Teaching History with Mrs. Byars

I am a part of a Facebook Group for AP World History teachers that also has a shared Google Drive (that I actually currently manage). It is a collection of amazing resources and one of my favorite lessons that comes from the drive is called "They Thought The Earth Was Flat" by Bill Strickland. It engages students in the common story of Christopher Columbus being one of the few people in the 15th century to believe the earth was round. The students read and analyze a series of 'documents' that seem to support this myth and then shows them the Farnese Atlas which was created in the 2nd century. After a few more pieces of evidence start to poke holes in this longstanding story of Columbus the lesson asks students to consider how historians look for validity in sources and how historians do the work of figuring out our past. I love this lesson because it really introduces what historians do and how messy history can be. It gets students thinking and talking about ho...

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...

Last week, I wrote a little bit about how I want to establish more clear routines and procedures this semester and it got me thinking about where and when routines benefit my students and me the most. As I wrote before, my big takeaway from the first semester of this year was the need to begin and end each class, in the same way, each day so students know where to find the information they need to be successful. But another area where I know from experience routines are helpful is when implementing technology. Now, I am not talking about how you check out devices (though that does help) I am talking about the actual lessons you do. When you are new to using technology in the classroom it can seem overwhelming at first, there are just so many apps and tools and cool lesson designs and incredible ways to connect your classroom with the world and so on and so on. But if you are new to using tech in your classroom there are three realities you need to face: 1) you can't do it a...

My classroom is not one-to-one and the devices I do have often have a lot of issues because they were small sets of devices that I was asked to pilot to see if they would be the best fit for busy classrooms like mine. Because of this I often have to take things like hyperdocs and find ways to make them work for limited device classrooms. Three Things I Do To Make Hyperdocs Work In A Limited Device Classroom  1. We Use Worksheets  GASP! I said that evil word that has supposedly been banned from teaching. But to be real, the easiest way to do this is to have a worksheet (yup, I still use worksheets), partner kids up, and then have them follow along on a shared device. You could use Nearpod or Peardeck (both of which are amazing tools) but if the students need to go back to the information and review it only the student logged in will get a copy of the notes they take with Nearpod or Peardeck. This where I will defend worksheets, the value of the worksheet has to...

I recently got an e-mail from a history teacher who felt very overwhelmed after attending a local edtech conference. She had seen everything from hyperdocs to Google Classroom and had no idea where to start. She was going from using little to no tech in the classroom to seeing the potential of individualized education that edtech allows teachers to create through choice, self-paced learning, and the various ways technology can impact teacher efficiency in grading or giving feedback. My response was a list of 5 tools that I find essential and easy to start with if you've never done this before. Just like our students, it is a little crazy to assume that when trying something new a teacher can go all in the first time around. The sort of pedagogical shifts that technology can create takes time and if the expectation is that you either make those shifts or never use tech, then we 1. Edpuzzle   I often put my class in a station rotation model for students to cons...

There are a lot of arguments to be made about pedagogy and edtech. We could have a long discussion about the SAMR model. We could talk about the many reasons why technology could never replace teachers. We could talk about how much time students already spend in front of screens. But today, I just want to talk about why it is so important to find ways to incorporate technology in our classrooms because if we really want students to be college and career ready we have to embrace the fact that their experience is one we cannot truly predict. My own experience with technology:  Yes, it is true that I barely remember life pre-personal computer in my home. In middle school,  I was able to recreate the sound of our dial-up internet perfectly. By high school, I thought I was the queen of the AIM Away Message. In college, I had a LiveJournal and my college actively campaigned to be added to this new social networking thing called "Facebook." But in school, I only took two cla...

There are so many amazing new ways students can share what they've learned and create incredible projects, videos, websites, and presentations to show what they've learned. This is a quick list of 5 I've used this year that my students and I really liked. I won't go into too much detail about each product, this more of a whirlwind tour then an in-depth tutorial. Enjoy!  If you live anywhere on social media, even if you spent like 5 seconds on twitter this year, you probably already know about this one. It's not my favorite (and to be honest, my students don't LOVE it) but it has a ton of potential and has some really amazing features.  How It Works:  Students record up to 5 minute long videos reacting to a prompt. Students can comment and react to each other (but those features can be turned off) feels like instagram of videos but is self contained (you control who has access to the grid and can post.). What I like about it: It feels like s...

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 an...

Instagram is my go to social media account because I love being able to visually tell the story of my class and easily share student work and student accomplishments It’s all About the Pictures Instagram is the perfect place for visual storytelling. You upload pictures, crop them, and add filters that can change the coloring or how the picture looks. You can write a caption as well but since people scroll through multiple Instagram Accounts at the same time they will often miss the caption making the focus the picture. This allows you to tell an impactful story with just photos alone. While it is always good practice to caption the photo so if someone does stop, they know what is going on, the goal is rich and interesting pictures that offer a window in your classroom. You don’t have to post selfies. Ever. While Instagram can seem like a world full of selfies (or photos you take of yourself) you can get away with never posting a single one! I post student wor...