ASSESSING HISTORICAL THINKING

Assessing Historical Thinking with One Crucial Question
Crissy Calera, Grade 6 Humanities Teacher, United Arab Emirates

In a world with so much information right at our fingertips, how are young people meant to discern between fact and fiction? This talk gives a good jumping off point: by asking young people to challenge information with the question “How do we know what we know?” By encouraging students to engage with truths in a critical way, we are empowering them to be independent thinkers who get to the root of what can and can’t be trusted.

Crissy Calera originates from the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas. She has been teaching for 11 years, most of that time overseas in the United Arab Emirates. Currently, Crissy teaches 6th grade Humanities at the American Community School of Abu Dhabi. Her passions include reading, writing, traveling, and teaching, specifically empowering young people to be positive change makers in the world.

LITERACY

Let the Sun Shine in: Expanding literacy through Auditory and Visual Learning
Joe Adragna, History Teacher, Louisiana

Educators have long seen literacy as synonymous with reading literacy; however, visual and auditory sources can be just as valid and educational as textual sources. When used together, these sources can be powerful tools in helping our students expand their literacy skills (and, in turn, their learning). In this track talk, educator Joe Adragna discusses the use of the documentary “Summer of Soul (or How The Revolution Will Not Be Televised) in order to expand student understanding that goes beyond “just text”.

Joseph has been an educator for over 20 years teaching social studies and English. He has co-authored articles such as “Using the Power of Music to Support Students’ Understanding of Fascism” in Social Studies Research and Practice and “‘From a Vibrant City to a Warzone’: Shostakovich’s 7th Symphony as a means to foster historical understanding through empathy” in the Journal of Social Studies Research. Adragna has also won several awards including the Gilder Lehrman Teacher of the Year for the state of Louisiana. He is passionate about using music in the classroom to engage students in historical thinking.

CRAFTING INQUIRY

Six Steps for Crafting Inquiry-Based Pedagogy
Beth Krasemann, History Teacher, Colorado

Although she has taught for 25 years, for educator Beth Krasemann, the last decade stands out. Why? A focus on inquiry. An inquiry-based learning approach in the history classroom promotes the fundamental understanding that history is complicated, nuanced, and sometimes chaotic—and fascinating. In this talk, Beth describes the six-step process she uses to structure her inquiry-based pedagogy and curriculum, using the example of an inquiry that asks why Germany democratically elected Hitler into office. For more of Beth’s work on inquiry, check out her book Teaching the Holocaust by Inquiry (http://www.holocaustbyinquiry.com/)

Beth was born in Portland then studied at Williams and Brown. She has been a history classroom teacher for the last 25 years. She teaches using the inquiry method in her United States, European, World, and Holocaust courses. Her classes center on questions that have no clear answers which invites students to think, read, reason, and write like true historians. She wrote a book about using the inquiry method centered on Holocaust education, entitled Teaching the Holocaust By Inquiry.