Bringing the (Origins) Course to a Close

ERIN CUNNINGHAM the struggle is real! Sometimes I have a hard time teaching globalization because it feels like students already have so much prior knowledge on the topic. I really want to move them toward feeling invested and applying the content and skills. 

I am going to try a new debate activity with my AP World students this year. I can't take credit for the original idea but have been working on making modifications to materials I grabbed from another teacher in this folder. Students will investigate four topics surrounding globalization and assume the role of a country to negotiate policy with classmates representing other nations. Hopefully that helps shake things up!

Oh, and our prom is tomorrow so naturally I will teasingly encourage students to stage a world history flash mob after we watch Naatu Naatu today!

Thank you so much Anne Koschmider ! This activity is exactly the kind of thing I was looking for. Definitely going to consider it for the last week of school before finals!

Dear Erin Cunningham 

Thanks so much for posting about your struggle with students and cell phones. Our district has instituted a new cell policy this year, as students must put their phones in an assigned sleeve as they enter the classroom. This has been moderately successful in reducing screen time. One reason I elect to use so many hands-on activities is the idea of using manipulatives essentially replaces the phone in the students hands. Next year, I will actually be instituting a grading policy attached to phone use. I will send a contract home to parents and students to both sign and will then grade students each week on a scale. If I see a phone in your hand without authorization you will lose points. I know it's easier when there is a policy in place, but just an idea. I completely understand your frustration it's obviously a real societal issue at this stage.

ERIN CUNNINGHAM  We are in this quandary together! Origins is so expansive and there's so much ample opportunity to really do something meaningful at the end of the year... right at the exact moment that students are beginning to wind down and set their eyes on the door. And if I'm being honest, I can hardly blame them! 

I've shared this elsewhere but maybe it hasn't caught your eye just yet - I spend the last 2-3 weeks on a controlled research project of sorts that is part Little BHP, part UN Sustainability Goals, and part Project X. I definitely took some influence here from Rachel Hansen for the question - and would love to at some point turn this into a podcast project.  Here's my write-up - let me know if you find anything useful there - would love to collaborate in the future on projects like this! 

I connect with this post.  I am using the project I talked about last year the community for a lot of these reasons.  I do a bit of a lesson but all of their work time is focused on applying the lesson/topic to the country they were assigned.  Seems to be working so far.  

The phones suck.  And the fight takes so much energy.  

Wow, Adam Esrig I absolutely love the way this is organized. All of the links are so helpful to creating some autonomy, too. I like that since it's an end-of-the-year culminating project, you are truly putting all of the autonomy on the students. When I see how clearly this is laid out, it makes me want to set up something similar for a final project. Mostly so that I can also build in a reflective piece to ask students how they feel about tackling work when everything is given to them. I have SO many students who still ask a question a peer asked a mere second prior or who ask a 'right-there-in-the-instructions' question, and this is the type of document and set up that can almost provide a quantitative way to see who is there in terms of getting started and being resourceful and who needs a comment in their grades about areas of focus as they move on to the next grade.

Sooooo, not totally in response to the original question here, but totally inspiring to me, nonetheless!

Eric Schulz this is a great template. How do they get their country? I know you mentioned it's assigned, but do you have any student preference that weighs in? Sometimes for a project like this, I have my students put their name, section, and top 3-5 choices (depending on the project) and work from that to assign them. Naturally, if they don't put their name or section, I make that choice for them. I find it helps a little more with buy-in when they know their opinion was considered.

Eric Schulz , the phones do suck. After reading this article from the WaPo, I feel better and worse--better because I know it's not just me struggling to keep the phones out of hands in class but worse because the solution has to be collective, school-wide policy change and I don't think it's going to happen where I am.

Thanks for sharing the project! I like how you made the template so clear for students.

Adam Esrig , thanks for sharing this project. I really like how this assignment ties in the earlier eras. 

How do you handle students who don't turn in end-of-the-year projects like this? Do you have checkpoints along the way?