Historical Thinking Skills

With the adoption of Common Core standards, history teachers are becoming more concerned with historical thinking skills. Many of us are happily leaving behind the long lists of content to be memorized. In fact, many history educators on Twitter blogged about that very topic on the new History Blog Circle, proposed by Joe Taraborrelli. I contributed to last month's topic here.

This month we are discussing how we plan for historical thinking. Recently the historical skills of my students have been put to the test through the National History Day competition. Students have been working on these since October and now I am assessing them. Over the past several months they learned new research skills. They learned more advanced Google searching techniques, they learned how to use library databases, and they had the opportunity to use the University of Washington's Graduate Library.

They were able to find great sources and analyzed them by using pre-made questions based on source type. However, as it came down to crunch time and I read their outlines, they struggled to put those sources to use in a historical argument. When I recommended they find a few primary sources to "beef-up" their arguments, they reverted to basic Google searching strategies.

They were asked to create Annotated Bibliographies and I was surprised at how much they struggled to make accurate citations. They turned entries in a total of four times, each full of red marks, and I am happy to say that most of them now have a better understanding of how to work with citations. Some of them even discovered Easybib for the first time.

At the heart of this project is a historical argument which they have showed competency in, in the past. Typically, they are able to do this with a "formulated" topic and given several resources. It certainly is more challenging to create your argument on your own in the midst of a vast array of sources. Some did it beautifully. However there were some that hardly incorporated the primary sources that had found (a certain number were required at checkpoints). One student did not use a single primary source.

It is hard to say if the students lacked the skills to complete this project well or if they did not commit the amount of time necessary to do this project well. Either way, I have learned a few things about what I would do differently in the future. An experienced NHD teacher advised that we incorporate the skills students need for this project in the content we are teaching all year. A few thoughts of what I can change:

• As a class we often look at primary sources together, but I think I should assess them more on an individual level. I know I already do this to a point, but I can always step it up.
• I also think I should regularly ask them to find scholarly articles and primary sources for class. 
• We often have inquiry questions and I allow students to do outside research, but I could include more detailed standards for those sources.
• Already in my "flipped mindset" of planning I am always trying to think of ways to gets students active in discovering their knowledge, not just sitting and hearing what they "are supposed to know for the test." But I think I need to open things up a little and allow them to develop historical arguments based on areas they are interested in. Like I said, I may be interfering too much, setting up the questions and often providing the resources.

I am excited about these changes and hope they will lead to improved historical thinking skills for my students.

On a related note, I think it may be a sin that I have not read Historical Thinking and Other Unnatural Acts: Chartign the Future of Teahing the Past by Sam Wineburg. Although I have read many similar books, I think I need to order it immediately.

"Just in Time" Learning and Part-Time Flipping

It has been awhile since my last update. Last time I was wrestling with helping my students find balance. They are overwhelmed with school and the National History Day projects. As far as the Middle Ages project, I did some "traditional" lecturing for two days instead of having students research and dig for information from a variety of resources. And then I had them actively apply it in project format. I gave them the choice of a board game, timeline, or European trip itinerary. Students could chose what project interested them and what felt manageable in terms of their strengths. They could work alone or in groups. I was able to lighten the load of the timeline student by directing them to this awesome tool. I felt happy about the "compromise." Although the accumulating information was teacher-driven, the application allowed the students to process the information and included student-choice.

For the next short chapter, I went back to the way I had been teaching it for years. Basically, in the past it had been a really fun unit for the students and resulted in learning. We had "Oprah: Crisis in the Church" skits, a Black Plague simulation, and a history bowl. It also helped keep homework loads light as students were working toward a big deadline for the NHD project. I was feeling a little guilty about not flipping this unit, but in the #flipping20 chat on Twitter, @kennybosch talked about the idea of Part-Time flipping, which he discussed in a chapter of the Flipping 2.0 book (Kenny's blog and book ordering information here). Basically, it boils down to the fact that you don't have to flip every unit. Just give it a try, get started, and you might find it works better for some units and not others.

Now we are back to flipping. I would call it flipped inquiry, but it is also taking on traits of Explore-Flip-Apply. My approach is based off of a Google Hangout I had with other flipped history teachers, in particular, @phillige. Students are trying to answer the question, "how did the Renaissance bring people both back to the past and into the future?" Students have been exploring websites and watching some videos to uncover the answer to that question. As they were exploring today, trying to come up with solid examples of "past" and "future," I was getting a lot of common questions. I talked over those key points aloud. But this is where the flip is needed. I plan to make a screencast going over those points I said in class today. Why make a video of it? Firstly, students researching at computers aren't always the best listeners. Secondly, maybe they didn't need that information yet. Carolyn Durley's awesome post talked about providing "just in time learning," rather than "just in case learning." Students are learning at different speeds. I noticed some kids struggling in the lab today, but some may not have been struggling yet and may need that information later. When I said it in the lab today, it may not have been relevant to those students. Even for the students that needed it at that moment, maybe they will need it again later. So I will "flip" that lecture, not because I planned to, but because that is what these students needed. Next, they will work to apply their knowledge by answering the focus question through an Art Gallery Tour. I look forward to seeing the results.

Enjoy the links above. The Flipped Community is about sharing, I would not be in this place, if it weren't for the inspiration of my Personal Learning Network (PLN). #thanksgiving

Introductions

Welcome! I teach Social Studies in a small, Christian school in the Seattle area. I am about to embark on my eighth year of teaching. Last year I began to dabble in flipped learning. I teach five preps a day so when decided to flip, I was only going to focus on my tenth grade American History class. I soon discovered the "flipped mindset" and found that it couldn't help but pour over into my other classes. I'll post some of my non-blogged reflections from last year at a later date. As I jump into the year ahead, focused on flipping my Western Civilization course, I am starting this blog as a reflection tool for myself and as a tool for other teachers interested in flipping. I know how valuable the blogs of other teachers were for me, so here I am to share my successes and failures.

One last thing I should mention, what is flipped learning? Or better yet, what is a flipped mindset? The definition I like is that of Twitter people (Cheryl Morris @guster4lovers, Andrew Thomasson @thomasson_engl, Karl Lindgren-Streicher @LS_Karl, Crystal Kirch @crystalkirch, and Kate Baker @KtBkr4---follow them) before me and originally stated and explained more in-depth here, is as follows:

• What is the best use of your face-to-face class time (in my opinion, NOT lecturing)
• Emphasize on higher-order thinking, not rote memorization
• Student-centered classroom--What are the students doing in class? Just sitting there staring into space? Or are they working, thinking, creating? It should be less about what the teacher is doing and more about what the students are doing.

And if you are really eager to learn more, get on Twitter and check out the #flipclass hashtag. The chat is on Mondays at 5pm PT. Twitter is basically where I learned everything I know about flipped learning, you can follow me @kaelynbullock.