Will we be distance learning again next fall? Maybe. As you plan for that possibility, you might find these articles useful:

• "How Can Educators Tap Into Research to Increase Engagement During Remote Learning?" EdSurge, May 5, 2020.
• "The Single Most Essential Requirement in Designing a Fall Online Course"  by Cathy Davidson is aimed at college professors, but provides food for thought for K-12 teachers as well. It begins: "Let's start the week by repeating that a summer of planning for better online learning this Fall will be wasted if we do not begin from the premise that our students are learning from a place of dislocation, anxiety, and trauma. So are we. This is the single essential that must be built into the structure, assignments, thinking about what and how we will teach online in the Fall. Face to face too."

Whether instruction is face-to-face or at a distance, it's worth thinking about the big questions--especially in the summer when you aren't slammed by the daily grind. Here are some articles that might start you contemplating:

• "These are the 7 most important things our students should be learning. Or maybe not". Education blogger Glenn Wiebe wrote most of this a few years ago in response to a Washington Post article that asked "history gurus ... What are the most important things young people should be learning in school today?" (If you have time this summer, I highly recommend spending some of it with Glenn's blog--he's got an archive filled with practical suggestions as well as more philosophical posts like this one.) 
• ‘Schools are killing curiosity’: why we need to stop telling children to shut up and learn," The Guardian, January 28, 2020. (This isn't as annoying as the title suggests--it's really about the importance of teaching students to ask questions.

And speaking of... Harvard's Project Zero is offering a course on teaching that very skill from July 6-July 26: "Teaching Students to Ask Their Own Questions: Best Practices in the Question Formulation Technique".  It costs $199 per person (group rates are also available) and you will receive a certificate that you have completed 10 hours of instruction. I talked to a teacher who took this course and he said it was transformative.

Time to Explore

I wish you a happy, relaxing summer filled with good hikes and better books. I also hope you'll have time to do some digital exploring. If so, stop one should be at the Smithsonian, which has launched a "vast and diverse digital resource," Smithsonian Open Access, where you can download, share, and reuse millions of the Smithsonian’s images—right now, without asking. With new platforms and tools, you have easier access to nearly 3 million 2D and 3D digital items from our collections—with many more to come. This includes images and data from across the Smithsonian’s 19 museums, nine research centers, libraries, archives, and the National Zoo. And they aren't done: "the Smithsonian is committed to releasing over 3 million items throughout 2020 alone. Beyond 2020, it will add more items on a continuing basis as they are digitized, researched, and published online."

Recent Articles about Indian Country

I saw ""Returning to roots: The Fort Belknap Indian Health Service hospital is seeking applicants for two traditional practitioner positions — the first of their kind in Montana" in the Montana Free Press, May 15, 2020 ((if you don't subscribe to Montana Free Press, you should! And true to its name, it is free.) But the article is actually part of one of the Native Journalism Project, annual project featuring work by University of Montana journalism students.

Other stories featured in this year's project include

• A Thousand Miles from Crow Country (about Crow tribal members' work with the Field Museum to create “Apsáaalooke: Women and Warriors”)
• Meat for the Mind: Bison and the spiritual revitalization of the Sioux and Assiniboine
• and a series of articles on Coronavirus in Indian Country (scroll down). 
• Past issues have focused on a variety of topics, from Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women to tribal sovereignty. You can find even more issues here.  

Remember Newsela (the website that rewrites articles at a variety of Lexile levels)? They are now featuring an article originally published in the Christian Science Monitor: "For Native Americans, coronavirus looks heartbreakingly familiar."

On a somewhat unrelated note: please help me out by spending a few minutes completing our end of the year survey. The quality of this listserv depends on your input. If you have not yet shared your favorite Montana history lesson, how you've adapted MHS resources to distance learning, or expressed your opinion on what topics the listserv should focus on next year, please do. Everyone's favorite posts are the ones where I share what's worked in classrooms across the state, but I can't do that unless you tell me what's worked in your classroom. Need a little incentive? I added a prize for the fifty-second person to complete the survey. Will it be you?

Middle School Teachers, this is for you

Instead of one long post, I'm going to send out three more targeted posts this week, so ignore the ones that don't apply to you. But for middle school teachers looking for online resources, read on.

The National Archives' series of twenty-minute mini-webinars on using DocsTeach,  which offers tools to use primary sources from the National Archives. You can participate in person Wednesdays at noon Montana time or watch past webinars on YouTube.


Speaking of primary sources, check out this Image Analysis Choice Board to use with students analyzing maps, lithographs, photos or other images.

April Wills of Bainville, who is also a Teacher Leader in Montana history, discovered that Newsela has gathered all Montana-related articles under the heading "My State, My Community: Montana." If you don't know Newsela, you are in for a treat. The site takes written sources (including news articles and historical documents) and rewrites them at a variety of Lexile levels. Their toolkits provide information on using the site for distance learning.

Check out this article from Junior Scholastic on Navajo code-talkers during WWII: "The Code That Couldn’t Be Broken."

Do You Want to Be a Cowboy/Girl? is a new lesson I've excerpted from Unit 3 of our new fourth grade curriculum because I thought it could be easily adapted to distance learning. It was scheduled for classroom testing this spring along with the rest of the unit but life got in the way. I'm optimistic that it will be useful, however, in our current situation, so I went ahead and posted it. I'm sharing it with you because even though it was designed for fourth grade, distance learning makes it harder to scaffold material and these sources should be accessible and understandable to middle school students without scaffolding. Other "fourth grade" lessons that might work for middle school students include "Exploring Montana Today through Population Data," Part 1 of Montana Today: A Geographical Study. The resources we've gathered for biography projects may also be useful. These links to 48 Montana Biographies and The Gallery of Outstanding Montanans, and the Biographical Poems Celebrating Amazing Montana Women Lesson Plan. (The lesson plan is easily adaptable to include both men and women.) And, of course, there's always Montana: Stories of the Land, the accompanying teaching resources, including the Learning from Historical Document units.

And now a plea: The quality of Teaching Montana History depends on your input. If you have not yet shared your favorite Montana history lesson, how you've adapted MHS resources to distance learning, or expressed your opinion on what topics we should focus on next year, please click here to take our survey. Everyone's favorite posts are the ones where I share what's worked in classrooms across the state, but I can't do that unless you tell me what's worked in your classroom.

Need a little incentive? I’m adding another prize for the fifty-second person to complete the survey. Will it be you?

K-5 Teachers, this one's for you.

Instead of one long post, I'm going to send out three more targeted posts this week, so ignore the ones that don't apply to you. But for elementary teachers looking for online resources, read on--including you K-3 teachers.

Teaching Montana History is typically light on materials to help teach our youngest students, but here are a few:

Kid Citizen promotes itself as "a new way for young students (K-5) to engage with history through primary sources. ... In KidCitizen’s interactive episodes, children explore civics and government concepts by investigating primary source photographs from the Library of Congress. They also connect what they find with their daily lives." Episodes include a nice introduction to primary sources and episodes on topics like child labor, community helpers and the American flag. I haven't watched them all, but I did see episodes that were clearly designed for early elementary.

I've mentioned them before, but I love Songs from the Indian Reading Series so much I think they are worth mentioning again. These videos have Mariah Gladstone and Rob Quist performing songs based on stories available from the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory's Indian Reading Series (140 culturally relevant stories written and illustrated by Indian authors and illustrators.) Rob Quist sings and plays the guitar and Mariah Gladstone translates the lyrics into Indian Sign Language.

Upper elementary teachers may be interested in the National Archives' series of twenty-minute mini-webinars on using DocsTeach. You can participate in person Wednesdays at noon Montana time or watch past webinars on YouTube.

Do you ask your students to analyze primary source images? If so, check out this Upper Elementary Image Analysis Choice Board.

Do You Want to Be a Cowboy/Girl? is a new lesson I've excerpted from Unit 3 of our new fourth grade curriculum because I thought it could be easily adapted to distance learning. It was scheduled for classroom testing this spring along with the rest of the unit but life got in the way. I'm optimistic that it will be useful, however, in our current situation, so I went ahead and posted it.

Second grade teacher April Wills of Bainville, who is also a Teacher Leader in Montana history, discovered that Newsela has gathered all Montana-related articles under the heading "My State, My Community: Montana." If you don't know Newsela, you are in for a treat. The site takes written sources (including news articles and historical documents) and rewrites them at a variety of Lexile levels. Their toolkits provide information on using the site for distance learning.

And now a plea: The quality of Teaching Montana History depends on your input. If you have not yet shared your favorite Montana history lesson, how you've adapted MHS resources to distance learning, or expressed your opinion on what topics we should focus on next year, please click here to take our survey. Everyone's favorite posts are the ones where I share what's worked in classrooms across the state, but I can't do that unless you tell me what's worked in your classroom.

Need a little incentive? I’m adding another prize for the fifty-second person to complete the survey. Will it be you?

Resources for High School Teachers

Instead of one long post, I'm going to send out three more targeted posts this week, so ignore the ones that don't apply to you. But for high school teachers looking for articles, projects, and other online resources, read on.

The Rocky Mountain Laboratory in Hamilton is central to the search for a vaccine.  Ever wonder why such a facility is in Montana? Would your students be curious?  Here's an article on the history of the lab's work on yellow fever during WWII. The lab's own website also has information on its history.

Did you know that if you teach at a Title I high school you and your students can now get free subscriptions to the NY Times for two years.  (Government teachers: The Times also has weekly news quizzes--one for adults and one for students.)

Becoming US is a new educational resource from the National Museum of American History for high school teachers and students to learn immigration and migration history in a more accurate and inclusive way. Even if you don't end up using their lessons (which look good at a quick glance), you are definitely going to want to raid their collection of artifacts and documents.

An article and a video I also thought were worth sharing:

• Ellen Carol Dubois is a big name in women's history, so I was excited to see this article in National Geographic: "A pandemic nearly derailed the women's suffrage movement." 
• American Experience on PBS has a new seven hour series on the Chinese Exclusion Act. It looks as if it is all free to watch online. (For a Montana connection check out the National Archives lesson on Butte's anti-Chinese boycott and the lawsuit Butte Chinese merchants filed in response.

And now a plea: The quality of Teaching Montana History depends on your input. If you have not yet shared your favorite Montana history lesson, how you've adapted MHS resources to distance learning, or expressed your opinion on what topics we should focus on next year, please click here to take our survey. Everyone's favorite posts are the ones where I share what's worked in classrooms across the state, but I can't do that unless you tell me what's worked in your classroom.

Need a little incentive? I’m adding another prize for the fifty-second person to complete the survey. Will it be you?

Take Our Survey, and Maybe Win a Prize

May 6 is the last day of school for Rapelje. Congratulations, Rapelje teachers and students. You made it!

As yet another school year winds to a close, I’d appreciate getting your feedback on how to improve Teaching Montana History and how to improve the resources the Montana Historical Society offers educators (especially as we face the possibility that distant learning will continue in fall). As importantly, I hope you will take a moment to tell me about your best Montana history or IEFA lesson, so I can share it with teachers next year.

Would you be willing to take a short online survey? If so, click here.

Need a little incentive? I’m offering prizes to the fifteenth, thirty-first, and forty-second person to complete this survey.


P.S. Don't be confused. The survey refers to the listserv because that's how the information on this blog is delivered to most people, but the Teaching Montana History Listserv is the same as the Teaching Montana History Blog.

P.P.S. I'll continue posting for a little while now since most of us still have more school ahead of us--but wanted to get the survey out in order to reach everyone.

Link Roundup--and the Montana Meme-ory Challenge

COVID-19 and the News  Neighbors Helping Neighbors I quoted Mr. Rogers in a post a few weeks ago, and I'll quote him again: "Look for the helpers." Here are some stories of Montanans helpers: "Simms Donates Gowns to Montana Rural Hospitals," Bozeman Chronicle, April 29, 2020 "Girl Scouts Donate Cookies to Healthcare Workers," Montana Right Now, April 15, 2020 "12,000 Gallons of Milk Donated to Help Struggling Montana Families," Montana Right Now, April 14, 2020 COVID-19 and the Environment The internet has seen its fair share of fake environmental stories in the time of COVID-19. Here are two real ones:   "With Coronavirus Lockdown, India's Cities See Clear Blue Skies As Air Pollution Drops," NPR Montana Public Radio, April 10, 2020 "As humans stay indoors, wild animals take back what was once theirs," Washington Post, April 15, 2020 Montanans Contribute to Search for Vaccine Of course I clicked through to read "In Race for a Coronavirus Vaccine, an Oxford Group Leaps Ahead," New York Times, April 27, 2020. And of course I was surprised by this paragraph: "Scientists at the National Institutes of Health’s Rocky Mountain Laboratory in Montana last month inoculated six rhesus macaque monkeys with single doses of the Oxford vaccine. The animals were then exposed to heavy quantities of the virus that is causing the pandemic — exposure that had consistently sickened other monkeys in the lab. But more than 28 days later all six were healthy, said Vincent Munster, the researcher who conducted the test."  I wonder what your students would think about this--both the fact that Montanans are central in an international search for a vaccine and the fact that there is animal testing of this sort going on in Hamilton. Montana Meme-ory Contest The Montana State Library is hosting a contest to create memes (learn what a meme is here) from its historical photo collections in the Montana Memory Project (MMP).  Only entries using images from the Montana Memory Project Meme-able image list (these images are free from copyright restrictions) will be considered. Want to play?  Please keep a few things in mind when creating your entries: No swearing, crude language, or mean-spirited entries will be accepted (we are a community, after all).  Do not personally attack the people in the historical images in Montana Memory Project. They could be someone’s grandparents! Be thoughtful about the entries you create—we want to share them with the world and think you can come up with some funny, smart entries using the images. Find Your Image Browse the images in MMP. Once you have identified an image, click the “download” button near the upper right corner of the page. Once you have found the image you would like to use, save the link to that image as you will need that link when submitting your entry. Create Your Meme Go to your preferred meme generator to upload your image from MMP. We recommend https://memebetter.com/generator or https://imgflip.com/memegenerator. Add your text to the image and save it to your device. Submit Your Entry Submit your entry by emailing it to mmp@mt.gov. Use “Historical Photo Meme Contest” as the subject line. For your entry to be considered, include the following in your email: Your name Your meme as an attachment A link to the original image in the MMP Your age group: 10-18 19-40 41-120 HOW TO WIN! DEADLINE: Submit your entry by Friday, May 15, 2020. FINALISTS SELECTION: Library staff members will review entries and select the finalists. On Wednesday, May 20, 2020 finalists will be notified via email that their entry has been selected for the final round. The finalists’ entries will be posted to an album on the MMP Facebook page and opened for voting. VOTING: The voting period will run from Wednesday, May 20– Thursday, May 28, 2020 at 9:00 p.m. (MST). The winning memes will be the top three entries with the most “likes” on Facebook at the time the voting period ends. Voting is open to all. Boost your submission by sharing to twitter and Instagram and invite your friends to vote on Facebook. Be sure to tag @montanamemoryproject.