Author: Peter Pappas

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Class 6: Sharing our Lesson

School Begins - 1899
School Begins – 1899

Students will present their historical thinking lesson to the class for feedback via large group discussion. Students will have class time to collaborate with peers and teacher to implement the suggestions.

Our goal will be to assist each other in designing a great lesson that supports student mastery in skills of  Sourcing, Contextualizing or Corroborating. Lessons will be modeled after History Assessments of Thinking developed by SHEG. For more on the assignment click here.

Assignment for Class 7

Students will write a post that introduces their lesson to the world. The lesson should be embedded into their blog post. More on how to embed Google Docs and Google Forms into WordPress

They should also write a reflection about what they learned from the development process – that reflection could include: working with SHEG model, insights from peer feedback, and/or the workflow used in this course to produce the lesson (how it was assigned, use of Google tools, peer feedback before final posting).

Image Credit: Library of Congress

  • Title: School begins / Dalrymple.
  • Creator(s): Dalrymple, Louis, 1866-1905, artist
  • Date Created/Published: N.Y. : Published by Keppler & Schwarzmann, 1899 January 25.
  • Summary: Print shows Uncle Sam as a teacher, standing behind a desk in front of his new students who are labeled “Cuba, Porto Rico, Hawaii, [and] Philippines”; they do not look happy to be there. At the rear of the classroom are students holding books labeled “California, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, [and] Alaska”. At the far left, an African American boy cleans the windows, and in the background, a Native boy sits by himself, reading an upside-down book labeled “ABC”, an a Chinese boy stands just outside the door. A book on Uncle Sam’s desk is titled “U.S. First Lessons in Self-Government”.
  • Reproduction Number: LC-DIG-ppmsca-28668
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Class 5: Historical Thinking

PhrenologyPixOur class begins with a review of the Sam Wineburg reading and TEDEd flipped lesson Who is the historian in your classroom? That will also provide a chance to discuss the efficacy of flipping content.  What are the challenges and opportunities for that approach?

Today we begin our study of historical thinking skills based on the work of Sam Wineburg and the Stanford History Education Group (SHEG). We will focus on three key skills – Sourcing, Contextualizing and Corroborating. See historical thinking chart (pdf at SHEG).

We will practice our historical thinking skills using a shared Google Doc – Japanese Incarceration and a shared Google Form – Zulu Chief Photograph.

It will give us a chance to compare both formats for delivering a lesson. (Note: While we could have done either as a hard copy worksheet, this activity gives us a chance to work with a two Google tools.)

Assignment for Class 5

You will each design a historical thinking mini-lesson based on the two sample lessons we did today. Both demonstrate Beyond the Bubble assessment model. All mini lessons should constructed as either a Google Doc or Google Form. (Note: a source video can only inserted into a Google Form).

See completed student work here SHEG-16

Students should be prepared to “teach” a brief lesson. (E.g. Introduce their lesson as they might to their class).

Video tutorials: Using Google Docs | Using Google Forms
  More on Google tools in our edMethods Toolkit

  1. Title
  2. One or more historic documents. Could be text, image, video.
  3. Source information and URLs for all documents used.
  4. Introduction and background as needed.
  5. Questions.
  6. Instructional goal that indicates one (or more) of the historic skills to be studied – Sourcing, Contextualization, Corroborating.
  7. How you would expect a proficient student might answer the question

Need some historical content for your lesson?
Check out our edMethods Toolkit-Finding Documents

Image credit: Phrenology diagram Wikipedia
Source From People’s Cyclopedia of Universal Knowledge (1883)

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Class 4: Peer Review

First Women Jury ~ Los Angeles 1911
First Women Jury ~ Los Angeles 1911

Peer Review

Last week’s class introduced key elements of lesson design and assigned Lesson Study.  This week we are going to conduct two peer reviews of each lesson study, before it gets “turned in.” This models the student centered approach – with your peers sharing their higher-ordered review of your work – analyzing and evaluating it’s content. Following their feedback, you get to reflect on your work before turning it in.

We’ll manage the lesson study peer review  this way:

  1. You should bring in 3 copies of your 1st draft. (two to share and to one keep your notes on).
  2. You will be randomly put in the first peer review paring
  3. Meet and greet: exchange a quick 1 min intro to your lesson study – grade, subject, scope (one class lesson or a larger unit?)
  4. Exchange written drafts and study for 3 mins. Mark up your copy if you see typos or want to add suggestions. Develop 3 questions  you will ask for clarification.
  5. Student A questions B. Student B responds 3 mins
  6. Discussion / Brainstorming / B takes notes to captures modifications 3 mins
  7. Reverse roles with Student A’s work under review
  8. This should take us about 20 minutes to review each other’s work. You will then be assigned to another student to repeat the peer review process

After everyone has completed two reviews you will then have about 20-30 minutes to make revisions to your lesson study. (A good time to talk to the instructor as well).

When the peer review process is completed we will preview our next topic (and major component of the class) Historical Thinking.

Students will compare two source videos from this lesson “How to Read Documentary Films

Written Assignment for Class 5:  Submit lesson study as blog post

Students will turn in their revised Lesson Study assignment as a post on this blog by 10 PM Fri Sept 23rd. See finished student work here.

It should include:

  1. Your lesson study.
  2. A personal reflection on what they learned in developing their first lesson study and participating in the peer review process.
  3. Each post should also have a historic photograph (public domain with citation) that matches the theme or subject of their lesson study. You may want to view this video tutorial Using Advanced Google Search to find public domain content.
Reading / Designing assignment for Class 5 on historical thinking
  1. Watch this video: I’ve used the TEDEd flipped lesson feature to curate a existing YouTube and turn it into a lesson to support next week’s class on historical thinking: Who is the historian in your classroom? Another way to flip a class.
  2. Read short online article Thinking Like a Historian By Sam Wineburg

Image Credit: First woman jury,  Los Angeles  (November 1911)
The Library of Congress Call Number: LC-B2- 2354-15
Notes: Photo shows the first all-woman jury in California who acquitted the editor of the Watts News of printing indecent language, on Nov. 2, 1911.

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Class 3: The Lesson

Three key elements of student engagement

Class will lead off with a follow up discussion to our Visualizing Place assignment. Special attention will be paid to reflecting on the workflow of the assignment, video tutorials and possible uses in student placements.

This week we take our first look at instructional design. The class begins by addressing key elements of lesson design :

  1. Higher-order thinking
  2. Student choice and reflection
  3. Effective classroom strategies

This  portion of the class lesson includes three major elements:

  • Practical examples of Bloom’s taxonomy in the form of sample exercises and questions. They are used to anchor a conversation on Bloom in action.
  • How student choice can impact key lesson elements – content, process, product, evaluation.
  • Demonstrate a student-centered approach to a teacher presentation as a way to foster reflection (instead of listening to a straight lecture on the subject)

The lesson is driven by a Keynote presentation. week3-16-handouts 1.7MB pdf

We will use an audience response system to gather student input. The lesson includes multiple activities that illustrate the content. Student will be led through discussing their reactions to the activities to connect them to the content. This lesson will serve as a kick off to their first assignment to write and share a Lesson Study.

key lesson components

Written assignment for Class 4:

Lesson Study is due 9/19.

The goal of this assignment is two-fold. First, to offer supportive feedback on your lesson development through a peer review process. Second, to offer some “lenses to look through” that help you easily see the essentials of a lesson. This perspective should be useful when you later craft your edTPA commentary.

This is not some exercise for the benefit of your instructor. This should be a process that works for you. So feel free to modify to meet your particulars. Use a scale that works for you – focus on just a small segment of a larger unit, or look at the entire unit. Don’t like Bloom? Use another schema to discuss the kinds of thinking that your students will need to successfully complete the assignment

Assignment lesson-study-16 47kb pdf
Sample based on today’s class lesson-study-sample-16 51kb pdf