I am a member of a blogging community, #sunchatbloggers, that supports each other in a shared blogging adventure through ideas, encouragement, and comments. We decided to write about a central topic this month, a top five list of best practices. Because we all come from such varied teaching backgrounds the lists range from tech tools, increasing student talk, building rapport, etc. I don't often write about what goes on in my History class, and tend to focus on the language arts side of teaching when it comes to my blog posts, so I decided to dedicate my top five list to all of the History teachers out there. Not only am I sharing my ideas for making History awesome, but there are at least five lessons in this post that you can add to your drive to spice up your History curriculum.
Top 5 Strategies for Whipping up Engagement in History Class
1. Create Ambiance with a Field Trip and Some Mood Music
2. Mix in Some Modern Media
3. Add Pinch of Play
4. A Dash of Mystery
5. Blend with Costumes
Serve up some delicious lessons that make History stick to the roof of their mouths like wonder bread.
2. Mix in Some Modern Media
3. Add Pinch of Play
4. A Dash of Mystery
5. Blend with Costumes
Serve up some delicious lessons that make History stick to the roof of their mouths like wonder bread.
1. Create AMBIANCE-set the Mood with a field trip
You don't need a Magic School Bus or a time traveling Delorian to go on an amazing field trip; you do need wifi though. You can create your own field trip with Google Maps or one of my new favorite tools, Tour Builder. Have students create a virtual field trip for an end of unit project. Students can explore ancient artifacts through Google's Cultural Institute. There is no shortage of tools to make history come alive for your students, and you don't even need to collect money or permission slips.
Someone Just discovered Petra on their Google Trek.
Music is another great was to enhance the mood
There is no greater reward than hearing kids singing about the Euphrates River, or the fall of the Mayan civilization in the hallways after a history lesson.
We love watching parodies of pop songs about History. We "close read" these music videos, use them as timers for vocabulary games, and these students liked them so much they wrote their own song. To read more about how I use music videos in History class, click on "Getting Our Groove on in History Class" below.
2. Mix in Some Modern Media
So much of what we learn about in History has an impact on who we are as a society today. It is important for students to make those connections so that what they can see the relevance in what we are learning about, and an element of pop culture can help to create more engaging lessons. Take my "This is Sparta" lesson, for example:
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In this unit there are references to the "Rich Kids of Instagram", "Deadpool", and so much more. Click on the button below to copy my "This is Sparta" Hyperdoc unit to your Google drive.
Can you infuse a little Pokemon love into your History class? Yes! Check out my full Top Ten list of Ways to Evolve Your Curriculum with PokemonGo.
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With a little creativity, the possibilities for mixing in a little media are endless! Students can create political cartoons, perform epic rap battles, create memes that sum up historic speeches, conduct podcast interviews, act out a "Wife Swap" that illustrates cultural differences among ancient civilizations, the possibilities are limitless. Why not update a timeline lesson and allow students to show a sequence of events through a social media feed? While doing a mythology unit, in my English class my students had a project that involved creating a Facebook page illustrating the Ares, Aphrodite & Hephaestus love triangle. You can use that lesson as a template, add it to your drive and make the necessary adjustments to apply it to your current biography project in History.
3. A Pinch of Play
There are so many ways to incorporate gaming into history! My first attempt at gamifying history happened during a unit on the Ancient Civilizations of India. For a final project, students created games about Buddism and Hinduism. Their creative games included themes like following the Eight-fold Path to Enlightenment, Karma, and more. The project wrapped up right before Open House, so we turned our Open House into a Family Game night. I wasn't blogging at the time, but fortunately I did write about my second attempt at a game based project. (Blogging is great because it helps me to remember how I did something, as well as what I want to change next time.)
During a unit on Ancient China my students created games around the topic of traveling the silk roads. Not only did I write about it, but I also created a Hyperdoc lesson to share, so that other teachers could try out this project too. Click on the button below to read the post and check out the lesson. If you click on "file" and then "make a copy" you can add this Hyperdoc to your Google drive and edit it to make it work for the unit you are planning.
During a unit on Ancient China my students created games around the topic of traveling the silk roads. Not only did I write about it, but I also created a Hyperdoc lesson to share, so that other teachers could try out this project too. Click on the button below to read the post and check out the lesson. If you click on "file" and then "make a copy" you can add this Hyperdoc to your Google drive and edit it to make it work for the unit you are planning.
These gaming projects did take up a fair amount of class time because students needed time to create their games and then there was additional time for students to play each others games and evaluate them. For a shorter, less involved project try out vocabulary based games, like HeadBanz. My friend Lisa Guardino was nice enough to make a document that lays out the rules for this game. You can get it HERE. If you are not following her on Twitter, you should because she is amazing and so is her blog. Thanks Lisa.
Another game I have recently discovered, thanks to Dave Burgess, is Bingo. The #TLAP crew had a game of virtual bingo during the presidential debates and we played along at home. I have never seen my kids (I mean my own) so engaged in a newsworthy event. It got me thinking. When I show a video in class, my some of my students behave as if we are having a movie day and participate in various inattentive and sometimes disruptive behaviors. It makes me a little crazy because I wouldn't show a video if I hadn't first watched it and deemed it to be a valuable learning experience. So I tried out this bingo game in class during our next video. I did not have to manage any behavior! Students were hanging on every word! I have included links to both the Burgess Bingo and my History Video Bingo Adaptation below.
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Okay, maybe that was more than a pinch. I could easily turn this top 5 blogging challenge into a top 10 on ways to incorporate games into your History class, but I will save that for another time.
4. A Hint of Mystery
History is shrouded in mystery; from Easter Island to The Valley of the Kings. Instead of teaching a chapter from the textbook, why not pose questions and have students investigate? I turned my students into myth-busting, history detectives in this choose your own adventure Hyperdoc. The class was presented with a set of case files and chose the one that was the most interesting to them. They "solved" the cases and presented their findings to the class. There is a link to this Hyperdoc lesson below. If you teach Egyptian history, just make a copy to add it to your drive.
History is Boring: MYTH BUSTED
We played a little bad presentation Bingo while we were entertained by amazing student presentations that featured skits, re-enactments, an alien, and a special appearance from Jamie from the hit show MythBusters (sort of).
5. Blend in Some Costumes
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| Whether you're walking like an Egyptian, recreating a Roman version of a Norman Rockwell painting, or finding Waldo in a geography lesson, costumes always up the engagement factor of whatever it is you are teaching. Post Halloween costume shopping, is where I find the best deals on props and I have a whole section of my supply closet that is just for costumes and props. They aren't just for me either! Students use them for presentations and re-enactments as well-except for my hats. Costumes don't have to be expensive and elaborate. The best reaction that I ever got from a class was when we did a marshmallow challenge on the first day of school and I stepped into the closet to get a measuring tape and came out with a Stay Puft Marshmallow man ski mask on. Costumes and props are an instant signal to your class that something fun is going to be happening and that creates a sense of excitement about your lesson. |  |
History does not have to be boring! How do you serve up this tasty dish?
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