PD Review: #hssxplore An Exploration in History and Social Science

-

Inquiry, literacy, and civic engagement were the main themes of "An Exploration in History and Social Science: A 21st Century Shift." This past week I attended this Professional Development day hosted by the San Bernardino Superintendent of Schools and the Riverside County Office of Education and I wanted to share some of the key takeaways from my day there.

The Four Worlds

Teresa Hudock of USC 
In the first session I attended, Teresa Hudock of USC introduced a the Four Worlds Framework. This is a great tool to help students think about concepts in class in different ways and allows for students to visually see the connections between the "Four Worlds" (economic world, social world, political world, and cultural world.) The USC website has pre-made worksheets for a large variety of different concepts you can review using this framework and even has the presentations they use when teaching the framework.  Teresa has created an easy to use and easy to implement framework that allows students and teachers to have a shared frame of reference and allows students to analysis historical concepts with great depth.

Liz Ramos and Technology in the Classroom

Liz was one of my favorite speakers of the day and I was glad I got to see her twice. She helped kick off the day by explaining the value of twitter for educators and the value of using twitter with our students.
Liz also hosted two sessions; one on technology and inquiry and one on civics in the classroom. For both workshops, she explained her use of technology in the classroom and shared tools that are great for those just diving into the using technology in their class.

Breakout Edu

Why haven't I done one yet? BreakoutEdu is so much fun and it was the perfect way to start the day. It takes engagement to the next level and makes time fly by as you attempt to solve puzzles, based in content, and unlock a series of codes.

They also shared the link to this Google Drive folder full of breakouts and this Facebook group which are excellent resources for those looking to find out more.



Want to find more resources from this day? Check out all the resources posted on #hssxplore below! 

Have you used any of these resources in your classroom? Share in the comments! 
---Mrs. Byars 

Comments

Post a Comment

Thank you so much for commenting! You can also reach out to me on twitter: @mrsbyarshistory

Popular posts from this blog

Hacking the System: Using a 4 Point Scale with a Traditional Online Gradebook

-
Image
When I first started down the road of "how do I make sure my grading system supports learning and is not just a tool for communication" I found my biggest challenge was not creating lessons or building proficiency scales, it wasn't student buy-in or parent buy-in, it wasn't admin support or all the things you would think would stand in the way of such a foundational shift in practices. No, it was something entirely out of my control, the biggest challenge was trying to figure out how to get the digital grade book I had to use per my contract to play nice with a 0-4 scale.  Why a 0-4 Scale? The 100 point scale is a dream killer and it is full of opportunities for our own bias to trickle into the grading process. Maybe Johnny and Sally did the same level of mastery but Johnny had an attitude when completing it, how likely is it that Sally will get an 85% and Johnny will get an 80% while those few points might seem like nothing, that can add up. The bias...
Read more

Why I Am Leaving Canvas LMS for Google Classroom

-
Image
I consider myself a team player. A few years ago when our district announced that the Learning Management System they were supporting was going to be Canvas LMS I stopped using Schoology and started learning as much as I could about Canvas LMS. Right away I could see the potential, there was a ton of back end data that Canvas was collecting, it was designed with mastery and personalized learning in mind, and you could complete customizations of your pages with just a tiny bit of knowledge of basic HTML. So I committed to using Canvas as my class website and used it to host all the blended assignments I was creating. I spent hours reading the incredible Canvas LMS community learning all the things it could do that could potentially make my teaching more engaging, more personalized, and more about meeting the needs of my students.  You see, Canvas does have some remarkable features - you can create quizzes that pull from a question bank so no two students have the same qu...
Read more

Formative Assessment Isn't What You Think

-
Image
When planning for a Standards-Based classroom you follow a clear series of steps : 1. Pick your priority standards and rewrite them in student-friendly learning objectives. 2. Unpack those standards to really understand what they are asking students to know and do. 3. Build rubrics or proficiency scales to help make the learning objective accessible for students and to create a clear understanding of how mastery will be measured. 4. Build your assessments using those rubrics. 5. Create your learning path from introducing the learning objective to assessing the standard that includes a lot of feedback and formative assessment. 6. Make a plan for intervention and support. One of the most daunting elements of a Standards-Based classroom is the idea that feedback needs to happen consistently for students to be able to improve on the learning objective. We know a grade on its own is not enough to help students learn from their mistakes or to understand where they need to impro...
Read more