Author: Peter Pappas

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Literacy DBL Design Project

An A B C, for baby patriotsWorking as individuals or in 2 person teams, students will design a document-based lesson (DBL) question suitable for inclusion in our iBook (available at iTunes).

See Class  6 for recommendations for DBLs and Teaching with Documents. Your DBL will include:

  1. Introduction of the DBL with brief historic context as needed.
  2. Generative / essential question
  3. About 5 – 8 related documents (image, text, video, audio) that will assist the students in answering the generative question
  4. Clear statement of what students will be asked to do
  5. Close reading scaffolding question for each document to assist the student in examining the document

A good example of a DBL is Progress and Poverty in Industrial America  This is a pdf version of one of my iBooks. (note: you will not have full function of all the gallery and video widgets). It uses 11 documents, which is a bit more than I expect for your DBL.

The DBL Design Assignment will be accomplished in steps:

Step 1: Develop a proposal which will be submitted for peer review. You should be prepared to deliver a 2 min pitch to class. (not a written assignment to be turned in)
Due date:  10/12.

We’ll do a bit of “speed dating” of our ideas for the DBL Assignment. Students will form two lines and have 2 minutes to pitch their DBL design idea to each other and share some feedback. Then one line will shift and we repeated the pitch exchange. In all students will pitch their idea three times.

The goal of this phase is to gather feedback from peers regarding the following:

  1. You have an interesting generative / essential question worth answering.
  2. Your initial appraisal indicates there are suitable documents available.
  3. You have an idea for how students will be asked interpret your documents.

Step 2: Submit a preliminary idea for your DBL design project for Peter’s feedback by 10/19. It should be posted to a shared Google folder.

Here’s a short video on using shared Google folder

It can be in the form of a Google doc that addresses:

  1. Where will you use it?  Grade, course, etc
  2. An interesting generative / essential question worth answering.
  3. 3 -5 suitable documents (include links).
  4. A brief explanation of “what are the kids going to do?”

Note: This is not intended to be a fully developed lesson. Just an idea of where you intend to go.

Step 3: Prepare content for iBooks Author lab session on 11/23

Workflow? See this guide Getting Ready for iBooks Author 57KB pdf

Step 4: iBooks Author design session 11/23

Step 5: Peer review of draft iBook 11/30

Step 6: Write a reflection on your DBL design process and post to our blog (your final post). It will also be added to your iBook chapter – due 12/6.

Step 7: Final design session in Digital lab 12/7

Title: “An A B C, for baby patriots”
Creator: Ames, Mary Frances
Publisher: Dean & Son
Place of Publication: London (160a Fleet Street E.C.)
Publication Date: [1899]
Archive: University of Florida UF00086056:00001

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Class 5: Sharing Our Lessons

School Begins - 1899
School Begins – 1899

Students will present their historical thinking lesson to the class for feedback via large group discussion and using Google comment feature. 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. We are using the shared Google presentation below to collect and curate our lessons.

Assignment for Class 6

Goal: Publish a great historical thinking skills lesson that others can use. Students will post a finished version of their lesson as a blog post. (Due Oct 4) It should be in a form that could be easily used by another teacher.

The post should conclude with a reflection – which could discuss the SHEG lesson model,  the lesson design process, the challenges  opportunities of teaching historical thinking skills, etc.

All historic and lesson plan content should be included in the post or available via linked documents, pdfs, etc. (Specific layout concerns can be worked out as needed.) All historical content should be in the public domain and  must include active URL hyperlinks back to source archive.

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 4: 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).

Assignment for Class 5

You will each design a historical thinking mini-lesson based on the Beyond the Bubble assessment model.

We will use this assignment as a chance to create a shared Google presentation. I’ve prepared some brief Google Presentation video tutorials. You can find them at this YouTube playlist / Working with Google Slides.

Here’s the Fall ’14 project that you can look at (but not edit). Can you do better?

Note: each of you will be contributing to the same Google Slides presentation. I’ve listed your names in alphabetical order in the presentation. You will turn that name placeholder slide into your mini-lesson title slide. You will insert additional slides in your section of the presentation as needed.

All mini lessons should include

  1. Title slide for your mini-lesson. Make it catchy!
  2. Your name as author of the mini-lesson on your lesson title (your lesson will take multiple slides in the presentation – have your name in small font at bottom of each slide)
  3. Target students – by grade level
  4. Indication of one (or more) of the historic skills to be studied – Sourcing, Contextualization, Corroborating
  5. One or more historic documents. Text, image and videos can be inserted into the slide. Longer documents can be linked to via URL or saved in Google drive with link to it.
  6. Source URLs for all documents used
  7. Essential question
  8. Scaffolding questions for students to use with documents
  9. Brief description of how the documents and scaffolding questions should reinforce the targeted historic skill(s)

I’ve collected some great websites that include many of the major archives from around the world.

Best Sites for Primary Documents in World History

Best Sites for Primary Documents in US History

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

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Class 3: 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 I.  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). You should also write a personal reflection on what they learned in developing their first lesson study and participating in the peer review process.

edTPA Video Recording tutorial / WordPress Training

We have a 1 hour tutorial scheduled in the Clark Library Digital Lab from approximately 5;15-6:15. We will conclude with WordPress tutorial time.

Written Assignment for Class 4:  Submit lesson study as blog post

Students will turn in their revised Lesson Study assignment as a post on this blog by 10 PM Sept 19th. It should include their lesson study as well as personal reflection. Each post should also have a historic photograph (public domain with citation) that matches the theme or subject of their lesson study. Student Lesson study posts

I’ve prepared some brief WordPress video tutorials. You can find them at this YouTube playlist / WordPress tutorials for using our class blog 

I made these tutorials were with Apple QuickTime – you can use a free Chrome Plug in called SnagIt.

Reading Assignment for class 4 on historical thinking

  1. 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. Also do one online reading 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.