Thinking about next year

I guess I'm finally going to try to write a blog.  I wonder if I'll decide to stick to it?

Last year was my first year teaching 7th and 8th graders.  I taught Humanities and loved it.  I would never have thought I would like teaching middle school, but it turns out I really like working with teens.  Next year I'm teaching Social Studies.  I think I'm going to like it; I get to teach history, critical thinking, social justice, civics, archeology, anthropology, religion / mythology,  geography... what's not to like!?

One of the things I am trying to think more carefully about  is putting in place routines and systems.  Last year was very seat of my pants and I tried new things and dropped them far too often!  Interactive notebooks look like a good way to use the visual note taking/sketchnotes that I want to do but didn't get going well.  So I think we'll try that.  I like the idea of one spiral notebook with lots of personalized info in it including sketches, handouts, notes, and reflections.  If you love them (or hate them!) let me know!  Or if you have great resources I should check out.

Here are some of the places I've been doing a lot of PD this summer!

Who Built America - a series of self paced tutorials that do a nice job of getting at the creating of lessons using primary sources.

ArcGIS A fantastic way to look at the world using online mapping - it's much more powerful and mind blowing than it sounds - really - check it out then look up story maps, or map journals, or... think about using a map of modern day London that you can compare instantly with London during the time of Dickens - for example.  Very cool.

I've also been checking out the terrific resources offered by the National Archives and have signed up for several webinars.  Did you know they host virtual field trip distance learning!?  Yep.  Check it out.  National Archive Educator's Resources

Have a great summer!