Teacher Resources to Feed Your Continuous Learning

Hi, I'm back! I had a great three weeks in the field. I learned a lot from my mentor and I got the opportunity to teach many lessons. I am very excited to go back in three weeks. Tonight I am back sharing some cool resources that my peers shared from their wise teachers and my own. I got the chance to go through these really cool tools and pick out my favorite things, some things that I might use in my classroom. 

I like, I wish, I wonder

Gallery Walk example found on bie.org

 On BIE.com, many educators are talking about Project Based Learning (PBL) and how we can engage students to take pride in their own learning. Something that I really enjoyed was how educator John Larmer wrote about doing a gallery walk for his students. In some of my classes, we have done gallery walks for our projects. Most of the time we got small notes or verbal feedback about our work that might have helped us currently in that moment. This educator talked about putting all of these comments and ideas on a board for all of his students to see. In Dan Ryder's technology integration class, we discussed what we liked, wished, and wondered about our imaginary students. I think this connects, because we are talking about what we value about each other's work and how we might help them improve. That way, we can reflect and look back to see what we need to do. Afterwards, the students can take time to decide on a plan of action to make their product better. I really liked this because it is reflective, allows the students to receive compliments and to improve. The sticky notes can be placed near the product or done digitally. 

Let me share what BIE is all about, other than super cool content to help support teachers. The Buck Institute for Education (BIE) provides professional development opportunities to educators that help engage and motivate students in their learning. If you get a chance to go on their website, you'll see that they are very enthusiastic about Project Based Learning (PBL), which rewards students a sense of purpose in their work, prepares students for the outside world, and builds on positive student-teacher relationships. BIE offers online webinars and services, as well as blogs and different tools to support curriculum. 

First let me say that all of my practicum peers had awesome things to share from their awesome teachers. I really just focused on areas that would best benefit me as a future social studies teacher. The second really awesome site I explored is the DBQ project, targeted for social studies teachers. Many students sigh when they hear "DBQ", but this website has DBQ's broken down into six steps, where students can analyze what is being asked. Students can also dig deeper to pick out key evidence and details, which will end in a essay. While reading this, I thought of so many ways to hook students in to being detectives while analyzing various primary sources. I really liked how this was laid out in a way that students can understand how to apply their evidence and reasoning to answer the questions. 

This website also has mini-DBQ's that you can order that has lists of questions to practice from. This will help your students prepare for the real DBQ's. The booklets include various units of study within a topic that are shorter than the average DBQ, which is often used to prepare the students for "real" DBQ. The DBQ Project also offers conferences and great professional development tools for social studies teachers right on their website. 

Mini-Qs are shorter DBQ experiences involving 4-8 documents. Although geared to the upper elementary and middle school age group, many high school teachers (including AP teachers) have used them with success.  Our Mini-Qs include questions about American History, World History, Texas History, and Civics. -The DBQ Project (www.dbqproject.com)

 One of the most popular resources that every single social studies concentration got gifted to them was the Stanford History Education Group (sheg.stanford.edu). One of the first things that is on the website is their "Reading Like a Historian" curriculum initiative. It has the students asking more questions  The students have a primary source document and will ask a series of questions like: "Who wrote this? What else would I need to know to make a considered valued judgement." It teaches history in a way that is is relevant, engaging and that these topics are truly never settled. 

Historical Thinking Chart to help guide student thinking. 

One of the other cool things about SHEG is that is is free (what more could a teacher want) and they have lesson plans right on their website. When I was creating my unit on Holocaust Propaganda for my Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment course at UMF, I used this website to help guide my lessons and how I may want my students to collaborate. Most of the lesson plans and materials are accessible in both English and Spanish, which helps our teachers and students who speak more than one language. I came across a historical thinking chart, which will help guide students both in their writing and discussions. Students will be able to ask these questions to make the content more relevant in their lives. Students are more eager to learn when their learning has a purpose, and the materials on SHEG are applying these concepts and giving them a purpose in the classroom. 

SHEG has lessons, units, and provides professional development opportunities. All of the lessons are accessible by downloading them for free off of their website. They have tools for almost every single area of content. My former teacher told me that she uses SHEG for many lessons, but adapts them to her own style. I think that is very important, because we must always keep our own style in mind and how we might adjust these tools to our own liking. 

Edutopia is another website that was given to myself, among many other students. Articles are posted about the new trends in education and how we, as teachers, must adapt to that change. In my classes, we are talking about how we might adapt to our students' learning styles. This article discussed how Gardner's Theory of Multiple Intelligence's might not be helping students like we had thought. Yes, we want our teachers to expose student to different ways of receiving material, but do not want them labeling our students as a certain intelligence. It can be harmful, as the student can be discouraged learning in different ways. Multiple intelligence's are NOT learning styles, but you can individualize your lessons for your students. I thought the article mentioned great ways for teachers to reflect and to allow students to have different learning opportunities.

Edutopia has articles and information on social and emotional learning, technology integration, literacy, and communication skills just to name a few of the topics they cover. Edutopia is focused on providing students with learning that can be applied to their studies and beyond into the world outside of the classroom.

Our Foundation is dedicated to transforming K-12 education so that all students can acquire and effectively apply the knowledge, attitudes, and skills necessary to thrive in their studies, careers, and adult lives.

Edutopia also provides articles and support for new teachers. These articles for new teachers range from pacing, to managing a to-do list, how to prep, classroom management, and building a rapport with students. They also have many videos that foster great educational practices that will help support teachers in what they do best: teach! 

This last video is a must-watch. I explored many awesome videos and articles that support teachers on edutopia, but this one is by far the most important. These teachers are holding parent workshops of a way to work together with the families. The families are more engaged in their child's learning and is one of the highest preforming schools in San Diego, CA. The workshops are half the students showing the parents what they have done and how it applies and the second part is the parents working with the teachers to teach media literacy to their children and how it is important to stay on top of the trends. It really shows what parents support does to both the students and the teachers in a good way! 

I hope you enjoyed looking through the great sources I collected from my admired teachers and my peers admired teachers.


Emily