Over the past few years, I've been trying to make CCOT activities more student friendly. In addition to my high school classes, I also teach a graduate course at a college by me. I was introducing some methods and techniques with my students there last week and in order to introduce CCOT with them, I asked them to think about their education from kindergarten to that moment. They made lists of things that have generally stayed the same and things have changed. I then asked them to take just a few from each list, write each on a post it, and place them on the chart that I had drawn on the board (based on the diagram on the OER website). It actually worked out better than I had thought it would. We had a really productive conversation and they seemed to understand the skill and how it applies to social studies. It worked really well because they were able to compare primary and secondary school with college and graduate school. I think I still might try it with my 9th and10th graders though. They'll have fewer experiences to work with but it seems like a fair example and will hopefully also develop into an engaging discussion. I'm curious how others approach CCOT and if you have suggestions on student-friendly examples to get students started with.
