Study Skills and Student Organizations

It is imperative that our students not only learn the content, but also the systems that will assist them in internalizing the material.  These systems eventually become habits that will often benefit them in their long term academic careers as much, or even more, than the content learned in class.  Please feel free to add more this list and create a discussion!

  • Calendars
  • Flashcards
  • Cornell Notes
  • Golden Circle
  • Interactive Journal
  • Student Cohort Study Groups
  • Google Docs
  • Google Classroom
  • Drop Box
  • Edmoto

Recommended Graphic Organizers

In order to help in conducting effective lessons, you may want to incorporate graphic organizers that will help students chunk and organize various levels of learning.

  • OPTIC:

-Overview: Brief overview of the content of visual.  What is the subject?  What strikes you as interesting, odd, etc?  What is happening?

-Part: Look at each part of the image and note details that seem important.  Who are the figures?  What is the setting and time period?  What symbols are present?

-Title:  How does the title relate to what is portrayed?

-Interrelationships:  How are the different elements related?  How are the parts related both to one another and to the painting/picture as a whole?

-Conclusion:  Form a conclusion about the meaning /theme of the piece.  What is the main idea that the image offers?

  • SOAPStonE: Speaker, Occasion, Audience, Purpose, Subject, Tone, Evidence
  • Frayer Model Chart
  • Four Square Organizer
  • PERSIAN
  • GRAPES
  • Snapshops of History

Online Resources (Educational Organizations)

These are some of the more exciting and relevant resources that can often be included almost immediately in your classes.  I would love to assist in how to best facilitate student inquiry and engagement through the use of these or other organizations.

Resources (Teaching Materials)

I am often asked about additional books and/or materials that could be used by students and which facilitate the inquiry driven classroom.  Here are some that I have used and which are great sources to foster a document based lesson approach to History and Social Studies.

  • Ordinary Americans: U.S. History Through the Eyes of Everyday People by Linda R. Monk
  • Don’t Know Much About History, Anniversary Edition: Everything You Need to Know About American History but Never Learned by Kenneth Davis
  • Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong by James W. Loewen
  • A Young People’s History of the United States-Howard Zinn, Student Version
  • Guns, Germs, and Steel by Dr. Jerod Diamond
  • SpringBoard
  • Universal Design for Learning

Essential Readings For All Teachers, Especially History and Social Studies Teachers

The sign of a great teacher is one that is a continuous learner.  Here are some wonderful books that I highly recommend in order to continually sharpen your saw and improve your craft as a History and Social Studies teacher.

  • Historical Thinking and Other Unnatural Acts (Charting the Future of Teaching the Past (Critical Perspectives On The Past) by Sam Wineburg
  • Be Excellent at Anything: The Four Keys To Transforming the Way We Work and Live by Tony Schwartz
  • The Power of Full Engagement: Managing Energy, Not Time, Is the Key to High Performance and Personal Renewal by Tony Schwartz
  • Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Dr. Carol Dweck
  • Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
  • Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel H. Pink
  • The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business by Charles Duhigg
  • Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard by Chip and Dan Heath
  • Reading, Thinking, and Writing About History: Teaching Argument Writing to Diverse Learners in the Common Core Classroom Grades 6-12
  • Essential Questions: Opening Doors to Student Understanding by Jay McTighe
  • Reading Like a Historian: Teaching Literacy in Middle and High School History Classrooms by Sam Wineburg

Online Resources to Improve Student Voice and Engagement

It is always important to have methods of including student voice and discussion.  I recommend these as options that make use of technology.  These are even accessible through handheld devices.

Additional Online Resources

Multi-Step Instructional Strategies

  • Essay Writing Process: DBQ, Compare/Contrast, Continuity and Change Over Time, Expository, Argumentative Writing
  • 4 Worlds
  • Structured Academic Controversy
  • Critical Research
  • Funds of Knowledge (Using students’ family histories and knowledge base to increase lesson rigor and cognitive engagement)
  • SEL (Social Emotional Learning)
  • Linked Learning
  • Deliberation
  • Tiered Vocabulary
  • Text Complexity
  • Text-dependent questioning
  • Student-driven questioning
  • Sourcing
  • Contextualization
  • Corroboration
  • Tiered Vocabulary
  • Text Complexity
  • Text-dependent questioning
  • Student-driven questioning
  • Sourcing
  • Contextualization
  • Corroboration
  • Philosophical Chairs
  • Literature Circles

Recommended Activities/Structures

  • Student Stations
  • Student Centers
  • Mind mapping
  • Numbered Heads
  • Opinion Continuum
  • Quickwrite
  • Read to Get the Gist
  • Read for Significance
  • Annotate the text
  • Like Me
  • Table Talk
  • Choral Reading
  • Deconstructing Task Protocol
  • Card Sort
  • Co-Construct Chart
  • Mix-Freeze Pair
  • Co-Constructed Chart
  • On the Surface and Under the Surface Questions
  • Choral reading
  • Tableau: Frozen seen created by participants in depict a scene
  • Think aloud
  • Kagan: Round Robin, Hand Up Stand Up, Elbow Partner, Face Partners, etc.
  • Reciprocal Teaching
  • Whole Group
  • Four Corners
  • Station Presentations
  • Think Pair Share
  • Each One Teach One
  • Jigsaw
  • Stir the Classroom
  • Dance Line
  • Opinion Continuum