Evaluating Social Media Response in the Wake of Tragedy

For better or for worse social media plays an increasing role in the way that information is disseminated and is a major factor in shaping student perceptions of current events. I often find that ideas that are discussed and passed along are based on wildly inaccurate information but are taken as factual simply because they were posted online. Students lack the skills to properly evaluate the information that they come across and it is becoming more imperative that those skills be taught in schools.

The long simmering gun control debate has rightfully been stoked to an inferno in wake of Friday's events and will hopefully be a major talking point for the foreseeable future. Finding the appropriate angle to approach such subjects in class in a meaningful way is always a difficult task but it is necessary for students to be given the opportunity to explore contentious issues in order to grow. I personally feel an almost overwhelming burden to teach about such things and do what I can to prompt constructive  thought on the topic.

Evaluating Social Media Response in the Wake of Tragedy is an activity developed to help students examine some of the responses being posted on social media from a more critical point of view. It is based on the seven faulty logic errors in reasoning that Marzano identifies in the A Handbook for the Art and Science of Teaching; contradiction, accident, false cause, begging the question, evading the issue, arguing from ignorance, and composition and division.  I selected a handful of posts to focus on (many from my own network) that caused me to pause because I  either reacted especially positively or negatively to them. Students will be completing this activity this week after previous practice analyzing errors in arguments that were not as relevant.

Further Resources for Exploring the Gun Control Debate in the Classroom
Bill of Rights Institute A lesson plan and resources created after this summer's Aurora shootings. It contains summaries of recent landmark Second Amendment cases DC v. Heller and McDonald v. Chicago. 

PBS- NOW Gun Debate A nice chart that breaks down some of the pro and con arguments of gun control along with links to other sources.

NYT Opinionator The New York Times will this week be publishing a series a responses from contemporary philosophers looking at the ramifications of gun ownership and regulation.

Making the Revolution Relevant

Powdered wigs, breeches, and tea are not not exactly the most exciting topics to anyone. While the road to the American Revolution is one of my favorite topics to teach, it can sometimes be a struggle to make it relevant to students. Below are five video clips I use to make the time period more tangible.

1. Tarring and Feathering

Classic chicken suit picture.

When I was in school the only concept I had of tarring and feathering was the lame picture that is in every history text book that looks like a group of school boys are harassing a guy in a chicken suit outside the local wing stop. When the HBO mini-series John Adams came out in 2008, I couldn't wait to use this scene in class to illustrate the brutality of the act. It is hands down my favorite clip to show now. 

2. The Town Meeting

The Patriot is about as historically accurate as Disney's Pocahontas but I usually use a few choice scenes from it. We do a town meeting simulation and I use this one to set up the debate between loyalists and colonists. Mel Gibson's quote about tyranny at the end is a great discussion piece. 

3. Too Late to Apologize

This video is a close second to the tarring and feathering on my list of favorites. I teach the Declaration of Independence as a break up letter between the colonists and the king and this one fits in perfectly. It is also a great example of parody to use when I encourage students to use it in their projects. 

4. Signing the Declaration

This is another clip from the John Adams series. One of the misconceptions that people have is that the founders immediately broke out the fireworks, hot dogs, and watermelon when they signed the Declaration of Independence. This scene is brilliant in showing a more realistic version of the emotions of the signers.

5. Gentleman's War

This one is just straight up fun.

Beyond the Bubble

"An absence of creativity characterizes the testing industry. At one end of the spectrum are multiple-choice tests that rip facts out of context and penalize students for not knowing things they can instantly Google."

Beyond the Bubble is an interesting looking site I stumbled upon that focuses on assessing historical analysis. It is put together by the history education folks at Stanford and has some high quality DBQ style activities that focus on different aspects of historical analysis. The number of assessments is somewhat limited at this point but each one is accompanied by resources including rubrics, examples of student responses, and supplementary videos. 

Getting Parents Involved: The Technology Breakfast

When I went 1:1 with no textbook last year, the students were generally on board and excited but I often faced resistance from parents. The major concerns were about the technology requirements that I was asking of students and how students were supposed to study without textbooks. Generally, I found a lot of parents had no idea what I was talking about when it came to Google Documents, the cloud, blogging, etc...

To overcome some of those issues I decided to organize a technology breakfast for parents in which we invited them in on a Saturday morning. We gave them a continental breakfast and did mini-sessions on how we are using technology in the classroom and how they could use it to support their kids. I made it collaborative for anyone on the staff who wanted to present and limited each session to 15 minutes. I just finished wrapping up our second annual breakfast this morning and had about 50 parents sign up. Parents were very excited and learned a lot. Several kept saying that it should be mandatory for all parents to attend because it was so enlightening and important.

The breakfast has had 3 major impacts:

• The most important impact of course is that parents are now informed about what we are doing and can support their kids.
• We now have involved parents who are championing the case for instructional technology and have become outspoken supporters of teachers.
• Colleagues who are apprehensive about or against using technology have been influenced to step out of their comfort zones to incorporate more of it. 

In the future, I would like to continue to expand it and get students involved and reporting on how it has impacted them. 

On the Road- October Adventures of a History Nerd

Bunker Hill Monument

October just flew by and I realized that I went the entire month without a blog post. I actually spent 3 out of the past 4 weekends on the road mostly doing teaching and history related things and have finally caught up with things back home.

I got to visit Boston for the first time for a four day workshop for history teachers and it was great to actually see all of the locations that I have been teaching about for years now. Boston is a great town and it was my second recent trip to New England in which I was floored by the hospitality of New Englanders. A few of us wanted to walk the Freedom Trial and one of the group leaders who was a local spent his Sunday afternoon guiding us on the trail and giving us all the little details that only locals would know. We also got to stop by the oldest bar in Boston where Paul Revere and the Sons of Liberty used to hang out. 

I loved the Puritan symbols on the 300 year old headstones.

My second favorite president sat in this pew in the Old North Church.

U.S.S. Midway Museum, San Diego

I flew out to San Diego the second weekend of October to attend my grandfather's funeral. This was the only personal trip I took this month but my grandfather's life was full of its own unique history. He was a Chicago firefighter for 30 years and had joined the army at the outbreak of WWII even though he was underage by using the ID of his deceased older brother. At the funeral I also found out another interesting tidbit when I came across a professional looking photo of him in full firefighter gear that I had never seen before. It turns out that the photo was featured in a Playgirl type magazine back in the 50s or 60s. After the funeral I had time to check out some of the ships preserved in San Diego Bay.

Star of India, San Diego Bay

B-52 Park in Orlando

Over the last weekend in October I trekked up to Orlando to present about teaching human rights at the state social studies conference. The near miss of Hurricane Sandy actually resulted in the most pleasant Florida weather I can remember and I was able to take my wife and son to hit Disney after the conference each day. I spotted a B-52 from the highway and insisted that we go explore it much to my wife's dismay. My son had a great time running around it and climbing on the massive wheels.

Live Blogging the Debates

The presidential election that comes around every four years is a gift for social science teachers. While I'm not teaching government this year and student interest is not nearly as intense as it was four years ago, it will still play a big part in our discussions.

This year I have organized live blogging sessions to take place during the presidential debates. A few of my colleagues and myself will be moderating the sessions on Edmodo while we watch the debates on TV. We will provide interesting tidbits through out (pop-up video style), point them to fact checking resources, and supply context to the dialogue that plays out. Students can ask questions and debate the candidate responses with each other. We will also be able to gauge opinions about some of the points brought up by inserting polls into the discussion thread. Students will be able to earn extra credit and custom badges for participation.

It is important that we model civil discourse and stress the importance of fact checking with the increasing amount of hot air that passes for news these days.

Flipping the Classroom

As a nerdy, tech-head who spends a significant amount of his sparse free time reading education blogs and journals, I consider myself pretty well connected to the pulse of education and up to date on the latest trends. So the idea of flipping the classroom is certainly not new to me and I have been on the fence about it for quite some time. I have met several other teachers during my travels over the past few months that have told me how transformative it is and how it is going to change education. While I am generally regarded as being fairly creative and innovative in the classroom (mostly very undeservedly so), I am also a historian. So I know that transformative ideas in education are; (1) common, and (2) not transformative 99.99% of the time. 

This all looks pretty good.

The basic premise of the flipped model is that lectures and direct instruction are recorded for students to watch at home and activities generally regarded as homework are done in class where the teacher can assist and become a facilitator. The appeal of the flipped classroom model is that it allows for differentiation of instruction and removes the teacher from the “sage on a stage” role. In theory the activities done in class then will all be student centered and constructivist. That sounds great. So great in fact, I’m pretty sure that student centered instruction was thought of a long time ago and is considered to be good teaching practice. For the most part, the technology for capturing and disseminating videos is the only new (albeit important) piece.

Given that context, I have been working with Learning Sciences International for the past year as a human guinea pig that is being filmed while teaching to produce coaching videos in which other teachers can observe and make fun of me. Part of that process is working with their instructional coaches to refine my teaching and track improvements over time. This week it was suggested that I experiment with the flipped model of instruction. While I have been moving towards an all PBL and technology enhanced, student centered model already, I have now been motivated to implement the “flipped” aspects of it. I am all for anything that can improve the experience for students and am always open to trying new things.

Over time I will use my blog to report on the implementation of the flipped classroom (and perhaps even to tell you how transformative it is).

Great place to get started on the flipped model for anyone who wants to follow: Edutopia: Five Minute Film Festival on the Flipped Classroom

Screenr: Ridiculously Easy Screencasting

I often have the need to create short screen casts for courses and professional development workshops to illustrate key points or processes. The go-to tool that I use is Screenr because it is ridiculously simple to use and it is free. You simply need to sign up for an account, choose the area of the screen that you want to record,  then publish your recorded video to the Screenr site or YouTube.

You are limited to 5 minutes recording time but best practice would suggest a 2-3 minute clip would be optimal. I use these to go over key processes that I may otherwise have to repeat many times in class or even to explain assignment directions that the sub can play for students when I know that I am going to be out.

This is a screencast that I recorded today using Google Presentation and Screenr. I will put this in a folder in Edmodo so that when students have questions about completing their DBQs in class or at home they can refer to it.

Chicago: It's About Due Process and It's Important

While it pains me to know that the education system in one of the world’s great cities has come to a standstill, I am observing the CPS strike with rapt attention. The conflict of course involves pay, but there is really a Pandora’s box of other issues seething beneath the surface that impact all of those in public education. At the core is the removal of long standing due process rights from the profession. Those rights in recent years have been scapegoated and villainized as the dreaded “tenure” system that is supposedly responsible for keeping horrid educators in the classroom with union protection. The truth though is that there is already a system for giving non-performers the boot (I’ve seen more than a few shown the door). Removing due process rights and replacing them with things like unfunded merit pay programs actually harms the amazing educators that we want to keep.  

The coverage today had the obligatory comments about educators not caring about the kids and if they really did care they would forego the money for raises and use it to repair schools or buy books. Given the timing of the strike, the discourse threatens to become more absurd and poisonous in the coming weeks but it distracts from the real issue which is the removal of due process rights from working class Americans. Nobody cares more about high quality education in this country than those who have devoted their lives to it and have made many sacrifices to do so. At the end of the day though, those educators are human beings with dependants, bills, and lives who deserve the basic protections that were fought for and won in the brutal battles to secure them against the unchecked greed of industry.

The unintended outcome of the federal meddling by both parties is that the nation’s educators are increasingly connected and galvanized with a reason to stand together. This is equally beneficial in terms of both performing the daily task of educating our nation’s youngsters and also in standing up against the continued assault upon those who do it. What happens in Chicago is important because it promises to set precedent for what will follow in other districts.

Moving Beyond Cooperation: An Easy Activity Using Google Drive

At last year's EdmodoCon Live in Orlando, Dean Shareski shared some great reminders about the differences between cooperation and collaboration:

Cooperation: A group working together.

Collaboration: Each group member contributes a necessary element that is needed for an end product to be useful.

In the classroom it is easy to shoot for collaboration but really just be asking for cooperation. A few simple tweaks though can often make the difference.

This week my students completed an activity in class that I set up with Google Presenter. I created a presentation template Features of the 13 Colonies and had pairs of students complete the notes for the individual colonies using their books and internet resources. Once they were done with the organizers they were given a blank map that they had to label and annotate using the resource that they had created collaboratively. Breaking the task into individual pieces that need to be completed by individuals or pairs allows for accountability and prevents the social loafing that is often present in cooperative activities.

Choices Leadership Institute: Brown University July 9-13, 2012

The sedentary nature of being stuck in a classroom with a schedule dictated by bells all day was one of the major turn-offs that I had when I initially started teaching. However, over the past few years I have discovered that their are many opportunities to escape our own little spaces and connect with brilliant teachers from all over the country and world.

This summer I attended the Choices Leadership Institute at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island for an intensive week long workshop on incorporating human rights into the curriculum. We participated in a variety of sessions with top foreign policy and human rights scholars, curriculum specialists, and technology integration experts. The highlight of the week was a dinner that we had with a group of college students from 11 middle eastern countries. Most of them had been active participants and leaders in the Arab Spring movements in their home countries and it was fascinating to hear about the events from their perspective.

As usual with these types of workshops, the learning and inspiration that I got by talking and sharing ideas with the 22 other teachers from around the country was energizing and transformational.  I highly recommend applying for next summer's leadership institute.

I will be presenting about human rights and technology integration at the Florida Council for the Social Studies State Convention in Orlando this October.

Press Release

Count Me Out Too

Article: Texas Parent Says: Count Me Out of State Testing

“…when adults responsible for children’s well-being tell them they can’t go to the bathroom because the toilet flushing makes too much noise…”

I was a second year teacher working in my first year at a new school when I made a decision that has haunted me ever since. I was serving as a proctor when two-and-a-half hours into an FCAT testing session a girl asked me if she could go to the bathroom. I wanted to say “yes” but I was trying to be a good employee and follow the rules set by administration that nobody was allowed to leave the room for any reason short of nuclear war or natural disaster until the session was done. I told her “no”.

Ten minutes later I noticed her face was bright red and she had teared up a bit. Then I noticed that her uniform skirt was wet and I saw the urine dripping and pooling up on the floor beneath her desk. I knew that being anything less than extreme tactfulness at that point would attract the attention of all the other kids in the room. When I made eye contact with her I could instantly tell that was her biggest fear as well. I made a motion to her to let her know that I understood and to just stay put until I could figure out a distraction. Luckily she was in the back and there were only ten minutes left in the session. As it ended, I was in the front trying my best to keep the attention on me while shuffling everybody else out of the room as quickly as possible. It worked and nobody else caught on to the puddle on the floor that would surely would have made the situation infinitely worse.

I robbed somebody of their humanity, dignity, and decency on that day. It remains a low point for me but it also has been a huge catalyst in the development of my own philosophy towards what we do and how we treat our students in schools. Teachers make many decisions that impact others everyday, and since none of us have yet achieved perfection, its stands to reason that not all of those decisions are going to be good ones. When we allow ourselves to be led astray from what is really important though, the chances of making thoughtless decisions increases.

We need more parents and teachers who are willing to demand something better in a positive way.