Cool Tools!

There are a few tools you can used.  Peardeck has a slide where you can list five events, and the students label them 1-5 with colored dots.  Teachers can see and review the answers with the kids.   In Performance Matters, teachers can upload pictures they made and graphic organizers.  Then, students can drag and drop the picture into where they fit into the graphic organizer.  t takes some time to make the item, but the time is saved on the grading side because Performance Matters will do the grading for you.

I use this to teach WWI, the kids get REALLY into it. It is also fun to see it click that the whole time I was talking about WWI not just telling them a fun story. Each letter of the names represents the first letter of the country (Gabe Brians = Great Britain).

Gary is a new kid in school.  He is very proud and has been trying to get as many friends as he can, partly to have friends, but also so he has someone to help him out if he gets into a fight (which he often does).  Gary is also taking steroids and has been lifting weights in the gym every day.  Gary’s closest friends are Adrian Hartford and Ian. 

Frank is a guy in school that has been there for years, he is popular and well known throughout the school.  Frank is on the football team, so he is just a strong as Gary, but he isn’t on steroids so he’s not as aggressive. Frank is close friends with Russell, Sebastian, and Gabe Brians.

Gary is trying out for the football team and wants Frank’s position as quarterback.  Although they do not show it, both Gary and Frank want each other out of the school. To hurt each other socially, Frank is trying to become friends with Gary’s friends and Gary has been doing the same.  Both are spreading rumors about the other.  

One day after practice, Adrian Hartford made fun of Sebastian’s family.  Sebastian, being very proud of his family took a swing at Adrian Hartford and gave him a bloody nose…

 1. How is Gary a threat to Frank’s status in the school?

2. What actions are putting Gary and Frank against each other?

3. How do you think the incident between Adrian Hartford and Sebastian is going to affect Frank, Gary, Ian, and Russell?

I like using maps across time to show lasting impact. The Library of Congress has many online. On of the recent PD days, there was a presentation from New American History that went over several of their data visualization tools. Most of it (unsurprisingly, given the name) is US-focused, but I thought the one about the Foreign-Born Population: https://dsl.richmond.edu/panorama/foreignborn/#decade=2020 could be useful when using immigration to connect push factors abroad with current population patterns in the US (i.e., long-term causes). 

I stress chronology in my classes a lot, and we use google slides to drag and drop text boxes to order them.  I've also used google slides to have students organize and drag concepts--you just have to make the background of the slide the picture of the graphic you want to use.  So you can have a list of causes and effects and have students drag them to sort them into organizers like the causation tool.  

Apart from the technological piece to make the manipulating easier, there are tons of resources out there that can enhance the skill of causation--having students utilize primary sources from collections or DBQ project binders can give them a way to identify cause and effect while also analyzing historical documents.  Using the HTS collections in FCPS planning and pacing guides can help to structure causation for various events.  And of course focusing on the impact of historical decisions across time and place can also lead to a better understanding of causation.

We did a full length LEQ in class and then used a peer review jigsaw activity so students could read each element of 12 classmates essays. THe prompts were all CAUSATION and related to the Atlantic World Revolutions. Students left their essays on their desks and rotated around room to evaluate THESIS, CONTEXT, TOPIC SENTENCE, EVIDENCE, and HRS. It was a great opportunity to really emphasize CAUSATION and students really began to realize when a reading was successful or not.

I also did a new version of "Our Town" or  the Urban Game.  At the end of students creating maps of industrial England, students had to use a pink post it to write three negative effects of  the IR, a yellow post it to write two positive effects, and one word to describe the IR on a green post-it. These were posted on large paper around the room

The Guardian has a fantastic interactive webquest for WWI. This year for AP World History, I will use the 'Backdrop- Four Factors that set the stage for Global War- a number of global trends combined to set the stage,' podcasts (a few minutes each) on the topics of empire, tech, nationalism, and urbanism, to support students understanding of long-term causes of the first World War using the OER causation tool.

This is really cool! I will have to keep it in my back pocket for next year.

I use Read Like a Historian resources, I find it as a way to bring primary sources into the classroom, but make them accessible to students. I especially love that because kids don't get caught up in the language, they argue about the source.   I do have a WWII source from the WHP project that I used last year, that blew me away, and not my World 2 team uses it.  If you have not done the WHP appeasement activity, do it this year.  I was shocked at the result, in each class I had only less than 1 group vote not to appease.  

I am going to try this!!! Thank you!