Many school districts are working now on how to best support teachers and students in remote learning. Whether it is because students need to remain at home until the coronavirus subdues or there is just a massive blizzard that shuts down school for a period, remote learning is something to prepare for. 

While I have not yet taught in a fully-remote learning structure, I began to use “blended learning” strategies a few years ago. Like it sounds, blended learning is a hybrid strategy that delivers some content online but also includes lessons in school to support student learning. 

It was in this blended learning environment that I began to create and use “flipped classroom” videos to teach the basic concepts of some units. I recorded video lectures and uploaded them to YouTube. Students received guided notes worksheets and were assigned a video for homework. These were all fairly short and easy for students to complete on any device. They also saved...

The benefits of using primary sources in the classroom have long been known to social studies teachers and education leaders. Whereas bias can misinformation can sometimes be found in textbooks or online sources, primary source activities allow students to directly analyze and interpret history. 

Primary Sources expose students to different perspectives in World History and allow them to draw conclusions about important historical events. 

Secondary sources are valuable as well. These can be used to introduce students to a topic, provide context to historical events, and ensure that students understand the major people, places, and events of a topic. 

An important aspect of teaching social studies is blending good primary and secondary sources into all of your units while making sure that students understand the differences (and benefits) of both. 

A difficult part of that for many teachers is finding good primary and secondary...

Social Studies teachers and education leaders have long preached the benefits of using Primary source materials in the classroom. These documents are essential to helping students understand history and encourage analytical thinking.

Primary sources allow teachers to expose students to different perspectives throughout US History and allow students to draw their own conclusions about important historical events.

Many studies have shows textbooks to contain bias or even inaccurate information in some cases. Primary sources bring students directly to the history and eliminate bias in the classroom. 

Finding good primary sources that students can understand is the tough part. Often primary sources are at a higher reading-level that students struggle with or are too long to be digested in a class period or for a single assignment.

Over the past few years, I dedicated myself to curating and editing engaging primary source resources for my US History classes. I have spent...

If you teach US History in middle school or high school, you how how important timelines are. They organize events in a simple visual way, help students see cause and effect, and are perfect for showing students all the key events that students need to know in any unit. 

I teach ALL of American History, from the Colonies through to Modern America and include printable timeline worksheets in the packets I give students for each unit we cover. 

When you do cover so much content in a year, timelines become essential. We often don't have that much time to spend on any one unit. That's why the packets become very effective at showing students exactly what they need to know. The printable timeline pages are perfect for giving students a chance to see each significant event in that. 

I make them very simple to use. The timelines are included in a PDF file and a Google Doc. I print out the PDF file of the entire packet at the start of each unit and give them to each...

There is no one way you need to be teaching US History. Every teacher has their own preferred way to run their classes. How you teach your classes is really up to you and what’s best for you and your students. 

You might prefer a very structured classroom with routines that students stick to the whole year. Or, you may prefer to mix things up and keep students on their toes with different activities for each unit. Either way can work very effectively! 

Over my years teaching US History, I developed a host of resources and teaching strategies that I found to be effective for different groups of kids. Here, I want to share 5 teaching strategies/resources you can use either as the backbone of your curriculum or to mix things up so that each unit has a new feel. 

Each method can be combined with inquiry lessons, primary resources, station activities, and Project Based Learning to ensure you’re preparing your students and providing critical thinking...

One of the most irritating stereotypes of history teachers is that of the long-winded lecturer who drones on while the whole class sleeps. Maybe you experienced a class like this one in college. 

It's one of the simplest ways to present a lot of info and lends itself to many teachers' natural ability to communicate. Lecturing can be great, also. There are some captivating storytellers that can enthrall and educate students with nothing but their own stories. 

Most of us, however, don't have that ability and many students struggle to pay attention through an entire lecture. That's why, when I do use a PowerPoint to cover content, I keep things short (20-ish minutes), make it as visually appealing as possible, and ask lots of questions to get students involved. 

While all of that certainly helps, you still might find it beneficial to change things up throughout the year and do some different things to avoid lecturing. Here are a few ideas you can try out in...

I've taught high school for 15 years. However, I vividly remember the tremendous struggles I had my first years teaching. Classroom management was not something that came naturally to me. It takes every teacher a few years to find their footing and feel comfortable leading a classroom. 

Once you do develop strong classroom management skills, however, learning will increase exponentially and you can try more awesome lessons that would have made you nervous to try in year one. 

Here’s my best classroom management advice for high school teachers. I broke it down into 9 simple reminders that I think can help any secondary teacher have great classroom management.

1) Know Your Kids 

First and foremost, you need to learn your students’ names as soon as possible. This is a way to make an immediate connection and show right away that you care about them as people.  There are teachers in October who are still learning names. Don’t be like that! 

...

Interactive notebooks are an amazing tool to use in the classroom. The graphic organizers can help students categorize and better understand content. Students also almost always enjoy making them!

The hands-on and creative aspect of interactive notebook pages lend themselves well to fostering student creativity and allowing students to demonstrate their understanding of important concepts. I started using them years ago and gradually made them more detailed and interactive as the years went by. 

I use a number of different resources in my classroom, but for years have experimented with different ways of using interactive notebook activities. At first, I would go through them together with students. However, I wanted a more student-centered classroom and sought ways to allow students more freedom to interpret our content. This led me to having students working on the pages either independently or together and then sharing what they created. 

However, I still see the...

Stations lessons are some of my favorite activities in my social studies classes. They're a great way to get kids up and moving around the room and that's more engaged in whatever topic recovering. Instead of just sitting at their seats at traditional way and taking in material, they're able to move around the room and learn.

They also work with any subject area and any unit you might be covering in history. They can be higher level, with students analyzing more advanced texts and sources at each station, or feature simple political cartoons, maps, or short excerpts at each station for lower level classrooms.

There’s no set template that you need to use for all stations lessons, but here are 5 ways to make your stations lesson plans rock!

1) To Time or Not to Time the Stations?

Stations can definitely vary in the structure. You might want to set a timer for a specific amount of time that students spend at each station. Or, it might work best if students are free to spend...

As all teachers know, it is a long school year. Over the course of 180 school days, there are bound to be point where both you as a teacher, and the students, are burned out, bored, or just otherwise not excited about the curriculum.

It’s at points of the year like that where I try to infuse something different or fun to break our class out of that monotony and infuse some much needed life into the classroom. At first, I tried just taking the class outside or just some fun activities. However, I’ve since developed a variety of engaging ways to bring a little spice to whatever lesson we need to cover.

I was inspired by the rise of the “Insta-worthy” museum to bring these together and share with you here. Insta-worthy museums and exhibits cater to the visual appeal of Instagram and people wanting to document their experiences. In the same way, students are drawn to these same kinds of experiences and I’ve often seen kids snapping pictures when we do...