I am sure these brain teasers will come in handy in some class at some point. The key is given too. Let your mind go and use your creative thinking skills. Good Luck.
(Generated using this site: http://worksheets.theteacherscorner.net/make-your-own/brain-teasers/)
Today I learnt about Evernote. I have been using it on and off for a while, but I was aware that I was not using its full functionality. So I attended a free #evernotemeetup, organised by Bec Spink. I came away with many new ideas and I feel inspired to organise myself better. I look forward to using Evernote in the classroom and in my personal life.
Ways to use Evernote in the classroom:
Using Evernote in Personal / Professional life:
I know I’m only scratching the surface with this powerful tool, I’ll share more when I discover more.
Below is my overview of the tweets sent during the Evernote meetup: Continue reading “Evernote in education”
This was the first night of #histedchat for 2014. We had many participants and some great discussions.
The questions were as follows:
Time went so fast that we skipped Q4, pity really, because I’m genuinly interested in what other history teachers hang on their walls. Might be something for a future chat.
Below you find all the Tweets sent in the Histedchat hour. I did try to make a Storify but that site just never ceases to frustrate me. Hard to get all the tweets in, many double ups, glitchy site… the annoyances just never stop. I “harvested” the tweets below by copying and pasting them from Tweetchat, which is a live site that shows all tweets in a certain hast tag. I hope you find the Tweets easy to read and interesting. See you all in #histedchat in two weeks. Continue reading “Histedchat 12/02/14: A succesful History classroom”
I am enrolled in the Coursera Course “Critical Thinking in Global Challenges” by Professor Mayank Dutia, Dr. Celine Caquineau from Edinburgh University. It is good to see how a MOOC is run and the course contains great videos and some very stimulating reading materials. I can already see how I can apply these skills to improve my students’ essay writing skills. Critical thinking means to gather and assess information in a logical, balanced and reflective way to reach conclusions justified by reasoned arguments based on the available evidence…. That to me sounds exactly like what a good IB History Essay should be like.
I hope to write some more posts about what I am learning. Here is the first one:
Essential Concepts in Critical Thinking
I see more and more amazing examples of “colorized” (You have to use the US spelling to get more results on Google) photos and “ghosts of history” photos. New technology is really bringing history to life. Look at these two photos:
The original, from Reddit. The comments at the bottom of the Reddit stream are worth reading.
The “Ghost of History” version, combining the old and new version: (see Reddit comments here) Continue reading “Colorized Photos, Ghosts of History”
It promises to be a great year for World War One Historiography. In the first week of 2014 UK’s Tory Secretary of Education Michael Gove started a heated debate about the way the centenary of WW1 should be commemorated. Gove attacked the “Left-wing” and “the Blackadder” interpretations WW1. Twitter erupted in response and soon many respected historians weighed in on the debate. I found all of these viewpoints fascinating so I collected some of the recent articles and summarised them. Below you will find key excerpts of articles by Richard Evans, Gary Sheffield and Nigel Birrar. I outlined book reviews of Christopher Clark, Sean McMeekin and Margaret McMillan and there is a great article by History teacher John Blake. I included an old interview (YouTube) with Niall Ferguson on his book “The Pity of War” and there is a fantastic Twitter discussion between History teacher Russel Tarr and Historians Simon Schama, Tom Holland and Gary Sheffield.
It is vital for any society to discuss historical interpretations so we should be thankful to Michael Gove for igniting this debate. It also highlights the importance of good History teachers, they should present students with different viewpoints and let them arrive at their own well-informed and well-substantiated conclusions.
‘History: the best debates and the best arguments’ #historyteacher #histedchat http://t.co/YXMq9Ce7bc
Download a Word version of the WW1 historiography dinner party. The sheet contains student tasks and all information in this post.
Continue reading “Historians on World War 1, the debate goes on”
“If This, Then That” (IFTTT, pronounced as IFT) is the best way to automate tasks and connect different parts of your internet social ventures.
I think it’s best explained with an example:
I use Diigo (see earlier post: Why I love Diigo) but also like the functionality that Evernote offers. I did not want to have two separate curating and archiving tools, I want them to talk to eachother. IFTTT can do that:
The holidays have started and it is nearly Christmas. Now is a good time to take a step back and be reminded that it’s about making the most of the fleeting moments that we are lucky enough to be conscious of in the great lottery of the uni/multiverse.
I’ll start with a famous creation story by the environmentalist David Brower. He calculated that if the earth was only 6 days old, human beings would have only been around less than half a second before mid night on the last night. When I read things like that, as a parent, a history teacher and a human being, I am struck by how we are simultaneously insignificant and very powerful.
I am also including the first page of Bill Bryson’s masterful “A Short History of Nearly Everything”. He makes it very clear that we are nothing but star dust; I love it. We should all realise that our daily worries and stresses are insignificant in the greater scheme of things…. Continue reading “Taking a step back to see the greater scheme of things….”
I am on a steep learning curve when it comes to criterion-referenced assessment. Like many teachers, I have used the standard norm-referenced assessment model for years. This is recognizable to everyone, for example: Question 1 asks for three main points. If the student identified the three points, three marks are awarded. In contrast to this, criterion-referenced assessment works with pre-defined criteria which describe increasing levels of success in understanding the curriculum. The more I read about it and work with it in the MYP and the IB DP, the more I see how using criterion-referenced assessment allows for a more sophisticated understanding and assessment of a student’s learning, skill and knowledge.
The example below shows what an MYP criterion (in “Individuals and Society”) looks like: Continue reading “Good learning, criterion-referenced assessment, feedback and learning objectives”
Teachers play a vital role in fostering a positive attitude towards learning. John Hattie, Carol Dweck and Daniel Pink have done great work on researching student efficacy, mindset and motivation. In this post, I have collated some of their ideas.
Carol Dweck is the key authority regarding the growth mindset. She makes the following points:
Hattie suggests that self-efficacy, aspirational, and other psychosocial influences account for considerable variance in academic achievement.
a Dweck shows how to address this by promoting a Growth Mindset in the classroom. Continue reading “Motivation, mindset, students’ efficacy”