Archive for June 22, 2009
Reflections on our Illinois Adventure and it’s Educational Resources
As I sit here in my living room, surrounded by the comforts of home and filled with the laughter of my two year old, I find my mind wondering back to our Illinois expedition. I’ve been thinking about all of the places we visited and all of the knowledge that I gathered. I find myself trying to plan Chicago into a cross country trip that my family and I are going on so that I can share all of culture and wonders with them. More importantly, I am constantly thinking about ways to use the knowledge I gained in my classroom.
Technology is really first and foremost in my mind. How can I incorporate all of the awesome technological teaching tools that we saw into my very technologically challenged school? My first thought is to incorporate web quests that use all of the different web sites we saw. I’d also like to use High Tech Lincoln as a tool to show my students how exciting history can by and create a lesson that requires them to use technology to bring history to life, similar to the exhibit on the 1860 election at the Lincoln Presidential Museum.
Aside from technology, I’m most excited about using DBQ in my classroom. Of all the wonderful and exciting things we saw and heard during our trip, I believe that DBQ is the one piece that I will be able to use most in my classroom. I’ve already been talking about it to other teachers in my school and have it worked into the first couple weeks of my class. I’m also going to talk to my administrators about doing a professional development piece on DBQ’s. Chip Brady did a wonderful job walking us through the sample lesson and it encompasses everything I want my students to be able to do when they leave my classroom. I want them to be able to think critically, use primary sources and most importantly see history as interpretive and be able to form solid arguments for the way the interpret history.
The “Thinking like a Historian” card and book will also be a nice compliment to the DBQ’s. When used together I think they will really encourage and require students to start thinking at the next level. The “Thinking like a Historian” program asks students to ask a series of questions starting with what types of questions should we ask about the past and then once we figure that out, how do we find the answer to those questions and evaluate the evidence. This is a great lead in for using the DQB lessons which provide evidence and ways to help students evaluate that evidence. Then requires them to create an argumentative essay that can and should include the final two questions on the “Thinking like a Historian” card; what matters and why does it matter.
The “Thinking like a Historian” program can be used to cover any topic, or time period in history. DBQ’s also provide a wide range of lessons that over most time periods and the mini lessons do an excellent job covering American History. I will mostly be using the Lincoln part of our trip for my class, but the tools that I have gained to help me in my teaching are cross curricular. These tools along with the wide resource of fellow teachers that I met and befriended will continually make this trip unforgettable.
