Zaption

Not exclusively US I, but very valuable. Zaption is a 2.0 site/tool that allows teachers to embed questions and additional resources into a streaming video like YouTube or PBS.org. Anything from M/C to short answer is possible and even gives instant feedback for incorrect answers. The free version still gives detailed analytics for each student that views the presentation or "tour" included % correct, % incorrect, # of attempts, if the students was skipping around, etc... 

You don't have to make your own. There is a gallery hosting a variety of tours created by other practitioners that you can make a copy, edit, and distribute. You can additionally use the service to break up or trim down lengthy video resources (like the "Roosevelts" series by PBS) to the sections relevant to your lesson. 

Crash Course's John Green packs every minute full of material that most students miss. Use text slides to review every two minutes or to pre-teach the upcoming two minutes. Better yet, have your advanced students do this as a review exercise in groups of twos while you remediate your less proficient students. 

Long story short... Zaption is one of the tools we have been looking for in Social Studies. Jump in and get going. Share your / kids work with the blog here so we can continue our mission.

Collaborative Work = Less Work

Collaboration in Constructed Response.....Construction

Hey everyone, 

I was approached by a colleague here at UPHS about gathering a body of APUSH teachers (virtually) interested in creating a bank of constructed responses. The idea is obviously to share the work load in designing new questions & resources for the updated curriculum. With that said I wouldn't want this to be a forum where a wallflower can cherry pick without contributing. Post a comment here or send an email if you are interested to wherring@ncmcs.net. I'll serve as initial organizer until someone else has the time or inclination to take the wheel. 

Shoot this blog far and wide to anyone you think might be interested in joining the network of APUSH teachers. The College Board has the same test everywhere so there is no limit to our potential teacher pool. 

Thanks for reading & I look forward to hearing from you and working with you!

Will Herring
Moore County Schools
Digital Integration Facilitator
(FMR: USHistory 10+)

Bill of Rights Institute 

This is a great, great site I found this AM and I wanted to get it out to you before I forgot. If you squint at the image below or follow the link you will see that this resource includes entire lessons and PRE-Built Smart Express Lesson! There are games & links to YouTube videos. I know were all on the Civil War at this point but we all have a lot of review time. Plus we will have a couple of sections I would imagine in the Spring. 

Do me a favor and share this with the Civics crew also. I don't know all the names or emails in the districts. 

http://billofrightsinstitute.org/resources/

The Columbian Exchange

Two Frameworks

Why You Should Read The Rest:
As you would expect, the Columbian Exchange dominates Unit 1 of the American History I curriculum. What you might not expect, is that NCDPI has a really great methodology and resources for teaching it. The two frameworks described below can be widely applied to the study of history and the social studies. 

http://www.ncpublicschools.org/docs/acre/standards/support-tools/organizers/social/k12-social.pdf

The PERSIA Graphic Organizer:  

Teach the Strands: 

When you navigate to the page (linked above), go ahead and skip down to page 28 to see the beginning of the HS section. Beginning here you are going to find all you need for two, three, or even four very high level lessons (days depend on the nature of how students demonstrate learning). 

Varied levels of guided questions are provided allowing you to differentiate within and between classes without additional planning time. Vetted hyperlinks appear on page 29 titled "Resources" and the content is sufficient (with reasonable student effort and skill at navigating web content) to complete the work.

Teams of students collaborate to complete the elements of the PERSIA framework: 

You can find that break down of the elements with greater elaboration on page 2 of the DPI Doc and see an example of a completed graphic organizer on page 30. 

Once student groups have completed their PERSIA organizer; they answer the "Big" question you assigned their group siting specific evidence for support. Critical Thinking Questions 1 & 2 are awesome for you high flying students.

THE APPART Graphic Organizers:

Teach Critical Document Interpretation:

This resource instructs teacher in using the APPARTS graphic organizer to guide teams of students to critically interpret historical documents. DPI has provided 6 documents (5 of 6 are visual for weaker readers) with accompanying low level questions. 

Once student teams complete the questions they are directed to complete the APPARTS organizer. This break down of the elements that make up APPARTS is taken from page 6 of the full DPI document.

When all groups are complete assign big questions (provided on page 37-38) as you did for the PERSIA framework and allow time for a gallery walk. 

In an honor's level course, consider having a round table discussion in which team members assume the thoughts of the creator of their assigned document.

I see this as a great lesson but potentially a way to tackle many major parts of curriculum. I have been working on something very similar to the APPARTS structure for a lesson I want to try during the late Antebellum - early war period. I'll expound on that soon.

Thanks for reading... 

Please email wherring@ncmcs.net if you want to contribute an article or resource!