For years, I've posted pdf versions of my lessons and made them available for free. Here's some screenshots of a document based question (DBQ) I'm working on that explores the American Homefront in WWII. To see more of my free pdf lessons click here.
Click to enlarge thumbnails
I've download iBooks Author and I think it's time to turn some of my PDF lessons into iBooks. Apple's new authoring program, certainly lowers the barrier for doing that. I look forward to the day when a student asks a teacher if it's OK to turn in that project as an iBook.
While searching the internet for some how to guides, I found this great video introduction to the process made by Jeremy Kemp.
This Wordle Word Cloud features the 100 most frequently used words from the full text of U.S. President Barack Obama’s 2012 State of the Union address. Look carefully and you’ll see “education.”
If you want to analyze word use in all the State of the Union addresses, there’s a great tool at “State of the Union.” Image below is from JFK’s 1961 SOTU.
This week Eastman Kodak filed for bankruptcy. Is there a lesson for educators about what happens when you lose touch with your customer?
At the core of Kodak’s eventual demise was the failure of the leadership to remain connected to their customers. They convinced themselves that the public would continue to want to buy film, load it into the camera, take a picture, drop the film off at the processor, and return later to pick up their photos. Easy to believe when you’re making money at every stage of that process.
Has our educational leadership lost touch with their customers – the students? Given the growing array of cheap digital tools available to our students, will they passively wait to be told what, how, when and with whom to learn? Is the information flow of the traditional classroom (lecture, note-taking, test) as outmoded as taking your film to the drugstore for processing?
My approach to instruction borrows from the thinking of Donald Finkel who believed that teaching should be thought of as “providing experience, provoking reflection.” Here’s a great “how-to” for teachers who want to engage their students in blogging about themselves as learners. It models how to move students from simply explaining what they did in an assignment, to more deeply reflecting on their progress. Includes student writing prompts and examples of student reflections. Also links to my Taxonomy of Reflection and more teacher resources on blogging and reflection.
When it came to time to study the debate over the ratification of the constitution, my students didn’t have to ask the question – “why do we need to study this?” They realized that they were looking at “Round 1″ of an ongoing debate over how strong the central government should be.
Effective infographics enable us to see information in new ways. The Economist recently posted these two interactive maps that offer insights into the distribution of GDP and population in both the US and China. Click on maps or follow links to original maps with full functionality. Which countries match the GDP and population of America's [...]
Final exam: Study these two images, and discuss how capitalism’s capacity to supply consumer goods triumphed over the chronic shortages of communism. Extra credit: Speculate on how Angry Birds might have impacted the “domino theory” of the Cold War.
Last week I used this classic Jerry Seinfeld piece from Saturday Night Live as part of an administrators' workshop. We had lots of fun. Here's your chance to borrow the idea. Goal: I was working with a team of principals and district administrators who wanted to provide more consistency in their teacher observations and look [...]
In recent years, many high schools have stopped offering AP courses, and a growing number of universities have raised AP score requirements or no longer award credit for the test. Memorization might have been a valued skill when AP testing began in 1956, but today many AP courses have become little more than relentless test prep.
Received a nice email from the folks at SlideShare this morning. "Hi peterpappas, Your presentation "The Student As Historian – DBQ Strategies and Resources" is currently being featured on the SlideShare homepage by our editorial team. We thank you for this terrific presentation, that has been chosen from amongst the thousands that are uploaded to SlideShare everday." [...]
I am proud of my life-long career in public education - especially the 25 years I spent as a teacher. For over 20 years, I have worked with school districts, state DOEs, leading educational organizations and companies to improve the quality of teaching and learning. I provide training and consulting services across the United States and internationally.More
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