Category Archives: assessment

Using Gapminder’cool data to create compelling questions

assessment, data, economics, geography, lesson plans, primary sources, strategies, , , ,

gapminder logo

Gapminder is an organization promoting sustainable global development by encouraging the use and understanding of statistics and other information about social, economic and environmental development at local, national and global levels.

Basically it’s a tool you and kids can use to compare and contrast countries around the world. So . . . teaching geography, world history, economics, comparative government? GapMinder is a tool you and your kids need to be using.

At GapMinder, you can access a variety of tools, lesson plans, and videos that help students understand the world and can help you generate a wide range of problems for your kids to solve.

One example of a lesson plan that uses GapMinder data can help your kids to think about the gaps in the world today and challenge their preconceived ideas about how the contemporary world looks. The exercise can also be used to stimulate an interest in using statistics to understand the world.

How to use the activity: Continue reading Using Gapminder’cool data to create compelling questions →

Winning the RACE of writing

Adam Topliff, assessment, best practice, literacy, strategies, writing, , ,

student-at-computerStudents + writing = frustration . . . sound like familiar?

The growing expectation of integrating writing  in our Social Studies classroom makes us as anxious about the process as our students. Why does this happen? There are a variety of factors that contribute to this fear and frustration but the most common that I hear from other teachers is

I don’t have a solid system to assist my kids with writing.

We teach a topic and then assess students by asking them to write a response or reaction. What do we get back? Continue reading Winning the RACE of writing →

It’s a Google World and I’m Just Teaching In It (Part 3)

assessment, best practice, Cassie Medley, google, strategies, ,

imgresLast school year I wrote two separate Google posts, one on using Google Forms in the classroom and one on using the Flubaroo add-on to create and grade quizzes.  This year I’m going to start off by updating both of those posts, because Google has completely updated their forms!  Not only can you create and grade quizzes without using an add-on now, but you can also get more advanced reports from your students’ responses.
Continue reading It’s a Google World and I’m Just Teaching In It (Part 3) →

H.I.T. Notebooks: A Different take on Interactive Notebooks

assessment, common core, graphic organizer, historical thinking, Jill Weber, literacy, standards, strategies, writing, , , , ,

jill weberJill Weber, 2016 Gilder Lehrman Kansas History Teacher of the Year, has joined the Doing Social Studies writing team and will be posting throughout the year. The following is a cross-post from her excellent site A View of the Web.

I used Interactive Notebooks in my social studies class for eight years.  The majority of the students loved them.  But I had a serious love/hate relationship with them.  And after taking a long look at the pros and cons of the books and my current curriculum, I decided not to continue with the interactive notebooks last year.

While I found it a relief not having to keep up with the grading of 60+ notebooks, there was something missing from my class.  I had a number of kids ask me why we weren’t doing them anymore, and others who were disappointed that the “hands on” cutting, pasting, and creativity was replaced with more writing assignments.  I felt guilty that my answer was “because I just couldn’t keep up with all the grading.”

That got me thinking on ways that I could bring the interactive notebooks idea back without having all the copious grading that went with it.  I talked with our language arts teacher, who uses her interactive notebooks as a tool to help organize materials and doesn’t grade it at all.  I liked that idea.

But I wanted more.  I wanted a way to hold kids accountable.  I wanted them to take pride in the organization and appearance of the book.  And, most of all, I wanted it to be used as something more than a storage device.  I want it to be something they will reference throughout the year.

The Idea:
Then an idea started to take form.  An idea to use the notebook more like a detective’s note book when trying to solve a crime.

So this year, we have: the  Historian In Training Notebook or HIT books. (HIT is a cool name for a middle school activity, right? )

The HIT notebook will be designed as sort of a history detective notebook that we’ll use to identify historical thinking techniques, analyze primary sources, keep information over specific historical questions, and refer back to skills learned throughout the year.

A few examples of possible pages  . . .  Continue reading H.I.T. Notebooks: A Different take on Interactive Notebooks →

It’s a Google World and I’m Just Teaching In It (Part 2)

assessment, Cassie Medley, computer, google, strategies, technology, websites, ,

Flubaroo_small_promo_440x280Building off of my last post about Google Forms, I want to introduce you to an add-on called Flubaroo which can turn your form into a self-graded quiz (yay for efficiency!).  The steps are very quick and simple, like most things in the Google universe, and is a great way to save some trees and implement technology in your classroom.

Continue reading It’s a Google World and I’m Just Teaching In It (Part 2) →