Providing Useful Feedback in the Classroom

Providing quality feedback, and setting aside time for students to read it, reflect on it, and revise with it pushes back against the desire to go fast instead of focusing on mastery. Doing this frequently and consistently also helps build a positive classroom culture; Students can tell the difference between a classroom where feedback is being used as a justification for the grade they received and a classroom where feedback is the pathway to both learning and the grades that reflect that learning.

AP World: Teaching Imperialism in Unit 6

Unit 6 is one of my favorite units to teach in AP World, and is arguably one of the most important for understanding contemporary global issues. The unit's content demands thinking about how we teach imperialism as much as what we are teaching. Student engagement is important, but also building historical empathy and training students to think critically about sensitive issues.

ChatGPT in AP World History

I finally tested out ChatGPT with my AP World History classes. Seeing the changes that technology brings to education is both scary and exciting; particularly as that change seems to be growing exponentially. Also includes are some great resources I have found on using AI in the classroom.

AP World History: Industrialization Spreads Lesson

For better or worse, I have grouped together some of the content from topics 5.4 and 5.6 in order to cover Industrialization's spread outside of Europe. The goals of this lesson are to establish that industrialization, modernization, and westernization are not synonyms, understanding change requires recognizing unique cultural contexts, and that within colonial encounters and imperial relationships change flows both ways affecting everyone involved.

National History Day & the C3 Framework

The alignment between NHD and C3 creates unique opportunities when a curriculum actively leverages both. Students need to see how skills are interconnected and rely on each other when applied to a "real world" task. Regardless of whether a school uses traditional or standards-based grading, NHD and C3 are powerful tools for doing inquiry based learning and teaching historical thinking skills.

C3 Proficiency Scales: Round 2

Not all standards are equal. Some standards are foundational, some are extensions, some are inextricably linked when they come to life beyond the curriculum documents. This is where teachers and content experts need to add their experience and expertise to the discussion. Engaging with curriculum makes teachers better at their craft and offers significant insight that curriculum experts alone may miss.

Standards-Based Grading Assessment Design

How can we make frequent and spiraled assessments in a standards-based grading system work while retaining the joy of teaching and learning? It's not easy, but can be accomplished if we redefine what assessment looks like. Here are a few things I have learned that helped me make standards-based grading work with in a social studies classroom.