Teaching History with Mrs. Byars

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've talked about what I do in my classroom here and here but as I prepare for the new school year I have decided to take some time to share with you all how I prepare my history and social studies content for a standards-based approach. It makes sense to share this now because even though I have done this for four semesters already, I still have changes I need to make and in doing so I plan to share some of my lessons learned and mistakes made with you all in the hopes of making this process easier for you. Before You Get Started It is important to first explore the terminology and determine what you believe. You can look at this grading terminology cheat sheet I created and before doing anything else I highly suggest you complete this grading philosophy form that I adapted from the work of Rick Wormeli. Changing your grading practices is not something you should do because you want to follow the trends or because it looks interesting: the amount of work and thought th...

This summer I was excited to have as my next door neighbor our district History and Edtech TOSA, Luis Carillo. I had worked with Luis on history curriculum council, putting together a history-social science framework training, and had attended a number of his training sessions on EdTech. Our district has been going through a lot of upgrades and installing more infrastructure to give access to technology in all classrooms (not just those CTE or computer courses.) I have been extremely lucky to have had the chance to pilot devices before most which have led to fundamental shifts in the way I teach so I was extra excited to share those ideas with my neighbor. Maybe too excited... Arrived to this posted on my door...When the #nuggets keep coming! @erhs @CNUSD is better because of awesome educators like @mrsbyarshistory pic.twitter.com/ERRb3qYwTu — Luis Carrillo (@lcccarrillo) June 13, 2018 So I left him a bingo card and everything on it I had done at some point d...

Today I want to share a lesson I made based on this Vox Article . I think maps in the history classroom are incredibly important tools for helping students understand the world. They can tell stories in unique and engaging ways and far too often map work if simply coloring, labeling, and memorizing. What I love about that Vox list, is that the maps tell stories that are much more rich and engaging than "here is where things are." I decided to make an introduction to World War II where students explore some of the maps from that article prior to diving into any of our World War II content. I took 14 of the maps from that article and created a Google Slides deck from them. I will either have students explore the maps on their devices using this link ( http://bit.do/WWIImaps ) or print the maps and do a gallery walk. I created this worksheet to go along with it and plan to host a discussion with the class, reviewing their answers to the reflective questions when t...

Recently I wrote about some of my favorite tech tools you can use in class to get students sharing what they've learned . By far my favorite for ease of use is Adobe Spark Video . While it does not have the most features and it is not the most complex video creator out there, it works incredibly well for creating videos in the classroom. Adobe Spark is fairly user friendly, below I have created a step by step tutorial for those who have never used it before. Scroll down even further and you can watch a completed adobe spark video. And here is what an Adobe Slide Video looks like in action using the same content as you see above! Adobe Spark is easy to use and even has an App for iPad and iPhone. I especially love that you don't have to download the video, students can turn in the shareable link making the process of grading and sharing the videos much easier overall.  Have you used Adobe Spark Video in class? What do your students use it for? Share in t...

I love the new C3 Framework from the NCSS . I think building a history class around 1. Developing questions and planning inquiries; 2 Applying disciplinary concepts and tools; 3 Evaluating sources and using evidence; and 4 Communicating conclusions and taking informed action is a fantastic way to make the learning real and engaging for students. Each step in the C3 Framework  provides meaningful opportunities for students that are applicable outside of the history classroom. What I am not a fan of is how California took the idea of questioning and inquiry and created questions for their framework that were anything BUT compelling or engaging. So when working with the new framework for California , I needed more help and guidance on how to develop questions for the inquiry process. Leave it to the awesomeness of Twitter to give me guidance: Have you looked at this book? https://t.co/lzgKcaAgE3 It simplified the compelling question process for me. #casocstu...

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...

Why I Picked up the Book How do you grade? What is the purpose of grades? And what do grades actually mean? These are questions that plague me as I stare at stacks of work to grade and wonder if the grades I give truly serve me students the way I want them to. I've already read on the subject but still had more questions so I decided to focus my next reading on a book about Standards-Based Grading.  The Review Rethinking Assessment by Cathy Vatterott  clearly explains what standards based grading is, how it can help our students and change our classrooms, and how to practically implement both on the classroom level and school wide. Throughout this book, she raised the exact questions I have been facing in my classroom and made clear and solid arguments for how adopting a Standards Based Grading practice could address those issues.  The most compelling case made in this book is that we need to move away from compliance only classrooms. That by teaching comp...

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...