Christmas Break--December 5, 2011-January 5, 2012

Happy Holidays to all.  If anyone wants to join the blog, this would be a good time.  They can read and post to the first few chapters without penalty.  If anyone is behind, please post to the respective chapters over Christmas Break.  I will be posting the rest of the chapter assignments and due dates over the break.  If you have time or want to do any or all, you may post your responses as you have time.  We must be finished by March.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

Teresa Jacobs
Education Designs

Chapter 2: Introducing Historical Thinking-Due December 4, 2011

The author, Mr. Lesh,  has selected "Nat Turner's Rebellion of 1831" to formalize, through discussion of the design, implementation, and evaluation of this lesson the skills needed to shift the focus of history instruction.  Evaluate this process and voice your opinion as to how this process can also be seen in other subjects.

Expectations for the blog, Forward, Introduction and Chapter 1

Expectations for the blog:

I have set the font to NORMAL. Please do not change.  You may bold or highlight, use bullets, or underline as is standard for scholarly writing.  If you quote a source, please cite the source.  Concentrate on providing a good thesis statement, opening paragraph, using proper grammatical structure and have an effective conclusion.  The author, Mr. Bruce Lesh, will be participating in the blog and may respond to your post as well.  We welcome his participation.

In grading your post there will be two criteria.

• Did you answer the questions that were asked, or address the situation, accurately and completely in your response?
• Each chapter post must be 250 words (no more than 300), be correct grammatically, and submitted on time.
• If you are assigned a Power Point presentation for one or more of the chapters, you must follow the strategy explained by Mr. Lesh and cover the topic.  All Power Point presentations will be posted on Education Designs Website for others to review and comment on after all are received. You must include notes in the notes section, as appropriate, for other teachers to replicate the historical material being covered. Power Point presentations must not exceed 10MB. (NO movies clips)-ppt or pptx versions will be acceptable.

Assignment and Due Date for posting is November 20, 2011 NLT midnight.

Please read the Forward, Introduction, and Chapter 1-Reinventing My Classroom:  Making Historical Thinking Reality.

In this first chapter, Mr. Lesh (Bruce) will set the framework for historical thinking.  Please read and comment on these statements from the book:

"Students can be taught to think historically. How to teach students to embrace this way of thinking lies at the intersection of questions, evidence, and interpretation."

Set-Up and Begin Session 1

Welcome everyone.  Please login, post a photo of yourself and give a brief description of who you are, what and where you teach.  As soon as we have everyone logged in and successfully posting, we will begin.

You should have been given a book a the training session.  If you don't have a book, please contact Clabe.  We will also be working through the "Teach Like A Champion" book as our next book in the book study.  You should have this book as well.

As this platform maybe new to some, we will start slow and work through the process.  Your first assignment is:
Login
Post a photo of you
Describe a bit about yourself
Tell us where, what grade level and what you teach
Obtain the books

Introduction

This book study has been created for a Teaching American History Grant in conjunction with The Wilderness Trail Cooperative in Kentucky.  The teachers that will be participating are high school teachers and will be reading "Why Won't You Just Tell Us The Answer?" by Bruce A. Lesh.

Each teacher is expected to post to the blog as we work through the book.  Please register and post a comment so that we will know everybody is communicating on the site.

Thanks,
Dr. Teresa Jacobs
Education Designs
Moderator