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Just because our topic is history doesn't mean our lessons have to be

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Just because our topic is history doesn't mean our lessons have to be

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ClassTools.net is a good tool for high school. One of the resources on the site is Fakebook, a made up version of Facebook that allows students to change the profile picture, name, info and post as the character they've developed. "Very quickly you can take this fake Facebook page and turn it into something that seems as if it was created by a historic figure," Langenhorst said. It requires research to prepare a page like that and has the added benefit of allowing different students acting as historical characters to post on one another's walls. "It's a great way for kids to show they understand different interactions that may have happened in history," Langenhorst said.

In a space race, students are randomly assigned a color, and as they answer the questions in the quiz, rockets in those colors advance. Kids are working as a team, but they don't know who else is on their team. "It is such an easy, phenomenal way to get kids excited about their learning," Langenhorst said. "I've got 12th graders who are still excited about space race." Student responses with Socrative can go directly into a gradebook, or just offer some insight into whether students are picking up on the key ideas.

Educreations is another presentation tool that can aid in flipping the classroom or letting kids explain their thinking. "Educreations allows students to record their voice, draw and import pictures," Langenhorst said. She often uses this tool to spot-check understanding. The free version limits how many Educreations can be made on one account, but teachers in Rock Valley just change old ones. They don't pay for the premium version and still get a lot of use out of what's accessible free of charge.

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Favorite Tech Tools For Social Studies Classes

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ClassTools.net is a good tool for high school. One of the resources on the site is Fakebook, a made up version of Facebook that allows students to change the profile picture, name, info and post as the character they've developed.

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Google Educators Groups (GEGs) bring local educators together, in person and online, to provide a forum to share, collaborate, and support each other in using technology in impactful ways with students.

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Communities | Teacher Center | Google for Education

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Google Educators Groups (GEGs) bring local educators together, in person and online, to provide a forum to share, collaborate, and support each other in using technology in impactful ways with students.

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By Jessica Parnell, April 21, 2017

True confession time: I love history. I love history so much that I have a degree in it! The majority of the books in my personal library are historical studies, biographies, or historical fiction. I drool at historical sites and always work at least two into our vacations. And, I took over 50 hours of history classes in college and loved every minute (except the US Civil War, yuck!). So, when I started homeschooling, I was sure my history love would have passed directly to my children via genetics, exposure when they were young, and a little luck. No dice. Out of my three children, only one loves all things historical. My other two are science and math lovers and don't get excited or passionate about studying the past nearly as much as they are when I say the words "experiment" or "equation." That's why I developed my hands-on history approach, to unlock the world of the past for my history lovers and leavers alike. If you're wondering how to make history fun for your homeschoolers, look no further. This proven method will have your students begging to study the past in no time!

5 Steps to Making History Fun

Step 1: Take a readers approach. We start each history or social studies unit with our noses in a few good books. Choose fiction and non-fiction alike based on what you're studying. Giving your students a familiarity with what you'll be studying is a great way to get them on board and excited about learning more. I always start off with fiction because it draws my learners into the topic without them knowing it (mom win!). I like to move on to biographies and autobiographies once we are well into the unit to give a human element and experiential understanding. I like to end with reflective essays, poems, etc. written during the period or just after. This encourages critical thinking and leaves the door wide open to literature lessons based off of our historical studies, a variable two for one! This is my go-to list for historical fiction based upon the time period. I could spend hours just finding books for my kiddos to dive into!

Step 2: Focus on broad concepts and themes, not dates and time periods. As a child, I thought I hated history when I was in elementary school because all we seemed to study were events and dates. It wasn't until I was in middle school that I discovered my love of history at the hands of, you guessed it, a gifted teacher. My 6 th-grade history teacher focused on the people and themes of each era we studied, making the topics and people easier for me to understand (and memorize!) and more interesting. If we want our children to love history and to make history fun, we should teach it in a way that will engage their minds and their hearts. We do this by making it about people, about thoughts and ideas, about choices and consequences, not about dates and events! When I teach history, I focus mainly on the concepts and themes within the period and less on the small facts and minutia. What's more important, that your students understand the causes and outcomes of WWI, or memorize every battle, general, and important event? By the time your learners get into the middle and high school, they will be able to identify the major themes for you if you've taught in this manner. This level of critical thinking will serve your children throughout their entire educational career.

Step 3: Make history active. At the start of each unit I remind my children of who we are, we are history explorers, navigators, and conquerors. Our goal is to explore how we, humans, behaved during the period we're studying. Why? Because who doesn't want to be an explorer? And, history is about human beings; our choices and feelings, our food and dress, our literature and hobbies. Study all aspect of human studies when you're doing a history unit and your lessons will be so much fun! Insert cooking, art, poetry, dancing, biographical studies, maps, and more to keep your students busy and engaged. And DO what you are studying! If you're analyzing poetry written by the Greeks, try your hand at writing poetry in that style. Are you studying the Renaissance? Be sure to visit an art gallery and then create paintings or sculptures inspired by your favorite artists. Make food from each region and time period you tackle. Dress up and put on dramas based on the historical fiction or biographies you're reading. History comes alive when you live it!

Step 4: Ditch the curriculum. You heard me right, throw that curriculum right out of the window. If you want to make history fun, you most likely won't be using a textbook! Find a history overview book as your guide for each unit and then focus on unit studies, allowing your students to dive into the topics that interest them instead of being bored by a textbook. I love Story of the World by Susan Wise Bauer for younger students. Older students can choose a guiding reader from the library (just remember to discuss bias) or from the "Spines and Overviews" section of this great list. Start with the creation and move forward studying each time period, maps, and civilization with all your children at once using your overview book as a guide and then exploring the topics that interest each student in unit studies. You won't need the textbook if you're using your library card, the internet, and your local area. Find museums, historical sites, and historians near you that can shed light on topics. Trust me when I say you'll be so thankful not to have a textbook or curriculum to tie you down when you're exploring history!

Step 5: Don't try to cover it all, but explore what matters to you. Studies show that we only remember the parts and pieces of history that interest us. So, feel free to focus on what interests you and your students! If you've adopted step 4 and ditched the curriculum, it will be easier for you to let go of the need to cover everything in a unit. This way you'll be exposing your students to the important concepts, events, and people through the guiding reader and allowing them to chart their own history course through unit studies. This will give them deep pockets of knowledge, yes, but who says that should be a bad thing! When your students reach high school, you may choose to use a curriculum but, even then, resist the urge to focus on dates and events and get through the entire book. Instead, choose to allow your student to read through each chapter and then pick a focus that interests them to explore. They'll learn to love history because it will be about what matters to them and you'll be thankful for the easy-going attitude you've adopted.

History is a word that should bring a smile to everyone's face. As a history teacher and lover, I truly believe it is possible for all our students to love history and want to dive into each unit with joy and excitement. Follow these steps to create lifelong history lovers and explorers in your home!

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By Jessica Parnell, April 21, 2017 True confession time: I love history. I love history so much that I have a degree in it! The majority of the books in my personal library are historical studies, biographies, or historical fiction. I drool at historical sites and always work at least two into our vacations.

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Some lesson plans to check out and refine

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Some lesson plans to check out and refine

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The Opper Project, Using Editorial Cartoons in the Classroom: These standards-based, teacher-created, primary source lessons are based on editorial cartoons covering more than a century of American history.

Teaching History with Historic Clothing Artifacts: The History Teaching Institute in conjunction with The Ohio State University Historic Costume & Textiles Collection provides lesson plans to teach history using historical clothing artifacts.

Cold Cases: Lessons in Historical Skills and Methods: These standards-based, teacher-created, primary source lessons feature primary source materials from the Byrd Polar Research Center archives at Ohio State-all organized around the theme of polar exploration.

United States History Lesson Plans: Here you will find a variety of lesson plans for elementary, middle, and high school grades. Most of these use primary sources, and all were prepared by teachers.

The Great War in Global Context includes teacher created lesson plans, bibliography, and links to online resources that address the military, diplomatic, political, and cultural aspects of World War I.

World War II Lesson Plans were created by participants at a summer institute for educators (Ohio Chautauqua).

The Scientific Revolution: These lesson plans examine science, society, and culture from the 16th to the 18th centuries.

Inventors and Innovators Lesson Plans were created by educators at a summer institute (Ohio Chautauqua).

European History, 1450 - Present: These lesson plans include several primary-source based lessons.

Central Asia in World History: These are lesson plans in World History, World History AP, Geography, Family and Consumer Science, English, Journalism, Media Studies, and Global Studies for teaching Central Asia in World History.

Back to History: American History Lesson Plans created by educators

Back to History: American History Primary Source Activities created by educators

Lesson Plans Based on Current Events: These lesson plans are related to content from the "Origins: Current Events in Historical Perspective" web site.

The purpose of this lesson plan is to place a human face on the Holocaust, by focusing on survivor's testimony, letters and journals from survivors and those who were killed, and poetry.

This lesson plan focuses on the French Revolution and how it challenged political, social and cultural norms in European society.

This lesson plan addresses the effect the Industrial Revolution had on people and industry.

These lesson plans focus on American history and integrate a variety of primary sources.

The Slavic Center at Ohio State University also has many K12 teacher resources, including some online teaching modules by some of our History Department faculty and graduate students. Check out their website here.

Direct links to the online teaching modules:

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The Opper Project, Using Editorial Cartoons in the Classroom: These standards-based, teacher-created, primary source lessons are based on editorial cartoons covering more than a century of American history. Teaching History with Historic Clothing Artifacts: The History Teaching Institute in conjunction with The Ohio State University Historic Costume & Textiles Collection provides lesson plans to teach history using historical clothing artifacts.

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Lesson plans based on topics and classes

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Lesson plans based on topics and classes

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Hundreds of U.S. history lesson plans and resources for K-12 teachers.

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Fun ways to incorporate technology into the lesson

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Fun ways to incorporate technology into the lesson

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How Publishers and Providers Can Use Technology to Develop High-Quality History Lessons

We all know that history hasn't always been a popular subject with students. Many students were put off by dry textbooks and boring lectures. But today's publishers and providers are able to use technology to help students truly engage with history lessons. From virtual reality field trips to interactive lessons, publishers have many options. There are countless ways that technology can be used to create an engaging and effective history curriculum.

Primary Sources

Publishers can incorporate digitized original documents and artifacts from a particular time period. Therefore, students get a firsthand look at what life was like during that time. Instead of reading tedious retellings, they can read diaries and newspaper stories from the relevant time period. Thus, students can analyze and examine important documents themselves.

One tool that can be particularly useful for this is the Internet Archive , which is a digital library of Internet sites and other cultural artifacts in digital form. History lessons can easily be designed around this vast collection of primary sources. So providers can include newspapers, photographs, and even audio recordings of historical figures in their curriculum design.

Virtual Reality Field Trips

One exciting way to use technology in history lessons is through virtual reality, or VR, experiences. With VR-based lessons and activities, publishers can help teachers take their students on virtual field trips to historic sites and landmarks. Consequently, students will get the opportunity to explore and learn about these places in a whole new way. For example, students can visit ancient civilizations like Egypt or Greece. They can also visit important landmarks like the White House or the Great Wall of China. So providers can give them a firsthand look at these iconic structures.

In addition to virtual field trips, teachers can also use technology to create interactive lessons that help students learn about different historical events and figures. For example, they can use interactive maps to show the spread of civilizations over time.

Digital Projects

Using technology in history lessons shouldn't be limited to helping students learn new information. Students can synthesize the information they've learned through many different kinds of digital projects. For instance, students can generate interactive timelines covering material that they need and/or want to learn. Interactive timelines allow students to create graphic representations of events, inputting the information that's most important to them. Another option would be for publishers to allow students to create mock social media pages or blog posts from historical figures. Students could even create status updates that reflect how that figure might think about the goings-on of their times (or of ours!).

If providers would like to extend the projects, they could have students make their own historical documentaries. History lessons can come alive as students gather research, text, narration, images, videos, and audio pieces to tell stories that are important to them. Students are then active participants in their own learning.

Conclusion

Technology has revolutionized the way we approach education. It has made it possible for publishers and providers to bring history lessons to life in the classroom. From virtual reality field trips to interactive lessons, there are countless ways that technology can be used to create engaging and effective history lessons.

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Using Technology to Teach a History Lesson

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It's possible to liven up a history lesson through technology.

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More good resources to check out for cool ideas.

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More good resources to check out for cool ideas.

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Teachinghistory.org is designed to help K-12 history teachers access resources and materials to improve U.S. history education in the classroom. With funding from the U.S. Department of Education, the Center for History and New Media (CHNM) has created Teachinghistory.org with the goal of making history content, teaching strategies, resources, and research accessible.

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Asking students to examine their own possessions from the perspective of a historian in the future helps them sharpen their analytical skills.

Social studies students regularly consider the past through its written and material culture, whether that means diving into daily life in colonial America through letters or examining ancient coins to better understand the spread of the Roman Empire.

Students can learn a lot about the work of historians by applying this approach to items from their own daily lives. I've found that if I remind my students that in the future, our lives and culture will be reconstructed in a similar fashion, they're intrigued, and if I challenge them to imagine what a student 100 or 200 years from now might infer when examining a contemporary artifact, they're keen to get to work.

It might seem like an unorthodox approach, but again and again, my students have analyzed their own artifacts within this historical framework and have been pushed to think in new ways, both creatively and conceptually. This activity fits into a variety of curricula, as it gets students to practice evaluating artifacts so that they can make hypotheses about a society from its material culture and weigh how different interpretations of historical objects can shape our understanding of the past.

Step 1: Explain What Artifacts Are

"An artifact," according to National Geographic, "is an object made by a human being. Artifacts include art, diaries, tools, and clothing made by people of any time and place."

When you introduce this activity to your students, emphasize to them how many objects fall under the umbrella of "artifact." Musical instruments, written material, kitchenware, school supplies, jewelry, and athletic apparel are all artifacts.

Students can benefit from looking at examples that underscore how historians can draw important conclusions from virtually any example of material culture. Point students to artifacts in museums, such as those on display in the National Museum of African American History and Culture. Ancient Greek pottery and Egyptian sarcophagi are artifacts, but so are the objects housed at the National Videogame Museum, the Las Vegas Neon Museum, and the International Banana Museum, which boasts "25,000 banana-related items and pictures."

Step 2: Share How to Analyze Artifacts

Once students are comfortable with the definition, review how historians and archaeologists analyze artifacts.

Who used it? List reasons you think so.

What was it used for? List reasons you think so.

What does this tell you about the people who made and used it?

What does it tell you about technology at the time it was made?

The National Archives encourages students to first decide what an artifact is made of before asking a series of questions that include the following:

Ask students to choose an artifact from their personal life. They can bring it to school or submit an image if you are teaching remotely.

What is its significance?

How does it exemplify the culture of 2021?

What does it suggest about society in the early 21st century?

What does it say about the technology of 2021?

The next part is the hardest and takes some imagination. Ask students to pretend they are a researcher, archaeologist, or student in the future conducting a detailed analysis of the artifact in question, and have them answer the following questions about the artifact:

Assign a writing response in which students must make evidence-based conclusions.

Ask students to peer-edit another student's conclusions, paying close attention to the way claims are supported.

Evaluate how differing interpretations of the artifact could shape the way history is made.

Consider what the artifact might say about belief systems, commerce, technology, or social organizations.

This exercise demands that students make several cognitive leaps. First, they must consider what life might look like many years from now. Second, they have to analyze their own artifact as a person living in the future they envisioned. What would that person think of the world in which we live? Tie this to the curriculum in the following ways:

Step 4: Analyze Artifacts Together in Class

Once students have gathered and analyzed their own artifacts, I ask them to share the artifacts with the class (physically if we are in a classroom or via an image uploaded to the discussion board if I'm teaching remotely) and task them with analyzing another student's artifact in the same way they analyzed their own.

As I review the images and comments in real time, I call on students to further explain what their own artifact says about society or to elaborate on their analysis of someone else's artifact. When I wasn't teaching remotely, I also took my class on a walk around the school and had them analyze everyday objects, such as posters in the hallways, signs for upcoming school events, trophies, murals, and classroom resources, with the eye of an archaeologist seeing them for the first time.

A few of the everyday objects my students have identified as their artifacts were a family photo album, a school-issued iPad, and a Christmas tree, which led their classmates to make inferences not only about the student to whom the artifact belonged but about the larger society and culture. These discussions ranged from the technological proficiency and socioeconomics of a school capable of providing one-to-one devices to what a Christmas tree might tell us about religious or secular customs.

In a virtual setting, analysis of artifacts can serve as an opening or closing activity (for the latter, use it as an exit card or a final discussion post). To abbreviate the exercise, ask students to answer one or two prompts about a contemporary artifact and make inferences about their own culture from a different point of view.

The activity can even tie into current events. We have posters at school asking students to "wear a mask." Share something like this with the kids. If a researcher encountered this artifact in a museum years from now, what would they think?

When working with artifacts, consider incorporating David Macaulay's Motel of the Mysteries, a humorous children's book about an archaeologist in the future who discovers an American motel room from 1985 and tries to understand its artifacts (he assumes that the TV, for instance, is an altar).

To encourage high-level work and accountability, use a rubric with clear objectives. For example, you might ask for analysis that includes making an inference regarding technology. Do your own analysis and show the class, or share exemplar work so that students know what is being asked of them. The templates offered by the National Archives and the Library of Congress also help students stay on track. To discourage students from giving a superficial analysis, provide them with specific questions to answer or learning objectives to meet.

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How to Engage Students in Historical Thinking Using Everyday Objects

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Asking students to examine their own possessions from the perspective of a historian in the future helps them sharpens their analytical skills.

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Lots of great ideas and tools posted here pretty often!

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Lots of great ideas and tools posted here pretty often!

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Tweets by teachinghistory

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A place to get advice and support from fellow teachers

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A place to get advice and support from fellow teachers

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Yesterday, we had our usual morning meeting, and the principal said, “I’m just going to be direct. A lot of you have expressed that you don’t feel supported in the way that we handle bad behaviors from students. However, just because you aren’t informed of the consequence doesn’t mean there aren’t a…