For this feature, I interviewed recent high school graduate, Patrick McDonough. Patrick attended Hope Advantage, a homeschool co-op, from 5th through 12th grade where he received top honors, and was involved in various extracurricular activities, such as drama and yearbook committee. An avid tinkerer, Patrick loves to take apart anything from cars to computers, in […]
In this post I explore three resources that can help American History teachers engage their students. Building on my previous American History post, Reacting to the Past, Digital History and WebQuest.org can all help educators connect the events of the past with current technologies and methods of understanding. These resources will not only aid students […]
The experience of many students in Social Studies classrooms has produced a culture of young people who are not only apprehensive to engage the disciplines (see my Introductory Post), but who also lack the critical and historical thinking skills associated with and taught within them. Many students experience difficulty in engaging course material, especially in […]
In this post I discuss three functional resources that can help teachers link content from their geography courses to historical thinking and technology. Building on my first geography post, I list ideas and methods for effective implementation of these resources (Google Earth, Gapminder and If It Were My Home) so that students not only better […]
The concepts now associated with Ohio’s Geography standards for high school education greatly emphasize the themes found within Merriam-Webster’s current definition of globalization. Now, instead of simply educating students about the physical landscape of the Earth (and the various scientific factors included within that school of thought), teachers are also being tasked with the lofty […]
Most often when students are polled about their experience in History or Social Studies classrooms, they give a common response: “it’s just boring, useless, memorization of facts.” As stated by James W. Loewen, author of Lies My Teacher Told Me, “High school students hate history. When they list their favorite subjects, history always comes in […]