Summer already seems a very long time ago, doesn't it? But I'm still marveling over what I learned from our Teacher Leader summit last June.
To back up: Two years ago we brought seven elementary teachers to Helena for a Teacher Leaders in Montana History summit. We invited four of them back this summer, along with seven middle school teachers. These eleven teachers are all willing to offer presentations at school, district, or regional professional development trainings. They've also offered to visit with teachers who are looking for new ideas one-on-one. You can learn more about the the 2018-2019 Teacher Leader Fellows and their special areas of interest here.
My favorite part of the summit was something we called "ten minutes of awesomeness." Each Teacher Leader fellow had ten minutes to share something awesome. Here are a few of the ideas folks shared:
20 Question Reveal. As an anticipatory set, place a historic image in a slide. Cover that photo with a twenty box grid. Have students play 20 questions. For each question they ask, reveal a different box in the grid to show part of the photo. Ruth Ferris wrote directions here.
Kahoot. Did you know that your fellow Montana history teachers have been creating quizzes on Kahoot for Montana: Stories of the Land? I won't explain Kahoot to you, because I've been told it is old, old news (although I had never played Kahoot until the summit). At Jennifer Hall's urging, I looked and saw quizzes created by MrsJenniferHall, dandonde, and lepperson for chapters 1-7 and 9-11. That's almost half the chapters in the book.
Historical personages on social media. How about a War of the Copper Kings Twitter fight! Jennifer Graham has her students do this and it sounds hilarious and educational. Alternately, consider having students create Fakebook pages for historical figures. We talked about both of these ideas at the June summit--then the idea gained even more traction for me in August when I read a post written by one of my favorite social studies education bloggers, Glenn Wiebe, suggesting students create "I-Phones of the Past" (see 5 in his list of back to school ideas for details. And see also the PDF graphic organizer he created to help you implement the idea.)
The other Moments of Awesomeness were equally awesome, and some of them even featured our lesson plans, including Poems for Two Voices, The Art of Storytelling: Plains Indian Perspectives, Montana Women at Work: Clothesline Timeline Lesson Plan, Mapping Montana, A to Z, Lesson Plan, and the PowerPoint " 'What Would You Bring?' Emigrant Families on Montana's Gold Rush Frontier."
If you want to bounce ideas off of an experienced teacher about how to improve your Montana history class, or if your school is looking for a presenter for an upcoming professional development, I hope you'll consider contacting one of the 2018-2019 Teacher Leader Fellows. And if you are a high school teacher, think about applying next spring for a 2019-2020 Fellowship.
On another note entirely: I just learned that the National Geographic Society is offering their Educator Certification program online. The course is self-paced and runs to December 2, 2018. Teachers and other educators will connect with other teachers across the country as well as learn how to develop an explorer mindset in their students. Visit the National Geographic Society's website to register for the course. The deadline to register is October 21, 2018.
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