the recent past. The site is an interactive timeline with primary sources from the World Digital Library and contains a wealth of sources that provide an overview of U.S history. However, the most recent event at the end of the timeline is the 1986 Challenger disaster despite the wealth of events that have happened in the 32 years since and the wealth of primary sources across all media to accompany them. The timeline can be found here. 

Halstead, Blog Post 13

Overview: The image above is Meriwether Lewis of the famous explorers, Lewis and Clark. His legacy as an explorer, his position in frontier history, and his relationship with Clark make for exciting history on their own, but one of the lesser known things about Lewis is the debate about whether he committed suicide, or he was murdered. This connects with chapter 8 of our text because it provides students an opportunity to ask all 3 of the major historical questions (what, why, and how) in an interesting and engaging way. I elaborate on this in the screencast below.

Screencast: Screencast 13

Big Question: How can we engage students in meaningful inquiry if they do not enjoy history?

Interactive Site: The interactive site for this blog is a "just for fun" history site dedicated to made-up journals of Lewis and Clark. In these fabricated journals, Lewis claims on several occasions to have seen bears wearing human pants. While amusing, these journal entries could also be used as an opener to historical inquiry and analyzing primary sources.

Halstead, Blog Post 12

Overview: The image above is the full image that Loewen references in chapter 6 of Lies when discussing how John Brown and his raid at Harper's Ferry are often interpreted as the fanatical and doomed plot of a madman. In making his case, Loewen might have been better off to use the full image as opposed to the one cropped in on Brown's face. Here, one can see the scope of just how insane this representation of Brown is meant to make him look. He is a giant, stepping on the heads of the dead and towering over all others in the background. The image reflects nothing of Brown's calm and reflective nature prior to his execution for treason. Loewen's main argument in chapter 6 of Lies is that the erasure of big ideas from American texts (particularly racism, Loewen's pet preoccupation) does a disservice to students and to history by steering clear of any real controversy in an effort to remain as palatable as possible to everyone. 

Screencast: Screencast 12

Big Question: How can we present big ideas to students when textbooks actively undermine this process?

Interactive Website: The interactive site for this blog is an interactive map of slavery over time in the United States that can demonstrate to students the expansion of the institution as well as its status immediately prior to the civil war. This is of particular importance to Loewen's case because the density of slave population likely correlated positively with seccesionist sentiment. The map can be found here, and would be a great way to show students how and where slavery spread over time using census data.

Halstead, Blog Post 11 (Cantu Chp. 7)

Overview: The image above was created by cartoonist Rube Goldberg, who pictured fantastical and overly complicated contraptions for comedic purposes in the 1930's. The concept of a "Goldberg Machine" quickly caught on in both language (taken to mean something needlessly complicated or indirect for performing a simple task) and practice (contests to build the most convoluted machines in the spirit of Goldberg's drawings exist today). As educators, we must take great pains to ensure that the technology we are introducing in the classroom is not acting as a Goldberg machine. In other words, classroom technologies should be unobtrusive, well implemented, and help improve overall learning outcomes. They should not make simple educational tasks unnecessarily complicated.

Screencast: Screencast 11

Big Question: How can teachers ensure that the technologies they are adopting are beneficial?

Interactive Site: This interactive site is a shameless self-plug to a Weebly I created for another class here at Bradley. Since the spirit of this chapter is top instructional tools for teachers, I thought it would be helpful to share some of my own. The page I linked is dedicated to tools in History/Social studies that I thought might be useful for the future. Many of the tools/sites on this page are interactive and deal with many types of media, including music.

Halstead, Blog Post 10 (Cantu Chp. 6)

Overview: The image above shows a room full of brand new Americans being sworn in. I have the opportunity to lead a civics discussion prior to a similar event that will be taking place in the Renaissance Collesium next week. High school students who have lived in America their entire lives likely know less than all of the people in the room above when it comes to U. S government. It is our charge as teachers to prepare students to be good digital citizens so that they can be good citizens in general, as technology use and digital information transfer in the United States become ubiquitous.

Screencast: Screencast 10

Big Question: How can teachers best prepare students for digital, as well as actual, participation in U.S society?

Interactive Site: This page on the cyberwise website features a host of different interactive games teachers can use to introduce students to digital citizenship. One of the games is featured on Brain Pop, which was popular in my school when I was younger.

Halstead, Blog Post 9 (Cantu Chp. 5)

Overview: At the risk of sounding dramatic, I firmly believe that the scene above represents the demographic crisis of technology in the classroom. In this scene, the H.M.S Titanic is steaming toward an iceberg that will cause the ship previously considered "unsinkable" to shatter in two. Had the captain taken more caution in dangerous waters, the people who died that night might still be alive. So here is the comparison: The Titanic is the U. S education system. The water is all the available technologies of modern society (particularly the internet and apps) and the surrounding icebergs are a full embrace of technological assimilation in the classroom. We are each the captain of our own Titanic. Technology in the classroom is just as much a fact of life as the ocean and ice in polar regions, and we must determine our approach with serious caution if we want to safely navigate ourselves and our students to the other side. I elaborate in my screencast.

Screencast: Screencast 9

Big Question: What degree of technological skepticism is healthy for an educator?  

Interactive Site: The site I chose is called Edmodo. Edmodo is a full-scale learning platform designed for high school classrooms and similar in function to administrative systems like Sakai or Blackboard. It is designed to provide students with an online workspace where they might feel more comfortable sharing (e.g blog posts) than they might in a classroom. Teachers can post assignments, reminders, and interact with students.

Halstead, Blog Post 8

Overview: The top image is a painting that dates from the civil war era. It shows Crispus Attucks dying as one of the first casualties in the American Revolutionary War. Abolitionists of the period were attempting to paint Attucks as an American patriot. He was a runaway slave who lost his life in the first scuffle for American liberty and may stand in as a representation of the Black soldiers who died during the ensuing conflict. 

  

The bottom image is of a Black man being lynched over a hundred years after the Revolutionary war had drawn to a close. For all the high ideals of the Revolution, Black people in America continue to face racism and discrimination to this day. It is imperative that we address contrasts between American idealism and American realities with students, lest they believe we have achieved the ideal.

Screencast: Screencast 8

Big Question: How should we, as educators, handle issues of race and racism in the classroom?

Interactive Site: The site I chose is an incredible resource for teaching about racism in the classroom. It can be found here on the ASCD In-service website. ASCD is a multinational nonprofit dedicated to advancing education. While the page itself is not interactive, it provides links to several forms of media including videos and podcasts, as well as a number of articles.

Halstead, Blog Post 7

Overview: Chapter 4 of Dr. Cantu's book provides several pages of instructional strategies for engaging students in the classroom. Much of the chapter is in a list format, providing brief explanations of each of the learning techniques or strategies being presented. Graphic organizers are also given a great deal of space, with a large compendium of examples or formats provided. There are several great resources in this chapter, which I discuss in greater detail in the screencast.

Screencast: Screencast 7

Big Question: How can we provide students with a schema for learning history/social studies?

Interactive Site: I chose the interactive quiz site Kahoot for my interactive site. This easy to use, quiz-style learning site is fun for students and an easy way to help them review basic information in a way that is interactive. There is also an element of competition in Kahoot. Depending on your students, this may be a benefit or a hindrance, so knowing your students is (as always) key to implementation.

Halstead, Blog Post 6

Overview: In the third chapter of Lies, Loewen describes the decimation of Native Americans at the hands of European diseases while dismantling the mythos that surrounds the first Thanksgiving. The image above is in Lies as well, accompanying a graphic description of how pandemics of smallpox would tear the skin off of their Native victims. The takeaway from this chapter is that there was much European settlement and contact prior to the landing at Plymouth Rock that cleared the way for a very easy settlement there, which also would not have been possible without immediate and constant native support.

Screencast: Screencast 6

Big Question: How do we approach subjects like native decimation with young students?

Interactive Site: The site linked here is not necessarily interactive, but provides some interesting perspectives on native decimation in the Americas via disease, including a source that seems to contradict Lowen's assertions that Native Americans were, by and large, healthy and clean people upon European arrival in the "new" world. It also addresses the question of why no "new" world plagues (what the author dubs "Ameripox") invaded the Old World.

Halstead, Blog Post 5

Overview: Chapter 3 in our book by Dr. Cantu discusses the cognitive, affective, and psychomotor domains of learning and their relationship to lesson planning. The picture above shows the advantages of the jigsaw method, which is an instructional strategy that can be used to incorporate differentiation of instruction into the classroom. In my screencast, I discuss the use of flexible grouping in my novice teaching placement as a means of fostering student engagement and appealing to the three major cognitive domains.

Screencast: Screencast 5

Big Question: What methods can we use as teachers to meet all of our students' learning domains?

Interactive Website: Part of this chapter focusses on using mind maps as a visual method to maintain a central focus when working from an objective in lesson planning (a strategy that can also be applied to differentiating lessons for students). The web app at this link is called Bubbl, and it is a free mind-map generating site with templates to get you or students started.

Halstead, Blog Post 4

 

Overview: In chapter two of Lies, Loewen writes about the dual meaning of "exploit" regarding Christoper Columbus: His exploits of "discovery", and his exploitation of the native people. This chapter tears apart the feel-good and heavily Eurocentric view of Columbus provided by textbooks and brings primary sources into the conversation to shed a greater light on the atrocities he committed. More than that, Loewen argues that the whitewashed version of the Columbian Exchange is boring to students and robs them of a perfect opportunity to put hundreds of years before and after 1492 into an appropriate context. The image above is a painting depicting Spanish war dogs being used to maim and disembowel Arawak Natives.   

Screencast: Screencast 4

Big Question: Which American contributions to the Old World are overlooked in the analysis of the Columbian exchange?

Interactive Site: The site I chose for this blog is an interactive site on the Columbian exchange. I chose this site as an example of the limited scope in the conversation surrounding the exchange because it provides a useful starting point in exampling what is not there. Namely, the transfer of ideas and culture from the New World to the Old and the impact they had in the following centuries. It can be found here: Columbian Exchange Interactive Map

Halstead, Blog Post 3

Overview: The image above comes from the website for Minneapolis public schools. I have used this image because I believe it presents multiple facets of History SS standards in a clean and inviting graphic, and the topic of this blog's screencast is standards. More specifically, the state and national standards in History SS that we will be using as teachers to guide our lessons and our students, including National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) Standards, Common Core State Standards, and the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) Standards.

Screencast: Screencast 3

Big Question: What standards do we use in creating lessons for our students?

Interactive Website: The interactive site I have chosen for this blog post is a page from the Common Core State Standards Initiative site. This page provides an interactive map of the United States and its territories with links to each state/ territories' learning standards, color-coded by whether or not they have adopted the common core. It can be found by clicking here: Common Core State Standards Initiative Map

Halstead, Blog Post 2

Overview: In his introduction, Loewen writes extensively about the textbooks that have, ironically, aided in making American students worse at history. The purpose of his book is to aim at pieces of history mistaught, or completely glazed over. Also in the introduction of Lies My Teacher Told Me, Loewen writes about the hatred of and underperformance in American history, particularly by students of color. The first chapter focuses on what Loewen calls "heroification", or the reduction of varied and complex historical actors like Woodrow Wilson (top) and Helen Keller (bottom, right) to palatable, inoffensive archetypes. In my screencast, I highlight how it is not just textbooks that should make us wary of this oversimplification.
Screencast: Screencast 2
Big Question:  Is the internet an effective tool for combatting "heroification" in history?
Interactive Link: The link I chose is part of a PBS series of videos called "60 Second Presidents". It is a video series that covers all of the presidents so far and does so in short blurbs. I discuss why this is useful but also problematic in my screencast. https://illinois.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/d6cdb0ae-6a88-4aac-b163-ee1aab3d51ff/woodrow-wilson-60-second-presidents/?#.W4Shd85KiUk

Halstead, Blog Post 1

Overview: The image above is a useful graphic for understanding the component parts of Bloom's Revised Taxonomy. This system, based on Bloom's original taxonomy of the 1950's, is one of many systems that have been developed to effectively guide student learning and understanding like the ones described in our first chapter. Each system is particularly relevant to education because they focus on the ways in which students learn, and stress that every learner is unique in some way. Many of the systems also focus on different learning outcomes that are part of Bloom's overall taxonomy. For example, Gardner's Theory of Multiple Intelligences centers on the ways in which students acquire knowledge, while McCarthy's 4MAT system focuses on the mental functions students use to achieve the creation of a product. I highlight how each learning model fits within Bloom's taxonomy in my screencast below.

Screencast: Screencast 1

Big Question: How, and to what extent do various theories of learning and intelligence interact?

Interactive Website: The website I chose is a page from Edutopia.com that has a quiz to assess which of Gardner's Multiple Intelligences a person uses most. This quiz would likely be most useful in a mobile-device enabled classroom, where each student could take the quiz and send the instructor their results. It can be found at the following link: https://www.edutopia.org/multiple-intelligences-assessment

Additional link to University of Iowa's Bloom's Taxonomy Page: http://www.celt.iastate.edu/teaching/effective-teaching-practices/revised-blooms-taxonomy