Start with a Question

This morning Alfie Kohn  posted this Tweet: Courses should be created WITH students, not just for them. If a course doesn't vary considerably from yr to yr, something's wrong — Alfie Kohn (@alfiekohn) March 24, 2015 It made me think about how some teachers put real effort into revising their lessons year to year, while others might pull out the same readings and questions no matter whether they really helped students learn or not.  Do I revise and improve my class activities enough each year?  My 10th grade Civil War infographics lesson is one example.  Last year I wrote a how-to guide for helping students create infographics as proof if their learning.  I was lucky enough that it was noticed and picked up by EdSurge as part of their Fifty States Project .  Now that I've gone through the process again this year with my students and I've improved the experience a bit, there are some important lessons learned. 1. Clarify the Goal Last year my stu...

My students, who live in a quiet suburb north of Boston, are suddenly starting to feel like their work is making a difference. In December some of them shared their ideas for the innovative classroom remotely to a conference in Disney World . Two weeks ago a few more presented to a room full of teachers and administrators on the benefits of a paperless model.  And now a few of them have a national audience thanks to a  published article with EdSurge . Click the image to read the article. The Fifty States Project ( #edsurge50 ) is the brainchild of Associate Editor Mary Jo Madda . Her mission is explained in this great video. EdSurge and Mary Jo are providing an opportunity for teacher voices to he heard by business and political leaders who develop education products and policy. Not only that, even my students feel like their work is connected with the real world because their work was linked to the article . One of them even tweeted about it this m...

Infographics are a visually stunning way to deliver facts and statistics to readers.  They have become incredibly popular recently on Pinterest, Twitter, and lots of other social media tools because users are looking for a quick way to get reliable information.  Great infographics answer questions that people are interested in answering. They also require lots of research, reading, and analysis to create. Sounds like a perfect activity for my students. Lesson Preparation Essential Question First, I needed to create an essential question.  Answering this question would be the goal of their infographic.  As an introduction to our Civil War unit, our essential question was: How did the differences between the North and South affect each region's strategy and success in the Civil War? Numbers to Crunch Next, I needed to provide the information and data my students needed to answer the question.  I found a few sources for statistics: slavery statistics I...