August 12th PD

During this collaborative session teachers will explore a variety of high impact instructional strategies to maximize student engagement in the social studies classroom. We will take a look at approaching historical content from factual, social, personal, and reconciliatory truths to help students develop a comprehensive understanding of people, places, stories, time periods, and events. Although there is a heavy emphasis on historical content and curriculum, take-away strategies to implement cooperative learning structures, provide students with lesson and assessment choices, and protocol for delivering student feedback are applicable to all content areas. 

Time will be divided among the following topics:
Cooperative Learning  Strategies to maximize engagement and participation, develop classroom seating arrangements with quick transitions to precision partnering, organize students into groups, and establish norms with students. 
Primary Sources Links to grade-level resources will be shared that will increase historical analysis and understanding. There will be a focus on using primary sources, biographies, and historical narratives to examine multiple perspectives, strategies for "teaching hard history", and identifying various ways to teach hard history without sensationalism. 
Assessments & Student Choice Ideas and tips to engage students through a variety of learning and assessment choices and how to manage.
Feedback: Discussion and resources for providing constructive and specific feedback with care, as well as how to ask for and use student feedback to guide instruction, build relationships,  and create learner-friendly environments. 

Resources used during the presentation include material from: 
Teaching Tolerance
School Reform Initiative 
The George Washington Teacher Institute
The Gilder-Lehrman Institute of American History
Jim Knight
Kagan Cooperative Learning