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Google Earth with Historical Layers

Class Websites

In case you were ever curious, here are organizations I found that would be good for involvement as a potential Sec. Ed. Social Science Teacher.

NSEA - The Nebraska State Education Association is an organization for teachers of all disciplines at the K-12 level. It is a union and works to ensure benefits for teachers like retirement and insurance coverage. The association is not just for teachers either but also for retired teachers, those in support roles, and students. In fact, the NSEA has a student branch called Student Education Association of Nebraska (SEAN) which is specifically for college students who are aspiring to become teachers after graduation. Members of SEAN get the benefits of being in a campus organization that is catered to their future career. The yearly dues for SEAN are $28, and the benefits include liability insurance while student teaching as well as some other benefits including establishing a retirement plan, car rental and credit card rate reductions, as well as others. Part of membership includes a free one-year subscription to the NSEA’s Instructor Magazine.

AHA - The American Historical Association is a national association specifically for teachers in the field of history regardless of education level. The association provides books and resources for educators and also has a lot of different literature as part of their membership. For example, the AHA runs a blog called the AHA Today and offers a publication called Perspectives on History, which looks at the state of history education throughout the country and offers insights into other teachers’ experiences. The AHA also holds a national conference every year with the next one being in New Orleans. For members, the price to register for the conference is $162 while for student members the price is $75. Annual membership dues for students is also $40. The AHA looks like a good tool because it provides different perspectives to the field of history teaching while still remaining focused on that one specific field - history.

NSSA - The National Social Science Association is a large organization that includes all fields in social science education from history to geography to psychology and on and on. The organization holds a national social science conference in the spring in Las Vegas, Nevada that focuses on integrating technology into teaching of social science courses. Membership in the NSSA is $50 for members and $25 for students. The association provides articles published by its membership to other members and also gives members of the NSSA a chance to review and edit articles made by fellow members. The association also publishes two free online journals - one for technology and one for social science. They also publish their proceedings at the national conference online. The main benefit of this organization is to be able to share ideas with fellow social science teachers and view each other’s research.

Links:

Nebraska State Education Association

Student Education Association of Nebraska

American Historical Association

National Social Science Association

The page displayed is far from complete, but that’s okay because the goal of the page would be to have students work on a short wiki that could be used as a reference for future classes. It also would be very helpful for students who would want to do some studying and maybe forgot who a person was or some battle or some place. It would be a great tool to use to have students collaborate together and for them to see the fruits of their own labor when they can use the wiki to aid in their studying.

I learned that the Digital Divide is not about who has access to computers, like it used to be. The Digital Divide is now not only a concern over who has internet access, but also which schools in which communities are able to implement new types of online technology. The Digital Divide, I learned, is more of a digital literacy divide. Those in the more “privileged” classrooms will be able to understand how to use the new computer world of social media and Web 2.0 to organize information and or find what they are looking for while those who are less privileged will be lost in an ocean of information that is constantly changing.

Learning styles are a good idea, and they come from relatively sound anecdotal evidence, but they warrant a sign that says “approach with caution.”

First, we need to understand why I’m not exactly on the sidelines cheerleading for the idea of “learning styles.” If we were to accept the idea that students learn best only through certain “learning styles” then we would give our students much less credit than they deserve. Lafferty and Burley talk about how, if we accepting learning styles, it would be nearly impossible for an auditory student to learn the shapes of the countries of Africa because that is a visual concept. And as the two authors state, it would be foolish to try to teach this concept in any other way but visual. Yet, nevertheless, it is very possible for students to understand the shapes of countries even if they are not “visual learners.”

In addition, it is neither wise nor practical for teachers to try to change their teaching styles to meet all the learning styles. Again, we go back to our first example. Imagine having to teach the shapes of countries in Africa in an auditory or kinesthetic way. Or what if we tried to explain an idea like poverty by only lecturing on what it was? Wouldn’t it be much more impactful for students of all learning types to visit a homeless shelter and experience it for themselves? The same also applies to music. You can try to read about crescendos and decrescendos and forte and piano, but only once someone hears these things can that actually understand what they are. Like Daniel Willingham says, people do have different strengths and weaknesses, but that doesn’t mean that they learn only through the prism of a learning style.

That much being said, the idea of “learning styles” is a good reminder to teachers, like Willingham says, that people do learn things differently. Perhaps we aren’t exactly “logical” thinkers or “naturalistic” thinkers, but the idea of learning styles challenges us as teachers to think outside of the box. Willingham acknowledges that we should not treat all students the same, and the idea of “learning styles” first emerged because there was a sentiment that students were being put in a cookie-cutter, one-size-fits-all classroom. This debate should remind us as teachers that instead of worrying about what specific category a student falls in as a learning style, we should be focusing on how to help a student understand what we’re trying to teach. Maybe it requires that extra visual analogy, maybe it requires going to the National Archives and seeing the real, actual Declaration of Independence, and maybe it means listening to a recording of Martin Luther King’s “I have a Dream” speech. Either way, we as teachers need to be flexible in our styles and sensitive to the needs of our students.

Sources

Hugh Lafferty and Dr. Keith Burley - Sheffield Hallam University

Daniel Willingham - University of Virginia

With all of this new talk of a “flipped classroom,” it’s pretty natural for people to ask, “What the heck is a flipped classroom and why would someone use it?”

The idea of the flipped classroom is pretty simple. In a traditional classroom, you have lecture during class and homework outside of class. In a flipped classroom, you have a video of your lecture to be watched outside of class with homework, lab, or applications done in class.

Sounds simple enough, but why would we want to do this?

Proponents of the “flipped classroom” like to use the terminology that they are changing the teaching role from that of a “sage on the stage” to one that is a “guide on the side.” They argue that spending more classroom time actually focusing on applications or homework can better help students grasp the concepts and makes learning become something the students must actively pursue. Also, since students have the ability to pause, fast forward, or rewind lecture, they can learn at their own pace.

Aside from the philosophical advantages, the “flipped classroom” also arguably provides a resource for those students who miss class due to illness or other circumstance and won’t have to fall behind because a video of the lecture and content will be readily available for the students to catch up.

Opponents argue that lecture is still a poor method of learning regardless of what mode it’s in. There’s also the argument that just because lecture is moved outside of the classroom and homework is moved in, the same results can still be achieved with no significant improvement in a student’s overall learning experience.

Another argument is that many students do not have internet access at home and are inherently at a disadvantage for this type of classroom. 

So, if I wanted to do this “Flipped Classroom” thing, what would it look like?

As a social science teacher, one idea that came up is to have posted videos on the web about specific topics. (Perhaps the French Revolution). When it comes time for class, I could start off with a very short writing assignment that just helps the students remember what they watched the night before (or fifteen minutes before class, knowing how high school students are :)). We can then go into a sort of “rehash” over where we’re at and what the background is. (For example, it’s some time in the 1800’s, the Bastille has just been stormed, King Louis is still on the throne, but the revolutionaries are gaining ground.) We could then go into a discussion over why the situation in France is the way it is and what the students predict will happen. We can also look over some primary resources from the time and have some discussion on the experience of certain members of society during this historical period.

How did I find out about this stuff?

Knewton - a graph describing the “Flipped Classroom,” a pro-flipped classroom site

Ramsay Mussalam - blogger for edutopia.org and neutral in the debate

Chris Faulkner - blogger for Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning and neutral in debate

Greg Kulowiec - History Teacher attempting to implement the Flipped Classroom