The Need to "DO" History

Over the Christmas holiday, I picked up the book "Reinventing Project Based Learning" by Suzie Krauss and Jane Boss. All this year I had been using wikis, blogs, and podcasts in my U.S. History classroom, but I wanted to know how I could more effectively utilize these in a project based manner. The book has a ton of great information in it, but what really stuck out to me was something that I read in chapter three Imagining the Possibilities. In it, the authors state the following:

"What big ideas, what core concepts and processes, should students know after studying with you...A history teacher expects students to appreciate how history shapes culture and to understand the techniques of historians."

Hmmm...the techniques of historians. What exactly are the techniques of historians? Was this something that was ever specifically taught and stressed to you in your history classes growing up? Should it have been?

I've been teaching American history for seven of my eleven years as an educator and in that time, I can not think of one instance in which I as a history teacher was asked to focus on teaching my students the processes and techniques of the historian. The curriculum has always focused on students learning about the people, places, and events of the past, but specifically learning the "historian's craft" has not been an expectation. When considering the future of my students I wonder which will have more intrinsic value for them, memorizing events, people, and places of the past or learning the historian's craft for themselves.

"Learning" history and "doing" history are not the same. I need to teach my students how to "do." I need to learn the techniques of the historian.


Photo by Eduardo Amorim

Connecting Rural Arkansas & Seeking a Historian

While checking out the news online this morning, I came across an interesting video on MSNBC titled the "Magic School Bus." The segment covers a group of students in rural Arkansas and has them, "In Their Own Words," describe how the use of technology in their school has changed and affected their learning.




The comments that the students make are good reminders as to why we as educators have to evolve our teaching styles and find ways to utilize the benefits of technology into our teaching pedagogy. Just listen again to the words spoken by Ethan at the end of the video when she describes how the program has allowed her to "learn more" and get a better understanding, "...of what a real world scientist and mathematician" might be like.

After watching the video, I'm reminded of how much more willing and able students are to pursue their own learning when they are given the means to do so and second, how technology can simulate the practices of professionals using it in the real world.

Being that I'm a History teacher, I began to wonder about the technology tools being used by professional Historians in our world today. How do they go about sharing, collaborating, organizing, and researching information? How many of their real world technology methods could I incorporate in my class?

I understand the need for my students to have an understanding of America's history, but as I contemplate my role as a Social Studies teacher in the classroom of today, I tend to find that more and more of my job needs to focus on teaching my students the skills and methods that go into the process of "being" a Historian. Wouldn't the skills and processes involved in being a Historian be more beneficial to needs of my students in the 21st century?

Timeless Videos

Benefit #1294 of utilizing wikis and blogs in Social Studies classroom instruction.

Being able to embed SchoolHouse Rocks Videos

FIREWORKS


HOW A BILL BECOMES A LAW


Being able to embed these videos within our class wiki in connection to the topics we are studying in class has been a fun and enjoyable resource to have. Often after the students have had the night before to look at them, they will come to class the next day with the most of the song memorized and be wanting to challenge one another to see who can recall more of the song. It amazes me to see that still today, these songs are as powerful and addictive to young people as they were when I was there age twenty years ago.

Try them for yourself. I have no doubt that after you've heard them again that you too will be singing them too.

"Spinning History" Project Results

How podcasting was integrated into our 8th grade U.S. History class for studying the events leading up to the American Revolutionary war.



Procedure:

#1 - The handout describing our podcast project.

#2 - Students worked in small groups of 5-6 people to designate specific roles and develop their group's strategy for how they would present a bias report of the event assigned to them. Once the roles had been assigned and an agreed upon strategy chosen, each student for homework had to continue their own research and write their individual script for their part of the broadcast.

#3 - In the next class the students shared the individual script they had written with their peers and the group continued to collaborate and edit each others piece into one script. To improve collaboration for this part of the project, the students used Google Docs.



#4 - My colleague and 8th grade English teacher at K.I.S., Lynn Bilbrey, used the Six Traits Writing process to help the students improve their scripts. She was gracious enough to write up the process she used in her class so that I can share them here.

#5 - On day three, the students were ready to present. Using an iPod with a Belkin Voice Recorder to record the podcast, each group came to a table in the center of the room and shared their script with the rest of the class.




Since K.I.S. will not be going 1:1 in the MS until next year, the task of editing the podcasts and uploading them to our class site was left to me. It took a bit of time, but the process was a good one for me as a teacher to go through. It allowed me to learn more about using the program GarageBand as well understand how much work and time would be required if a student were to be doing this type of project on their own. You can listen to all of the Spinning History podcasts here.

Have you "ideated" lately? Have you shaken things up?

ideate from ax09001h on Vimeo.

IBM has produced a number of commercials that I believe really apply to us as teachers and educators too. After seeing the above posted commercial, I started thinking of the following:

• When was the last time I came up with new ideas, structures, processes, or innovations for my classroom and the type of learning that is occurring within its walls?

• Do my students get to "ideate" or do I do all of the "ideating" for them?

• Do I give my students the power, the courage, or the time to try and do something new?
• Do I provide them the opportunity to think differently so that one day in the future they could "shake up the world?"
  
• Do I need to stop talking and start doing?
  

When you ask yourself these same questions, do you come up with good answers for them? If not, it's time for you to "IDEATE" my friend.

Evidence for what a 21st century education can provide?

The video you see above was created by an 18 year old British student. What's just as impressive as the video is what happened to the student after he uploaded his final creation to YouTube. The Orloff-Williams advertisement agency, located in the Silicon Valley, noticed the video on YourTube, saw the number of hits and positive comments people were making to it, and decided to offer the 18 year old an advertising position in their agency.

See the news story for yourself below.


Teen creates Apple's new ad

What remains to be told about this story is how much of the skills the student used to create this video came from the education and learning he received in school. It would be great if when he was asked how he learned to create the video he could say,

"If it wasn't for what I learned in school about visual media and using technology, I never would have been able to create the product that I did."

When our students are able to say phrases such as this with regards to their personal educational experience in school, we as educators will be able to pause for a moment and take solace in knowing that we are finally providing our students with a meaningful 21st century education.

Spinning History with Podcasts

My 8th grade U.S. History students are currently studying the events that contributed to the major conflict between the colonists and Great Britain known as the American Revolutionary war. These events include things such as the Sugar Act, the Stamp Act, the Boston Massacre, and the Boston Tea Party. In gathering some ideas from other teachers, whose lessons and ideas are on the web, as well as my own imagination and creativity, I've created a project called "Spinning History." In short, our classroom has been divided in two (1/2 British and 1/2 British colonists) and students have been instructed to create a script for a news radio program that will deliver a historic account of the events as they took place, but at the same time will be biased towards the ones who are telling the story.

I'm collaborating with our 8th grade English teacher who is using the Six Traits writing model to ensure that students have creative and interesting leads for each segment of their news broadcast, and that their final script is biased (persuasive) and contains all of the proper conventions. After the students have developed their news program script, their broadcast will be recorded and upload onto our class wiki and students will be able to listen to each others podcasts and learn how similar events can be interpreted differently or purposely be misconstrued.

In the future I would like to do this same project again, but rather than have half of my students pretend they are British, I'd rather find and connect with an actual class from Great Britain. This would allow my students to compare two historic interpretations of a single event and see what similarities and differences exist. Imagine the type of debate the students would have over the events of the Boston Massacre or the Boston Tea Party. How are famous colonial men like Patrick Henry and Samuel Adams interpreted by the British ? How will could my students defend their American history and its interpretation of events if it was challenged by another group of students from another country? Could they defend their countries actions or might new questions arise? Would our British counterparts find in flaws in their country's interpretation of events? How much pride and patriotism would my students uncover within them?

If you have any comments or suggestions for this project, please post them in a comment. I'd appreciate any thoughts you may have.

"Tight Spin" photo by Aaron Wagner