Article Review: Outdoor Education

Wood, Karan. The Field of Dreams (and Other Outdoor Classroom Myths). Green Teacher Summer 2006; Issue 79, CBCA Education. 35 – 39.

Hey Everyone,

Using an Elementary School in Georgia, this article looks at 3 myths around creating well-used outdoor classrooms. The three myths are 1. If you Built it, Teachers will use it, 2. Everything I Need to Know About Science is in a Book, and 3. Once in Motion, and Outdoor Program Stays in Motion.

The good points this article brought up were that before assembling a board to make something for the school, talk to the teachers about what they think would be useful. This article missed out on discussing that students should be given a voice, too, but it definitely highlighted the importance of combining the community with the teachers to produce something fantastic for a school. It also emphasized in the second myth how many textbooks need to be supplemented to fulfill the teaching standard, and how by creating kits to take outdoors, this ES was able to address that issue and incorporate learning in a new setting. The point that came through again and again was the importance of establishing a foundation of support around new programs, not only to start them, but especially to maintain them and the sites created.

This article was great at demonstrating the mutual benefits of bridging communities to the school, and vice versa, with the establishment of outdoor programs and facilities. The most valuable lesson that teachers saw first hand was that “explain[ing] a concept fully before student investigation takes places, or demonstrat[ing] what is supposed to happen before allowing students to experiment for themselves, takes away the intellectual benefits and excitement of the discovery process” (3). This seems to be a concept that makes sense in writing, but something that is difficult to conciously provide space to occur in practice.

This article is very accessible to read and has some good points to consider about expanding your classroom, and how to make that possible. If you're interested in outdoor ed, take a quick read!

Since were doing this for our tech clas

So a lot of us have to make an E-binder for our technology course, a staple of tools we can take with us to integrate tech resources in the classroom.. Ive gained a lot from lurking the old posts in this blog and a bunch of other things ive found here and there so I thought it might be useful to share a bunch of the links with everyone. Havent gone through everything in the archives of this blog yet, but im working on it. Tech Class is a loooong 3 hours. The title of this post will link to my edublog ebinder and it will continue to grow as I add to it during class every Wednesday

Anyways, here is what I have so far with the short annotation:

Technical Resources:

Standards Toolbox

http://www.standardstoolbox.com/ – Standards toolbox is a free open source piece of software that runs on linux and offers a comprehensive lesson plan generator for teachers to streamline the process of creating a day to day classroom plan. Also has extensions if used by school administrators, and allows you and colleagues to coordinate your work and lessons easily via email and web publishing. A very dynamic and useful tool.

Igoogle

http://www.google.com/ig - Igoogle is a useful resource because it provides an organizational dashboard for teachers. A socials instructor showed it to his department during our 2 week observation and I immediately started using it. It provides quick access to your email, to-do list, calendar, weather, news (personalized), wikipedia and youtube search engines, and any number of other gadgets available (either user created or inhouse google applications). Incredibly powerful and usefule.

Google Reader

http://www.google.com/reader – Google Reader is another google application that offers a powerful organizational structure to educators. It basically harnesses RSS news feeds from almost any topic – history to recipes to current events to morning skate notes from NHL and junior hockey. These feeds can be organized into user selected topics/folders based on content or other criteria, and google reader will ‘file’ every new news story and hold onto them until the user is able to go back and flip through and mark them as read (similiar to email). This provides a busy teacher with a net to catch important and relevant material, literally without missing a thing. For teachers who have busy schedules, the ability to catch resources in a searchable format is unbelivably useful

Prezi.com

http://prezi.com/ – Prezi was described to me by a grade 11 student as ‘powerpoint on crack’. Basically, prezi is an online 3d mental map and presentation software. Rather than linear slide to slide transitions, Prezi allows the user to creat a 3d mind web that can fly concept to concept, zoom in and out for more detail (Depending on the depth of the composed presentation). For students who like to make spatial and visual connections, using Prezi will aid greatly in what they get out of a lesson. Students who enjoy power point will also do fine, as prezi just enhances the power point model.

Google Sites

https://www.google.com/sites – GoogleSites is another google offered service which allows quick web publishing for free with a simple design interface and pain-free user process that allows someone who uses other google products (specifically google docs) to quickly publish and share work. The degree of use an educator can get out of this is based on situation but in a class where a majority of kids have home internet access it can be a great resource for submitting assignments or returning electronically submitted work. Its also a great resource to keep kids up to date on class work and distribute work to students who are, for instance, on vacation or sick and away from school so they dont fall behind.

Google Docs

http://docs.google.com – Google Docs allows teachers to quickly develop, publish, and share course work,

assignments, grading etc. You can set up different access to files based on users so you can, for instance, share lesson plans with other faculty while sharing assignment and notes with students. Also transitions into easy use with other google apps.

Koyote Soft

http://koyotesoft.com/ – Koyote soft is a company that offers a free FLV converter. FLV is the video format used by youtube and other free flash based video websites online. Their software allows you to basically download, piece together or cut apart, clips from youtbe and store them on your harddrive. This gives teachers much more power to bring technology into classrooms which may lack solid, reliable internet access by preparing and converting files and bringing them in via laptop or flash drive.

WebQuest

http://webquest.org/ – Webquests are structured internet activities to provide a more indepth searching and information manipulation activity for use in the classroom. Lots of examples, ideas, and lessons available for download and links provided to submit your own.

Rubistar

http://rubistar.4teachers.org/ – Resource to quickly create, alter, store, share and publish rubrics for assignments. Could be used in conjuction with your class to edit the rubric ‘live’ in class as part of a formative assessment strategy. In their own words “Want to make exemplary rubrics in a short amount of time? Try RubiStar out! Registered users can save and edit rubrics online. You can access them from home, school, or on the road. Registration and use of this tool is free”"

Academic Resources

BC IRPs and PLOs

http://www.bced.gov.bc.ca/irp/ – A link to the BC IRP, prescribed learning outcomes, evaluation, etc. Useful to always have on hand for lesson planning and evaluation questions.

Canadian Council for Geographic Education

http://www.ccge.org – The Canadian Council for Geographic Education is a group connected to Canadian Geographic Magazine. It is dedicated to providing educators and the public with resources to increase geographic knowledge and learning. Offer free lesson plans, activity ideas, and resource links for teachers.

Canadian Geographic Learning Tools

http://www.canadiangeographic.ca/atlas/learningtools.aspx?lang=En- This website is a great resource for lesson plans and ideas acriss all grade levels, regions, and topics in the realm of geography. The searchability based on age level of students, regions, and topic makes it incredibly useful and quick/easy to use.

Globe and Mail: Classroom Edition

http://www.classroomedition.ca/ - The Globe and Mail has undertaken the classroom edition as a tool to give educators to promote the discussion of current events in the classroom. The website offers current articles followed up with premade lesson plan ideas and resources to present the article as an assignment or discussion in the classroom. Great for teachers trying to tie in themes to current events. Current topics cover things like economics and contemporary social issues.

Curriki

http://www.curriki.org – Curriki is an online resource/community of educators that contribute free worksheets, lesson plans, and curriculum ideas. It offers a great resource to find useful activities and things for a future educator to modify and apply to their own lesson plans.

Media Awareness Network

http://www.media-awareness.ca/english/teachers/index.cfm – Media Awareness offers tons of lesson plans and ideas for every grade and subject area. Their goal is to raise media awareness and consciousness and educate students on things like bias, consumerism, etc. Excellent resource, especially for socials and civics.

Canadian Mysteries

http://www.canadianmysteries.ca/teachers/indexen.html – Canadian mysteries is a website documenting historical questions that are left open, and they have a ton of teacher resources and lesson plans, as well as a lesson plan exchange, for all of these mysteries. Teachers do have to sign up but uts wirtg the resources.

PBS for Teachers

http://www.pbs.org/teachers/ – The US Public Broadcasting Station produces these resources for teachers across all grade levels and disciplines. Clearly with an American focus, this site has lots of great and catalogued lesson plans, video resources, and professional development material for teachers trying to improve their breadth of knowledge.

LessonPlanet

http://www.lessonplanet.com/ – This website is a HUGE database of lesson plans across all subjects and grade levels. Over 150,000 peer reviewed lesson plans, for free. For instance if you are interested in employing critical thinking pedagogy lessons there are over 90 different lessons available for that one fairly obscure topic alone. Searching for History, middle ages, yields 4000 results. Awesome resource.

Teaching Tolerance

http://www.tolerance.org/- Teaching Tolerance is a foundation/group dedicated to promoting tolerance and understanding in society. Offer a wide range of tolerance education lesson plans, professional development activities, and resources online for free across many subjects and grade levels.

BCTF Aboriginal Education Resources

http://bctf.ca/IssuesInEducation.aspx?id=13404 – The BCTF produces this website with the aim of increasing the proficiency of its members in the realm of aboriginal education. Lots of links to aboriginal produced books and material and resources to give an aboriginal perspective on historical topics

BC Education Aboriginal Ed. Resources

http://www.bced.gov.bc.ca/abed/documents.htm – The Ministry of Education’s in house resource for the ever-growing topic of aboriginal education in BC. Lots of lesson plans and ideas for integrating aboriginal ed. into existing PLO’s and IRPs

UBC Student Teacher Lesson Plans

http://www.library.ubc.ca/edlib/lessonplans/sec/ssed314/lessonindex.html – Worth a look. Each semester students place their lesson plans up here for public consumption. Good resource to learn from other student teachers and gain ideas.

Access Canada

http://access.ca/home.html – Online database of socials resources for Canadian socials teachers.Articles Lesson Plans, Historical Documents, Artifacts, Photographs, Art, Maps, Online Activities, Dramatizations, Documentaries are all available through the search engine. Another awesome resource.

Multimedia Resources

CosmoLearning

http://www.cosmolearning.com/history/documentaries?sort=views – This link is an online database of almost 90 full length history documentaries, fully streamable and accessable from any internet ready computer. A powerful resource for a future socials teacher whose school history department or library may not have a large or well stocked documentary selection.

NFB Film Database

http://www.nfb.ca/explore-by/title/ – Similiar to the previous link, this is a link to the online, streaming database of films produced by Canada’s National Film Board. Everything from documentaries and features to animation and propoganda films from the war. Great visual aids when teaching many courses (socials, art, english, etc)

CBC Film Database

http://archives.cbc.ca/for_teachers/ – CBC provides this resource for teachers. Its a very large collection of pre-made lesson plans on any number of topics (history to business to english.) They tie all lessons in with storys and multimedia and examples from Canadian history and culture. Great, great resource for instructors.

Early Canadiana Online

http://canadiana.org/hbc/sources/sources_e.html – This website is a great resource for primary historical documents related to Canadian history, First Nations people, american history and relations with Canada. Useful for teachers in schools in smaller schools without large librarys with primary documents. Also a large section for teacher resources, specifically lesson plans.

Open Culture Audio and Video Vault

http://www.openculture.com/2009/01/the_educational_audio_and_video_library.html – This website offers tons of free and open/copyright infringement free podcasts, lectures, university courses, videos, and novels. Dont have access to a class set of George Orwell’s 1984? This website has a free audio book. Not the same as teaching it from a tangible novel but easy to access and share with students.

Christian Classic Ethereal Library

http://www.ccel.org/ -The Christian Classic Ethereal Library is an amazing resource for primary documents from the long history of the christian faith, tying into topics present in maintstream curriculum like the reformation, renaissance, the dark and middle ages, etc. Offerings are free to use and offer teachers powerful resources to combat under stocked librarys.

Google Books

http://books.google.com – Google, in its bid to rule the world, has began amassing a mind boggling collection of scanned and sorted full length books. Some books online through thsi site require pay or membership to access, but there is many full length books available for free. The great search engine allows users to filter results by whats free and full length as well. Another great source of primary documents.

BC Archives

http://www.bcarchives.bc.ca – BC archives website, maintained by the Royal Museum. Great resource for period images, historical documents and research guides. Some material does cost for physical reproductions, but there is free material as well.

Historical Atlas of Canada

http://www.historicalatlas.ca/website/hacolp/index.htm – The Historical Atlas of Canada is an awesome website full of interactive maps based on several factors – i.e. political maps, aboriginal territory, resources, geographical, etc. Lots of interactive maps that can be used in a lab lesson with students, and lots of maps to take off and print for class lessons.

Canadian Census

http://www.statcan.gc.ca/edu/edu01_0000-eng.htm – Statistics Canada publishes these resources for us by educators based on recent and historical census data. Tons of great information, including visual aids like maps, charts, graphs, etc. Great data for planning lessons around demographics, changing face of Canada, immigration and emmigration, etc. Also offer some full lesson plans.

Atlas of Canada

http://atlas.nrcan.gc.ca/site/english/learningresources/lesson_plans/index.html – Another resource of Canadian and North American maps. Full lesson plans based on a number of map themes and topics.

National Geographic Education Foundation

http://www.nationalgeographic.com/foundation/ – National Geographic is another publication that compiles multimedia and lesson plans in a network of educators for distribution to other educators. Great resources for maps, pictures, lesson ideas with a wider focus than the Canadian atlas, etc.

BBC History Database

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/ – Video and multimedia database of WW1 and WW2 information compiled by the BBC. Also full databases for British history, aincent history, etc. Another great database.

Picturing History

http://picturinghistory.gc.cuny.edu/ – Online database of free historical pictures and images with lesson ideas. More USA based, but still offers resources on lots of relevant topics such as slavery, aboriginal life, among other things.

Not digested yet:

http://www.medialit.org/

http://hnn.us/

The Teen Brain: Brain Biology High

Good read for social studies movers and shakers who want to work with students and nature and not against them...click the title and dream a better way for your classes!

MORE best practices :)

Governance:
- Making a personal connection with each student: one teacher stood at the door at the beginning of each class and greeted each student by name!
- Acknowledging positive actions, rather than pointing out the negative misbehavior. For example, acknowledging the class for their attentive listening throughout peer presentations

Resources/material:
- bringing concepts to life through presenting small video or audio clips, never more than 5-10 minutes or there is a good chance students will lose focus and the ability to link the video to the lecture topic.
- Work books: handing out a workbook at the beginning of each unit (vocab, questions about concepts and material covered in the class text book). This gives students a great study guide and if a lecture or activity ends earlier than planned, you can have students pull out their work books for the last bit of class
- Structured notes- for example putting an outline on the board of the main points or topics that will be covered in class and students can fill in the details as you lecture

Activity/Teaching Strategies:
- doing in class simulations (i.e. the fur trade or UN panel discussion) – allows students to fully understand a topic through active participation
- Mosaic: each student got a theme (ex. Cree people in WWI, the Home front) and a colour scheme and they had to visually represent their topic on the piece of the mosaic that the teacher gave them.
Questions/Problems:
- Our biggest concern was teachers who were not passionate about their subject area. When they are not motivated to teach, this rubs off on the students and they lose all motivation to learn that subject material

No History of History

In his article Catalyst or caterpillar? On the state of history in Canada, Ken Osborne is very critical of the quality of history being taught in Canadian high schools. Osborne contends that at the root of the problem are teachers of history that have become disconnected from their discipline. He blames the abandonment of historians from schools and the failure of history teachers to retain knowledge of their professions past, for the current state of the teaching of history in Canada. It is difficult to dispute Osborne’s claims, even though his point of view is one sided his evidence appears to be valid.
Before 1950, tells Osborne, historians “were truly public intellectuals”. They worked along side teachers with a concern for the value of history to society. Beginning in the 1960s, there was shift. Historians began to move into specialties and collectively aimed at establishing their field as an academic and reputable subject of study. Historians lost interest in producing works useful for schools or the general public, but published works more for other historians and academics. Since then the gap between historians and high school history only widened until it became segregated completely. The history teacher was left without a practical resource to do his job properly.
Osborne accuses the education system that trains history teachers as only perpetuating the problem. Teachers of history are trained to be teachers first and secondly in their subject matter. The value of a history teacher is very much dependent on his knowledge of the subject. Part of the trouble is that education programs place a high value on theory, over practice. The focus of education faculties is on the philosophical aspects of teaching and teachers graduate without a firm grasp of the material they will be teaching.
Ironically, student history teachers are not taught the history of their profession. There is not a recoded past explaining how the pedagogy got to where it is and the reasons for its evolution. As a result teaching strategies that are ‘discovered’ today were known to have worked in the 1920’s. The rich and valuable past of teaching history in Canada has not been successfully passed on to new teachers.
Osborne’s article can be criticized for its imbalance. Other than point out that there are some exceptional individuals out there who are teaching history well, Osborne does not acknowledge anything good about the history taught in schools today. He speaks as if the dire situation with history lessons is foregone conclusion.
Osborne does effectively point out what is wrong about the history situation in Canadian high schools and when and how things went astray. He even offers a solution to the problem; developing a national institution that will bring together historians, teacher and supporters of historical education to improve the quality of teaching history in Canadian high schools. Osborne’s hopes that relatively new organization HISTOR!CA is a positive step in the right direct. He says it is also the responsibility of journals like Canadian Social Studies to inform history teachers of their story to rebuild the connection with their craft.

Osborne, Ken. “Catalyst or caterpillar? On the state of history in Canada”. Canadian Social Studies. North York: Winter 2000. Vol. 34, Iss. 2; pg. 14.

troy

Climate Change and Regional Geography

Hey Friends. Here is my review.

In this article, Talia Epstein reveals just how a teacher can incorporate a much larger and deeper issue like climate change, into a regular geography unit. Epstein divides her article into the following sections.

1) Format of the Unit: Suggesting a 3 or 4 week period be spent on a variety of listed example topics.

2) Resources: How out-dated textbooks can be useful and other example sources.

3) Background Knowledge: What students might already know and further examples to create awareness for your entire class.

4) Unit Outline: An in-depth look at what the unit will include (topic examples), as well as possible assignments, projects, and activities.

5) Assessment: Different ways teachers can assess their students during the unit.

6) Taking Action: Further opportunities for students to make a difference.

The ideas about climate change and the strategies used in the article can easily be adapted to suit the needs of any grade or school setting. In particular, the ‘Unit Outline’ and ‘Assessment’ sections are very practical as both provide necessary details, useful examples and precise evidence that teachers could draw from. Overall this article represents what we as future educators need to be about. It is up to us to find important information, make it relevant to school curriculum and most importantly deliver it to our students in a way that will captivate their minds. We need to engage our students in academic ways and inspire them to think critically and creatively.

Epstein, Talia. (2008). Climate Change and Regional Geography. Green Teacher, Vol. 83 (1), 24-28.

Portfolio Assessment in Social Studies

Evans, Mark, Hawes, Reg H., Shain,& Christine. (1999). Does Portfolio Assessment Have A Place in History and Social Studies Programs? Canadian Social Studies, North York: Vol. 34(1).

This article outlines the appeal of portfolio assessment in a social studies class. It also describes three approaches of portfolio assessment that can be used in social studies and history programs. Lastly, this article explores some of the challenges that portfolios can have in the classroom and how teachers have responded to these challenges.

A portfolio is a collection of student work gathered over a period of time. It demonstrates the student's efforts, progress, and achievements in a given area. This involves student participation in the selection of portfolio content and the form it might take, clear guidelines for the selection of entries, explicit criteria for judging merit, and evidence of student reflection. This article suggests that portfolio assessment creates a deeper, more complex, and multi-dimensional aspect of student learning.

This article does an excellent job of defining portfolio assessment. Additionally, it does a good job of demonstrating how portfolios can be used in a social studies setting and the benefits that can be derived from the use of this tool. Unfortunately the challenges section is a little weak, as it skips over many of the hardships teachers can face and instead tries to fix those problems with simple sounding solutions (that are not that simple). All in all though, this article does a good job of promoting portfolio assessment for the social studies classroom and I encourage you to consider the use of portfolio’s in your classroom. Read this article, talk to your assessment teacher, or talk to your practicum teacher about what works and what doesn’t.