Effective Instruction

Hey guys, so this is my effective instruction video specifically

for History social science.

So kind of what I've experienced with with this so

far, so for history social science, and when I say

history social science, and this means a lot for me

in particular because I'm doing political science right now, we

tend to think of just history when we're doing this

particular discipline, but it's actually it's really brought its history,

its political science, like I'm doing uh it's um economics,

sometimes geography, other times we even throw in even other

disciplines into that, so it's actually a really broad area,

but I finally, with the vast majority of these um

our whole our whole will focus here is to kind

of try to get to discussion based learning most of

our learning within history and social science um is really

being done um most effectively by moving towards some kind

of discussion.

We do a lot of writing I think to um

but I think a lot of the most effective is

through discussion and uh we're kind of a philosophy based

um science.

Uh if that makes sense where we're not really trying

to find an answer with the answer, we're trying to

find a lot of answers.

Um We're looking at all of this data to find

all the different possibilities, but not necessarily find the answer.

And the way we go about this.

Um and this is the the T.

P. A central focus is we collect a lot of

evidence and then we make a claim and then hopefully

we get kind of into a discussion and we collaborate

that information uh and we corroborate that information and compare

that information and we look at what all the different

options are, all the different solutions, because we're studying people

and people are complex and there's so many different variables.

Um And also the real focus of this discipline is

teaching students teaching kids to eventually be civically engaged and

we try to do that using real life problem solving

and the more real life the better if we can

design lessons where there uh you know uh like like

one of the lessons that we have been working on

is uh what is the best practice for solving a

pandemic? How have we dealt with pandemics in the past,

as the United States House of other countries dealt with

pandemics uh and what what has worked in the past,

what hasn't worked in the past and going forward?

What are some best practices or lessons that we've learned

from, that that we can kind of create some good

answers for.

But not like the answer because there isn't one, it's

not that detailed of the science, it's more of a

philosophy or at least that's the way I like to

think about it.

Um As far as in structural sequencing, so just like

the other disciplines we start with an essential question, we

start working backwards.

Um This essential question can deal with a lot of

different things.

We'll talk about here in a second.

Again, we're working toward having discussion, collaboration, corroborating lots of

different pieces of evidence, sometimes primary resources, sometimes secondary resources

and sometimes just discussion of what other people have found.

Uh And what we're trying to do is we're trying

to practice a behavior or skill, whether it's data analysis,

teaching students to better be able to look at data

or to find resources that they can build evidence to

create a claim.

Data can be again a way of doing that, you

have to be able to analyze the data, decide whether

or not that data is good evidence.

What does it tell us?

Um kind of what we can extrapolate from it.

But again, we want to base everything off of solid

evidence content is kind of secondary.

Um and I'm gonna I'm gonna hold firm to that

content is kind of secondary within history, social science.

Um It's really about teaching you how to be civically

engaged, um how to analyze data, how to build a

claim, how to look at evidence and decide.

Is there bias?

Is it balanced?

What's the historical context for the situation?

These are all skills and behaviors.

Thinking like a historian thinking like an economist thinking like

a political scientist thinking like an engaged citizen.

We are teaching the behaviors and skills necessary to do

that in the content.

You know, the the years things happened um specifically what

laws say.

Uh and that kind of thing is kind of secondary.

We're using that as a catalyst to teach the behavior.

How do we break a law down into easier pieces

to understand and deal with?

Uh, and see how that's impacting people.

Um, not the law itself.

We don't really care about the law itself.

What we care about is whether or not we can

analyze it and how we can use it and how

we can build upon it.

Uh, so content is really secondary within this particular discipline.

It's really more about the behavior what we're practicing and

then the way it typically comes down to is some

kind of um, edu We do.

You do.

So typically the teacher is going to model whatever the

behavior or whatever the skill is.

Um, we're going to practice doing it together as a

group and then ultimately we want to get to a

point where you're doing it on your own and practicing

it on your own as much as possible.

Um, so whether that's collecting research and identifying research and

writing about that research, writing papers is important.

You need to be able to write a paper, need

to be able to write and support your claim.

Um whether those are speaking skills, whether they are analysis

skills, I was talking about what the data analysis, um

whether sometimes it comes down to specific language.

We're practicing practicing academic language, which I'll be talking in

a second, but it's, we're doing, we're learning it together,

then we're we're doing it together and then you're practicing

the skills so that when you leave the classroom, you

can perform that skill or that behavior as a citizen

on your own academic language for history, social sciences, incredibly

broad. Again, this is partially because we are so many

different disciplines kind of clumped all together.

Um I've dealt with this a lot of different ways

this is dealt with in discipline vocab list word walls,

those are all excellent ways to deal with it, however,

we have the language available.

Um part of it is also making sure that one

lesson isn't just chocked full of academic language.

So part of the for history social science is making

sure that as much of that academic language is broken

up between lessons as possible.

Um So you may have a lesson that has a

lot of legal jargon all thrown in there, You're gonna

have to pick two or three pieces.

Uh you know, no more than, you know, five or

six new words that are pretty complicated depending on the

lesson. Um and kind of break them up a little

bit. Um That means he was a teacher gonna have

to use the source a little bit so that you're

not putting so much in all at once.

But the important thing is that we're learning this academic

language, we have it available to them and then we're

having them use it.

Typically I've seen this happen as journal responses.

So we have a lesson, we use the words in

the lesson.

So in the me do I use them?

And the we do, we're all using them and then

we finally get to the journal response or something like

that where the practice and the teacher's job is to

make sure that those words are being used in the

journal response or the verbal response or when we're in

a discussion as a group that when kids are students

are answering questions, they're incorporating that language into those responses.

Sometimes this involves a focused activity, especially if it's particularly

challenging. This is not unique to social science, but if

you see if there's a particular set of academic language

that kids are struggling with or avoiding, what have you.

We do a focused activity, uh, with just that word

or just those couple of words.

And this can be fun too.

I mean, it can be something like a simulation.

I'm big history, social science on simulation.

So, you know, we can reenact a court case or

an event that led up to a court case and

we can talk about precedent and we can talk about

uh, probable cause.

And we just focus on those two words and we

create a scenario where we're really focused on using those

two words over and over again.

Was there precedent for this case?

Of course, court cases came before?

Um, you know, uh, was there probable cause?

We can talk about, you know, who, you know, what

stage waited, probable cause.

Did it change throughout?

But we're using the word or two term over and

over again.

And even in a simulation can make it fun, differentiated

instruction. So there's a lot of ways that differential instruction

is really just kind of built in to what we're

doing. So we want to work in discussion.

We want eventually get to as many discussions as possible.

We don't want to be the teacher that's talking all

the time.

We want the students to be talking together.

They want them using the words, the academic language in

those uh group activities.

We want them exploring information, we want them pulling uh,

from the evidence they've collected in those group discussions.

Uh and that's working as a group and that group

builds that information together.

They can even collect information within groups, just a ton

of group reliance.

And that's because we are a civically engaged discipline.

Uh and that's not just political science, it's it's history

too. We make history is a group, not not typically

an individual, we talk about individuals, but but uh you

know, we're taking that angel and putting their in their

context, no individual acts alone.

They act upon the influences that are acting upon them.

And so uh I'd say it's woven throughout the discipline.

Group work.

Uh working together collaboratively is it's a huge part of

this and and that helps for differentiate instruction.

Um Again, vocab lists having those available.

I think I think that's huge.

It helps a lot of people to have vote capitalists

of academic language available, flexible assessment is a huge part

of history, social science.

Um whether we have different options for them to do,

especially for Summit of assessments, formative assessments, uh still some

flexibility, but really most of it is for Summit of

assessments, whether they want to do something written or something

digital or if they want to do something verbal um

and then allowing them to pitch an idea.

I think that's really important.

If you haven't given the option and they think of

an option that works for them, they can come and

pitch that idea to you and uh you know, you

can say no if it if it doesn't make sense

for what you're practicing for the project.

I mean if you're specifically right focusing on a writing

assignment, they go I want to do this verbally.

No. For this particular example we're working on our writing

for this one that's specifically what we're practicing.

But if it's not specifically what you're practicing, Having some

flexibility for the assessment is a good thing.

Um instruction and content delivery varying how you do that.

So you say it, you're writing it um You know

they're uh they're getting a chance to interact and experience

experience it, making sure the instruction and sorry, the delivery

of the instruction and content is varied.

You're not just doing it one way and you got

to get it that way if you're lecturing only and

that's the only way they can get the information.

That's the kind of work and then keeping that instruction

and content available.

I really like this.

It can't be one and done.

Like if you didn't hear me when I said it,

it's gone.

We can't we can't get back to it again.

This is what I've kind of liked about online instruction

is everything I put everything on canvas.

Anything that I've done goes up on canvas.

If there was a power point, power points on canvas,

if there was a record, you know, we record the

class sessions, recordings available on canvas, you can rewatch the

lecture again or re watch us doing the activity again.

You can do it.

But keeping all of that instruction content continuously available, um,

I think helps everybody.

So I'm sure that's more, there's more than that, but

that's what I got a majority over time.

Thanks.

Effective Instruction

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