Lambs to Lions

Brian Nash and Austin Hepp (former Tecumseh counselor) created a senior thesis project called Foundations of History–http://www.foundationsofhistory.org/.  It stars a lot of teachers from Hamilton Southeastern.

Okay so after an unfulfilling year of teaching where I felt my focus was off, my focus is back.  I’ve made some changes.  First, I restructured my year into four major sections: (1) Social Studies Workshop — a skill building unit revolving around economics and South Africa, (2) Ancient Civilizations and What They Leave Behind, (3) The World in 1800 — Imperialism, and (4) The More Modern World.  I have taken the state standard and divided up everything into these four categories.

The next change involves my interactive notebook.  I’m going to four notebooks–there are some procedural changes that align a bit more with Dave Broviak. 

Next, I’m working on bringing a more visual and dynamic presentation into my class through video.  In Laurel Schmidt’s book she called it advertising your class.  So I’m working on building previews of my class–a lot of fun, but a ton of work.

Lastly, comes the part where I have accepted that my teaching style does not lend itself to the demands of testing, coverage, and common assessments.   I choose my students over the test.  I have created my own comprehension element that I will discuss later on; if it is good enough for the best prep schools in the country, it is good enough for my students.

Inspiration many times leads to perspiration.  After spending the weekend with some terrific teachers at Indiana University’s Armstrong Fellowship, I feel the need to become better.  After 13 years of teaching and having some measure of success, I feel that this is a year of transition.  This transition will involve all new lessons, new approaches, self-reflection (aka this blog), and hopefully an impact on my students’ learning.  I will offer more details after my softball tournament this weekend.