“Are you with me?”
Are you with me? It's the question I pose throughout just about all of my lessons. It's what I ask students when they come in before school for one-on-one tutoring. It's the question that will occasionally show up on a worksheet or in a powerpoint after a long and...
read moreWhen One Curriculum Fails, Why Not Toss it and Start Fresh!
This semester I was asked to teach a curriculum about 19th century Social Movements. The curriculum was designed by a retired teacher who worked hard to create materials and resources that were well developed and modified for all learners. I began my journey teaching...
read moreMaking a Moot Court relevant
This semester I am teaching Constitutional Law to our 11th and 12th grade students at Essex Street Academy. In my class, largely driven by independent student work, we are exploring, investigating, and formulating opinions around some of the landmark Supreme Court...
read moreThe Supreme Court’s job is your job too!
One goal is to provide opportunities for Constitutional Law students to develop and defend their own arguments. Because the universe of information is vast, and students often need guidance on choosing quality sources, often I supply sources for the...
read moreThinking Like a Historian? Blog Post 2
Thinking Like a Historian! As per my first blog post, I grappled with the question How might we teach the skills and strategies needed to analyze materials and think like a historian? Originally when I began my journey with my problem of...
read moreIt’s Personal
The idea of student engagement is one that has always challenged me. On one hand, I know exactly what it means because I've spent more time in my life as a student than as anything else, it seems. I've experienced the excitement of sitting in classrooms and arguing a...
read moreAuthentic History Practice: Which narrative? Whose history?
In my first post I posed two Problems of Practice: How might I ensure that what all students are doing is an activity or task that a historian, in the midst of gaining new knowledge through research and analysis, would actually do in the course of their work? How...
read moreProtected: Believing that Your Work Matters
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Personal Connections in Con Law
One of my goals is to make sure students can personally connect to the work in Constitutional Law class. Fortunately, this is not difficult considering the Con Law is, in one sense, an ethics class and students are asked to judge (in the style of a SCOTUS justice) all...
read moreBridging the Gap
The inevitable question that boldly emerges in some form or another at the conclusion of a lesson well-taught, from the teacher's perspective at least, or that whispers in the ear of the student as they work to make meaning of a number of competing feelings after an...
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