Portfolio
Below are a few sample materials so you can get a sense of my planning and teaching styles. Feel free to try them out in your own classroom.
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To learn more about my teaching philosophy and how my classroom works, check out my blog for educators.
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AP HISTORY LEQ GUIDES
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These guides are a student resource for writing LEQ essays, tailored to the AP History exams. Rather than teaching the essay structure up front, these guides are designed to reinforce writing skills after explicit classroom instruction.
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Provide these to all of your students as a reference, or use them as a differentiation tool to help struggling writers.
AP WORLD UNIT 4
TRANSOCEANIC CONNECTIONS (1450-1750)
A Digital Unit for the Remote or Computer-Based Classroom
This is a digital unit, requiring each student to have internet access and a device on hand each day. It is designed for both the remote and in-person classroom, where students can develop their historical knowledge and the technology skills that they will need in their future colleges or careers.
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The materials were created with Google Apps for Education with Nearpod integration.
To use them, simply download the "Nearpod Add-On" for Google Slides and upload into Nearpod for an interactive lesson.
Alternatively, make a copy of the slides and replace the interactive Nearpod slides with your own traditional slides.
GLOBAL HISTORY
THE ENLIGHTENMENT & REVOLUTIONS
Annotation Task with Differentiation Routine
These two lessons will teach your students annotation skills. Although originally created for an in-person class in which students work on computers, both lessons also work well in a remote setting. The task itself is aligned to the New York State Global History & Geography Regents Exam, in which students are asked to identify enduring issues in sources.
Both lessons can be easily modified to incorporate other types of annotation skills and content.
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These lessons work together to provide differentiation in the classroom. Day 1 introduces the task with a teacher model and the student option to work independently or within a small group. Afterwards, complete a data analysis of student work to group the class into three sections: Red, Blue, and Purple. Day 2 asks the students to complete the same task, with a new set of documents. The red team will work independently, the blue team will work in a student-led small group, and the purple team will work in a teacher-led small group.
Originally designed for Google Apps, each classwork document can be posted and "assigned" to students individually on Google Classroom, so that each student receives only the classwork designed for their group.
This differentiation structure can be used often and for all types of activities.
It is a successful routine in my own classroom.
AP HISTORY
INTRO TO THE DBQ
Writing Workshop
This writing workshop is designed to introduce AP History students to the DBQ Essay. It introduces the rubric, major concepts, and skills using a fun and light-hearted topic familiar to the students: video entertainment. Use the variety of documents to teach your students how to analyze different types of sources and use that analysis to write a DBQ essay.
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This workshop was originally designed to be taught in a digital classroom, either remotely or in-person with computers. I created it with Google Apps for Education and Nearpod. Download the Nearpod Add On for Google Slides to create an interactive lesson in seconds, or make a copy of the slides and replace the Nearpod activities with your own traditional slides.
While I taught this workshop in three class periods, it can easily be extended to 4 or 5 class days, depending on the speed at which your students work. Extension options can incorporate an extra day for document analysis or writing, a peer revision session, or a self-reflection.