Through the hard work of dedicated parents, our school received funding to improve its technology. Part of this technology was to install interactive whiteboards in every teacher’s classroom. It has been a wonderful addition to the classroom and really heightened enthusiasm for technology and learning, particularly from the students.

• The projector. I absolutely love having a whiteboard with a projector. The projector is handy, not only for projecting documents, but also for showing video clips and movies. We’ve used it in class to watch documentaries, demonstrate where to go on websites, and to project our class assignments.
• Writing on texts that we are looking at together (particularly our daily warm-ups). The marker feature, particularly, with the different color markers, works well for looking at a particular piece of text together. While it is the same as an overhead projector in terms of marking the text, it is nice to be able to save what each class has marked and to be able to print it off for absent students or students who need additional support to keep up.
• The random group generator. This feature allows me to create groups with a click of the mouse! It’s a great way to put students together and have them off and running on their task.
• Using the board—the kids are jazzed to use it!

With this said, it has also been a bit challenging as a teacher. The boards were delivered after the start of the year and finding the time to really practice using the technology and integrating it into already prepared curricula has been difficult. I’m very excited about the technology that is out there, but honestly, I am still figuring out how to get the most “bang” for my “buck” time-wise. I have to evaluate carefully what works well without technology and what could be enhanced by the use of technology.

• Having more students up to the board to write, critique, and analyze what we are doing—I can make using the board more student-centered.
• Integrating more of our interactives into it. The programs shared by the interactive notebook software, such as Jeopardy templates, make it handy to integrate interactive features into lessons. Other examples include great social studies features like U.S. map state identifications or geography vocabulary word reviews.
• Working more with my colleagues to develop tools that we all can use. As a department, we agree that there is terrific potential in this technology. We need to make a concerted effort to pinpoint what we could all use to strengthen social studies skills as a vertical team. For instance, is there a tool or a program or a method we can use to reinforce common social studies vocabulary words? Or the five themes of geography? Or timeline-building skills? These are social-studies-specific skills that we reinforce throughout the grade levels. Are there materials that we can create and then adapt for grade-level-specific needs? What is something that has worked well for one social studies teacher that the others could benefit from?

I have been surprised—but at the same time, not really—at the enthusiasm the board brings for student learning. Students have walked in and have seen that the whiteboard is on and said, “Yay! We’re using the whiteboard today?”

Unfortunately, while it has not been intended, there has been little training for the fantastic materials we have received. We have had small group peer training (probably one of the most helpful types, in my opinion) in our morning collaborative time; a staff PD morning where we were shown a lot that we could do, but had just a short amount of time to try it; and monthly district training that often collides with other obligations.

That said, I’m definitely looking forward to spending some dedicated time this summer on enhancing certain lessons and integrating them with my whiteboard software now that I understand the technology and the capabilities more.

Editor's Note: The features of interactive whiteboards vary by brand and model. Amy Trenkle's school uses SMART Boards. Other boards may have different capabilities than those mentioned in this blog entry.

History is a series of events and causal relationships, stories and tragedies and successes, that when strung together weave narratives of peoples and places. To teach this has proven quite tricky throughout American education. Any history teacher watching Jay Leno and his random trivia questions cringes in horror at the utter lack of historical understanding in the greater American populace. However, one must ask, "If we teach history every year in school, why do the students retain so little of the information?"

This is the perfect time to invoke Einstein's famous quote, "Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." After a number of years of teaching history chronologically, I made the curricular decision to shift to a thematic approach. I am privileged to work in schools that allow me the flexibility to make these types of classroom decisions.

My rationale for this change was grounded in a number of gut-check teacher experiences but also in the writings of Sam Wineburg, Eric Foner, David Perkins, and James Loewen. America has never excelled at knowing its own past. As I watched the school days pass, I observed that students participated and engaged, but still did not meaningfully retain the information. Something had to give. I ditched chronological teaching.

The way that I choose to envision the problem for the average student of history involves papers, books, and bookshelves. We teach students history by giving them pieces of paper (facts) with no real understanding of how to connect or make meaning. These papers stack up, but the learner can never find anything because the information is without structure or organization. Our students need bookshelves before we can really expect them to put any of the information away. Once the bookshelves exist, they can then begin to shelve their information in a way that allows for understanding and recall. In my classroom, each of the themes then becomes a shelf and as students understand the greater historical narrative they look for patterns and trends and flow over time. This long look at history invites the student into the story. Also, it provides shelves on which they can then store historical knowledge as they move into adult life.

The themes that I teach in American History are: American Identity, Political Participation, War, Business, Balance of Power, The American Dream, Environment, and Pivot Points. This is certainly not a comprehensive list or the "right" list, but it is the one that I settled on after much collaboration, discussion, and debate with a number of teachers. We work through two themes per quarter and have a project attached to the learning goals of each theme.

One unit that gets better each time I teach it is the War unit. Many K-12 history students feel like history class is one long study of America at War, rather than of the rich narrative that accompanies the nation’s endeavors. My War unit asks students to define war. One would think that with the amount of conversation about war we foster in America that this would be an easy process. Let me assure you it is not.

I start by asking students to write their own definition, then work with a partner to get one definition between the two.

After that, the partners join another partnership. We stop for a bit at this point and the students take their group definition and apply it to the American historical record. Each student is responsible for a section of years and applies their group's war definition to determine if America was at war that year. They then name the war and the place it occurred and report the death tolls. This is a bit time consuming, but I find that this process makes students reconsider the definition as well as thoroughly examine the historical record. We then return to the definition activity and repeat the consensus process until we get to a whole-class discussion.

The goal of the whole-class discussion is for the students to come to consensus on the definition of war. It takes all 65 minutes of class. I do not actively participate at all; I observe. This is about them and their ideas. The students sit in a circle and decide a process and go. Watching it unfold this year was like educational bliss: students asking really tough questions, listening hard to the answers, pushing back when they did not agree—but doing so respectfully, other students making sure each person’s voice was honored in the process. In the end they have a definition, but they also have a sense of the concept that I could not possibly instill in them in any other way. They did this. The creation of the definition was also the creation of their learning.

We then layer this theme over the previous themes and discuss connections and patterns and flow and trends that exist when we look at multiple themes at once. Then we move forward with another theme. By the end of the year they have seven shelves onto which to load their learning. The final unit has students choose a pivotal point in history and change the outcome. This final unit draws upon all the previous themes to craft a story that retells history.

Thematic teaching may not be the answer to improve the responses for the Jaywalk All-Stars, but in my 14 years of teaching, I have never felt more confident that my students are learning history in a way that allows them to learn beyond my classroom, beyond the textbooks, and beyond the boredom that many of them attribute to history class. Our struggles as a nation require a populace that is engaged and informed. Our history classes need to be a place that establishes the framework that assists them in becoming the citizens we need them to be. I believe that thematic teaching moves us closer to that goal.

Unfortunately, the arts are being squeezed out of school budgets and students’ schedules. Most would agree, though, that the arts play a vital role in fostering students’ creativity and helping students ask the “big questions” about the world around them. Fortunately, integrating the visual arts into any classroom just became a bit more fun with the launch of Google Art Project.

Google Art Project allows viewers to explore selected museums and zoom in on works of art. For those familiar with Google Map’s “street view” feature, the site functions in much the same way. Users feel like they are walking through the museum and can look up and down at museum features. When a work of art catches your eye, simply click on the image and you can zoom in on incredible detail of the painting or sculpture (see Google’s video about using Art Project). The Art Project lends itself particularly well to classrooms with interactive whiteboards with which students can feel like they are standing in the museum. I personally like the ability to take my time with a painting and have another browser tab open to find out more about a painting as questions arise in my head.

My students get excited anytime I mention the words “field trip,” and with good reason. Field trips not only offer students a get-out-of-school-free card, but also offer them a chance to learn through interacting and experiencing. When money and time are tight, field trips are cut. That is why I am thrilled that technology is allowing students to take virtual field trips. These virtual field trips are growing more interactive and more content rich every day. Google Art Project is the latest development in expanding student access to these rich sites.

A benefit of viewing works of art in a museum is being able to see and appreciate their relative size. As a simple image, one cannot appreciate how small the Mona Lisa is or how large Pablo Picasso’s Guernica is. With Google Art Project, students can get a sense of this by seeing paintings hanging in the museum without leaving their classroom.

Google Art Project provides information and related material when you click on a work of art. You and your students can also create collections of selected pieces to share. This makes it very easy to set up a gallery of artwork from a particular time period or region from different museums.

The Art Project offers several interesting possibilities to link history with the visual arts. A nice way to begin a lesson might be to have students “walk into the painting,” where students pretend to actually enter the painting and describe the scene using all their senses. Understanding works of art often requires students ask the same inquiry questions they ask in history class. Therefore, one instructional technique may be to require students to play art detective as they solve when and where an artist lived and produced their work. It may also be useful for you and your students to brush up on some of the terminology with which to discuss visual art. This way, students are seeing another adult (aside from their art teacher) model an appreciation of art.

Another instructional idea that blends history with understanding art is to select a group of romantic paintings, a group of realist paintings, and a group of impressionist paintings and discuss the different styles of paintings and the emotions each elicits. For example, many romantic paintings glorify subjects and can stir feelings of nationalism, while realist paintings can capture the daily hardship and struggles individuals must endure. Teachers can discuss with students how different styles of paintings capture prevalent ideas and emotions of the artists’ societies.

Art is also a great way to teach students about culture. Students could use Google Art Project to put together a collection of art related to a specific culture. Paintings can also teach students about trade networks. Often, paintings feature items or styles not native to the artist’s home country. Thus explaining, for instance, how the porcelain cups, featured in a painting, found their way from China to Spain could be a good lesson for students.

Some of the museums in the Art Project have interesting lesson plans that can accompany works of art in the museum. Check out these lesson plans from the Smithsonian and lesson plans from the Museum of Modern Art.

While the current offerings of museums are limited in the Art Project, the possibilities of the site are exciting as art becomes democratized.

Certainly, nothing can compare to physically being in the museum, but Google Art Project is making the world a little smaller, allowing us to visit multiple museums from one site.

On Feb. 2, the Department of Education released the Teaching American History Grant Program Notice Inviting Applications for New Awards for Fiscal Year (FY) 2011.

According to the Department, the Teaching American History program is

designed to raise student achievement by improving teachers' knowledge and understanding of and appreciation for traditional U.S. history. Grant awards will assist LEAs [local educational agencies], in partnership with entities that have content expertise, to develop, document, evaluate, and disseminate innovative and cohesive models of professional development. By helping teachers to develop a deeper understanding and appreciation of U.S. history as a separate subject matter within the core curriculum, these programs will improve instruction and raise student achievement.

The TAH program has reached out to U.S. history teachers across the nation since 2001, when it awarded its first 60 grants. Last year, 124 applicants received grants. Learn more about the program at ED.gov—browse the abstracts of previous award recipients, learn how to apply, and read FAQs on eligibility, project priorities, and other topics. If you're applying (or are already a grantee), you may benefit from the Department of Education's webinars on grant management. Sign up, or read transcripts for past webinars.

Curious to see what others have learned from participating in TAH Grant projects? We have a section dedicated to highlighting TAH! Project Spotlights look at projects that share the resources they've created online, and Lessons Learned lets you in on the experiences of educators, project directors, historians, evaluators, and others who have participated in TAH projects.

My middle school students contain tremendous physical energy and can struggle with the transition into the adult world of sitting still. Meanwhile, real kinesthetic learning is one of the most difficult areas to incorporate effectively into your history classroom. Last year, to meet my goal of getting the students moving in a relevant and productive manner, I created Policy Pull-Out—a fun and interactive game related to the key concepts of American Expansion.

Picture students moving around, excited about history vocabulary, with all learning levels engaged. Welcome to Policy Pull-Out! As the winter months drag on, allowing the students to be active will be extra important to their moods and their excitement about learning. This game will also reinforce and add a dimension to ideas vital to American history class.

Policy Pull-Out was created to specifically support and review for DC's 8.5.2: Explain and identify on a map the territorial expansion during the terms of the first four presidents. The game has been played with 8th grade in American History but I feel could be age-appropriate from 4th through 10th depending on your students and your spin on it. Although a teacher hopes that students always picture history in 3-D, that concept seems especially important in this unit. The students should be able to reflect on what expansionism means, what Manifest Destiny looks like, and what isolationism feels like. Once the students have a deeper understanding of these political concepts, they can begin putting themselves in the position of 1800s decision makers imagining the benefits and foreshadowing the issues that will arise.

Policy Pull-Out stemmed from a game that I had played as an after-school coordinator, called “Huggie Bear.” In Huggie Bear, the students mingle around until the teacher calls out a number. Whether the number is seven or two, the students have to gather in a group of that number of students. If students do not find a group that size or cannot find a group fast enough, they are out.

In Policy Pull-Out, we use history-related calls demanding different numbers of people group together or do a specific action. The motions they use in these calls directly relate to understanding the meaning of the words.

As mentioned, the students mingle in place until they receive one of the following calls:

• “Diplomacy” – (ALL) Everyone continues moving around but has to shake hands with everyone.
• “Isolationism” – (one person) Stand in place alone and cover your eyes.
• “Negotiate” – (two people) Find a partner and shake hands.
• “Expansionism” – (three people) Three people need to hold hands (with the ends unbound and spread out as far as they can).

Once the students have those four calls, I then add on three more rules:

• “Manifest Destiny” – (ALL) Everyone runs out to the borders (basketball court lines) to show we are spreading our territory to the coasts.
• “Expansionism + number” – (Teacher picks) Same except the number expanding changes.
• “George Washington” – (Representing his farewell address – three people) One person shakes a finger at the other two who stand back to back.

First, you need to secure an adequate space. For teachers whose weather permits, I recommend trying this outside. For other teachers, a gym or large classroom would be appropriate. A basketball court is a useful playing field because it allows definite borders.

Before leaving the classroom, I recommend reviewing the first four calls and having a volunteer demonstrate each one. The students should have already been introduced to the key concepts and vocabulary but this would be a good time to discuss why certain words represent certain motions and allow them to make the connections for themselves. Perhaps they could even add to the game with their own ideas! You can give students the option of a cheat sheet depending on the situation.

After the class has arrived at the chosen location, the games can begin! The students love this game and are always very excited to be doing an activity out of the norm, but it is important to anticipate problems and set up ground rules about student-to-student contact, referee absolutes, and what to do when you are out. In the past, the students have been very invested in playing the game and are afraid to be taken out as long as you define clear borders. I limit the first round to four calls and then add as we go by gathering the group back together.

At the end of the game, debriefing is necessary in order to reinforce the purposefulness of the game: Did anyone feel safe when they were isolated? Did anyone prefer expansionism? How did you like running to the borders for Manifest Destiny? Do you think that our early presidents may have experienced some of these feelings? As the individuals within a class will form different opinions of their favorite motions, there are mixed opinions about the policies that would be best for our country.

This conversation should be a jumping-off point for more directly connected historical thinking activities. As the following step in scaffolding, I recommend using a collection of primary sources including documents that supported expansion and ones that warned against it. As another logical step, several research assignments could stem from this. For example, the students could compare George Washington to the later presidents that preferred expansionism, or research the motivations of different presidents who did expand (e.g., Thomas Jefferson’s motivations compared to James Monroe’s). Policy Pull-Out should be viewed as an early scaffold to more critical thinking about these concepts.

I hope that you and your students enjoy this game! It has been a highlight of my teaching. When spun correctly, Policy Pull-Out will reinforce the connection between human history and geography to help your students remember and understand why our 50 states exist today!

The word history comes from the Greek historein—meaning “to inquire.” Recommendations for using inquiry [for learning history] have a long tradition.

People learn through inquiry. . . . inquiry is an approach consistent with current theory and research on human learning. When understanding is needed, inquiry appears to be one of the best ways to get there.

–Keith C. Barton and Linda S. Levstik

Teaching History for the Common Good

As teachers of history and social studies teachers, I am convinced that we can regularly experience the motivating effects of having students ask questions, think, and interact while inquiring into historical events, issues, people, and ideas. To deeply involve our students in the study of history, inquiry is indeed the best way to get there. And posing historical questions as mysteries is an excellent way to involve the students in discovery.

Having our students get involved in the process of inquiry is not a matter of simply telling them “here is a problem, here are some sources, now go for it.” That approach will prove no more motivating to most than simply telling them to open their notebooks and then listen to a lecture. However, there are practice-proven strategies that are available to the teacher in order to thoughtfully engage their students in the inquiry process. Mystery, along with Discrepant Event Inquiry (explained in my previous blog), is a highly motivating strategy that will do just that.

Your students are in groups of four discussing topics about the colonization of what would become the United States, and you bring up the lost colony of Roanoke (perhaps in a Discrepant Event Inquiry). Students express an interest in the topic and begin to pose questions that they would like to answer about the colony. When the students next come into class, each group is given a manila envelope containing 12 strips of paper each with a Roanoke fact that they will put together as clues, discuss, and use as they hypothesize on what might have happened to the lost colony.

This strategy presents a mystery, but does not provide answers—rather students develop answers for themselves by analyzing clues. Using the strategy of mystery is not only sound in terms of student interaction and thinking—it is motivating and fun. Mystery combines cooperative learning with inquiry as small teams work together to share and analyze clues and develop tentative hypotheses, as the strategy presents the mystery to be solved, but not the answer. In using the mystery strategy you will find student’s curiosity is piqued, they are motivated and interact, and they are thinking and inquiring,

As with Discrepant Event Inquiry, students have been confronted with a puzzle, but in this case, they are also given historical evidence, in the form of clues. In working with these clues, students begin by organizing the clues according to similarities and common attributes, and developing a label for each category. It is then that the groups must begin to identify and explore relationships between the clues and go beyond them by making inferences as to how they fit together and what they mean. Finally they must develop tentative hypotheses that would explain the phenomena they are studying. Finally, the class discusses and evaluates the various hypotheses that have been developed.

Prior to beginning the strategy, peak student interest in something unknown or mysterious in the historical era that you are studying (such as the lost colony of Roanoke) and have them begin to develop the questions that they would like to try to answer.

There are three steps in the Mystery strategy:

1. Prepare a set of clues for a mystery that will be given to each group (I develop about 12 clues and each group will receive the same set). Although the clues can take many forms (quotations, short primary source documents, pictures, charts or graphs), I begin by using short written clues that contain basic information about the topic in question. For example, the Roanoke mystery might contain clues such as “three years after John White left the Roanoke he returned to find it empty,” “there was no trace of the colonists,” “on a post was carved the word CROATOAN,” “there was a nearby tribe called the Powhatans,” “there was no sign left by the colonists that they had fled from danger,” etc. There must be enough clues to help students begin to formulate a number of hypotheses. The information can come from readings you have done, resources that you find via the Internet, from DVDs—even from the textbook
2. Pass out a set of the clues to each group. The group members then distribute and share clues amongst themselves, organize the clues into groups by similarity, label the groups, compare them, and use the information to develop a hypothesis about the Mystery topic.
3. You select a format for the presentation of student hypotheses. This can take the form of a class discussion and/or through written products. Whatever format you choose, students should share and defend their ideas and the class should engage in a synthesizing discussion.

Organizing information, making sense of data, and developing reasonable hypotheses and explanations based upon evidence are all essential components of inquiry, and all essential skills and habits of mind for our students.

To engage our students in this type of thinking, in this type of work, is not only more important than recall alone, it is more fun for them and for us as teachers. With such strategies as Discrepant Event Inquiry and Mystery we help our students develop questions and reason through information in attempting to answer those questions.

Using inquiry in the classroom does take some work, but it is good work. The journey from teaching history as a body of content to be memorized to teaching history as inquiry, as a way of thinking and questioning, is a powerful one. It is important for history teachers to incorporate primary sources into their lessons, not as an end in itself, but as a means to further students’ inquiry into eras, people, and ideas of the past. In my next blog, I will share one of the strategies I have found is excellent for the use of primary sources in the history classroom.

Networking, power lunches, panels, name badges, exchanging information on the newest developments in the field and listening to the biggest names describe their paths to success—that's the business of business, isn't it? Not necessarily!

The word "conference" may bring up images of smoothly exchanged business cards and sales professionals competing to make the best impression, but conferences aren't just a boardroom cliché. Every field has organizations that bring members (and interested outsiders) together to socialize, discuss the state of their work, and exchange ideas—from science to business to the arts to, of course, education!

Maybe you've never been to a conference for educators. Attending a conference can take some time, money, research, and planning, but the investment can pay off in new colleagues, new ideas, new knowledge, and new skills. Plus, you can snag some free giveaways in the exhibition room!

Conferences usually take place over a full day or several days, and are arranged around a general theme. One year might be "Diversity in the Classroom" and the next, "Great Debates: Engaging with Controversy." Registration allows you to take part in all of a conference's main activities.

Attend the keynote address (usually presented by a notable historian, author, educator, or other figure with experience and knowledge relevant to the theme). Engage in sessions presented by educators, organizations, and experts sharing content, tools, and strategies. Stroll through the exhibit halls, learning about websites, books, and other resources that might help you in your teaching. Meet educators who share your passion for growing as a professional in informal lunches and mixers. Come home inspired and ready to try out what you've learned!

Remember to register as early as you can. Most conferences offer discounts for early registration, as well as discounts if you're a member of the organization hosting the event. Plan ahead, and you may also be able to book a hotel room for a reduced rate—many conferences take place in hotel conference centers, and set aside a block of reduced-rate rooms just for attendees. These can fill up fast!

Planning ahead may also let you sign up for extra, ticketed events. Maybe the conference offers half-day workshops on the day before the conference officially opens. Maybe you can pay to attend special-interest breakfasts, lunches, or dinners. Maybe you can buy tickets for guided tours of local historic districts or group excursions to museums. Conferences often take place in large cities, and this could be your chance to take in some of the sites while you're in town.

Conferences take place across the country at the local, state, national (and international!) levels. Here are some to consider:

• National social studies and history education organizations host annual conferences, drawing hundreds of attendees. The National Council for the Social Studies's annual conference takes place in Washington, DC, in December of 2011, and the National Council of History Education's annual conference will explore "The Causes and Consequences of Civil Wars" in Charleston, SC, from Mar. 31–Apr. 2, 2011.
• Historical organizations organize conferences annually and on special topics. Check their programs ahead of time, but many of these include sessions and workshops designed for teachers as well as content that can be helpful in the classroom. The American Historical Association and the Organization of American Historians both host conferences with teacher-focused sessions.
• Other organizations for K–12 educators organize conferences that can help you keep abreast of new tools and techniques that aren't content-specific. The International Society for Technology in Education's annual conference draws crowds of more than 10,000 and promotes thoughtful, innovative use of the many new technological tools constantly becoming available to schools and teachers.
• State social studies and history education organizations often organize at least an annual conference—some organizations may host two per year, one in the spring and one in the fall. Usually on a smaller scale and less expensive than national conferences, these may be easier to attend if you're tight on time or budget. Multi-state regions may also organize conferences.

And conferences wouldn't go very far without presenters. If you have a strategy or resource to share, look for calls for proposals on conference websites. These deadlines cut off months before the dates of the conferences, so plan ahead. Follow the guidelines and submit a proposal that is clear, succinct, attention-grabbing, and matches the stated theme of the conference.

For secondary education majors including those concentrating on history/social studies, each college semester begins with education courses which require some sort of field experience. These students are tasked to spend time observing in a classroom as an introduction to the world of a teacher and his or her students. The field experience offers students a chance to gain some understanding of the preparation and presentation of history/social studies teachers. Typically, the requirements are between 10 and 30 hours per course.

I recall my field experiences including little interaction with students. I spent my time observing . . . nothing specific, just observing. While some programs provide their students with more specifics and guidance—observation strategies for starters—many students today get much of the same as I did. I remember going into the classroom expecting to see students involved in a great lesson, then getting an opportunity to talk with the teacher about her methods and reflections on the class. I’m convinced, however, that sometimes the teacher didn’t even see me.

I sat at an empty desk at the back of the room, took a few notes, and went on my way until my next scheduled visit. My students have often said they felt similarly anonymous and their observations ineffectual. Moreover, the time spent in these classrooms is quite short, and with some students shuffled around to several teachers in various content areas, the time can seem even shorter. Seeing effective teaching under these circumstances is challenging indeed.

But fear not . . . education majors near completion of their studies will nearly always begin a comprehensive internship experience typically for a semester or an entire school year. In this internship each future teacher will be involved in a transition process beginning with more (hopefully targeted) observation climaxing in a period of time (often four to six weeks) where the intern becomes the full-time teacher: preparing lessons and assessments, dealing with classroom management and parent and student communication, grading assignments, attending meetings (faculty, IEP, PLC, and so on) and taking on teacher duties including monitoring the cafeteria, bathrooms, or hallways. This internship is supposed to be the experience where the prospective teacher is able to synthesize theory and practice—where innovative lessons are realized and teachers are made.

The problem is that too often these experiences, like those of the more limited field experience, do not provide prospective teachers with the environment to observe or practice effective history/social studies teaching.

Not only does the nomenclature vary—these students are referred to as interns at one university and student-teachers at another, and field experience is called practicum for some—but far more importantly, the experiences themselves vary widely. Teacher and school placements are at the heart of the problem. Some get lucky and are placed with a teacher interested in methods to instill profound student learning, but others are placed with a teacher mired in mediocrity. My former major professor—also a wonderful history educator—and I recently commiserated about the frustration of spending considerable time instilling in prospective history/social studies educators the idea that middle, high school, and even elementary students can engage in “doing” history: they are able to effectively analyze sources (both primary and secondary) for evidence of causation and bias and deal with the cognitive discord which often results from these historical thinking endeavors.

Yet more often than not, these future teachers would report that their field experiences were filled with observations of basic fact memorization, lecture, textbook activities, and worksheets. And even more troublesome, many reported that efforts to discuss ways in which to get students to “do” history were met with scoffs and disparaging comments about how “in the real world” of teaching, there’s no time for such high-level thinking; students need to know the facts to pass the tests (both teacher-made and state-mandated).

The complexity of teaching history and social studies is such that an environment where prospective teachers can translate theory into practice is crucial to teacher development. It is with a clear message of effective methodology coupled with the cooperation of effective mentor teachers that we can hope to improve the practice of teaching history and improve the place of history/social studies in the schools. Opportunities for prospective teachers to observe effective teachers and interact with students are precious . . . we ought to get a handle on this process.

In subsequent postings, I will revisit this important topic and discuss some specific ways education faculty and colleges of education are addressing field experience. Some solutions involve the development of deeper ties between teacher preparation programs and the K–12 schools where these interns are placed. These school partnerships foster teacher training and education research to improve teaching and student achievement in history and other content areas. Other approaches involve changes to teacher preparation programs, including more coursework and longer internship requirements. And still other proposed solutions eschew face-to-face student/teacher interaction and embrace technical innovation, allowing prospective teachers the opportunity to engage in computer-simulated classroom experiences. This cutting-edge technology, already in place in some universities, allows students to teach classrooms full of virtual students and deal with the presentation of lessons, classroom management, and student assessment even before their internship.

In a world where kids are extremely familiar with a robotic "Turn left," and may have never actually seen a road atlas, geography has never been so important in the history classroom. Until mental maps, geography lessons did not often win the battle against history standards for precious time in my classroom. Now instead of being a sideshow, I consider maps a necessary step in teaching and checking for comprehension. Learning history content needs to be partnered with visualizing the environmental influences. After all, in order to understand how America was shaped, knowledge of the land is crucial.

Mental maps add another dimension to the history classroom. If you are not utilizing them to teach American history concepts, I recommend that you read below to discover how they help to build connections, incorporate different learning styles, and check for depth of understanding.

A mental map is a rough sketch of the world simplified enough that the outline can be remembered and repeated. The outline of the map can then be labeled with physical, political, or historic details.

(The map described draws USA and its immediate neighbors.)

The Set-Up:

The teacher simply needs an overhead projector and some wet erase markers to begin (colors help!). The students need a piece of lined or computer paper and a writing utensil.

First, I recommend figuring out a folding system that works for you. Folding the paper before beginning keeps the maps more proportionate. I like my students to divide the paper into six parts. Draw imaginary fold lines across the overhead to help orient the students.

Before starting to draw, it is important to emphasize that no two mental maps will look identical. Students can have trouble accepting that, and for the perfectionists this can be a particular challenge.

The Story:

The most important step to teaching mental maps is creating a story that will aid in memory. Tell the story using the overhead projector as a visual guide. After telling each part of the story, draw the corresponding piece of the map on the overhead, have the students repeat the steps, and periodically check their papers. Once they learn the outline, we use it throughout the year again and again so they have a very good understanding of our basic geography.

Many different stories could work and I have experimented with a few. This year, I told the story of "Norbert Americus, Zookeeper Extraordinaire." The story goes: Mr. Americus wanted to make the best zoo possible so he started collecting the biggest animals that he could. (If you prompt the students, you may find that they are very good at guessing the animals.) First he collected an elephant and a giraffe. Then he decided to get the very biggest animal even though he lives in the sea. Add a whale's tale to the top.

A little prairie dog wandered over from the deserts of America to see these big animals. He saw them and panicked. He took one look back and scurried all the way to the edge of the paper.

When the prairie dog arrived in Alaska, another nervous animal was there—a turtle. The turtle popped his head out when he saw the prairie dog.

The prairie dog and the turtle had each other now. They realized they had reached the West Coast so they decided it was time to chiiiiiiill out. Actually they chilled out so much that they were all the way down the Baja Peninsula before they knew it!

Just about then, the turtle and the prairie dog started talking. The animals in Mr. Americus's zoo seemed nice enough. In fact, none of those animals even eat turtles or prairie dogs. They turned back around and asked if they could be part of the zoo. The big animals liked the small animals and they of course said- "Y not?"

And that is the story of the Mr. Americus's Zoo!

In the first map that I teach, we draw the 2001 USA so we add an animal from way down low and way up high to the zoo—a snake and a bird—to outline the three major countries.

For American history, I do not include all of North America for simplicity's sake and I also exaggerate the size of America compared to Canada in order to fit features throughout the year. These two factors should be pointed out to the students, and you should show them a real map and discuss the purpose of a mental map versus a real map.

In world history, mental maps had been a great way to teach all of the different continents, so when I began U.S. history, I was concerned about the efficacy of repeating the USA map. I have discovered that not only can the single outline work, it is also beneficial to establish that one outline early on and recycle it so the focus can move to the details. Also, this helps to connect the historic pieces. For example, adding the Treaty of Paris land, then the Louisiana Purchase, and then the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, the students can really visualize the growth of our nation.

As you view the maps, please note that they also help orient the students to their country. Many of my DC students have never made it to see the White House, let alone making it past Maryland or Virginia. So they can establish the basic size and geography of our country in relation to places that they have heard of or seen on television.

Some of the maps I have used include:

1. Mental maps are accessible. The students have fun as if they have learned a neat new trick, and yet pretty soon they can easily locate the land America gained in the Treaty of Paris or describe the length of the Trail of Tears.
2. Mental maps provide an avenue for students with different talents to shine on an actual test. Often times these talents show up in projects or classwork, but this aids that talent to come out in more rigid assessments as well.
3. Mental maps force some traditionally excellent students to stretch their brains and skills outside of their comfort zone.
4. Mental maps are simple to modify. I provide a few special education students the basic map outline and allow them to fill in the details important to the unit.
5. Mental maps allow the teacher to check the difference between test memorization and actually comprehending the material. If they are able to answer that the Louisiana Purchase doubled the size of the United States on a multiple-choice question but then make that land a mere sliver on the map, the teacher knows that they have reached a level of regurgitation rather than of actual learning.

A document camera makes a great addition to a history classroom with a video projector or TV. A document camera captures anything under its lens and projects it on the screen. While this technology has been around for a few years, I have noticed it has been a little slow to catch on for a variety of reasons.

Some teachers may be hesitant to embrace the document camera because they believe it to simply be a glorified overhead projector. The document camera beats the old overhead projector in many ways, the first being that the document camera does not require one to make transparencies. A teacher can project artifacts, photos, worksheets, and anything else that can fit under the camera lens. In addition, students are better able to see the image produced by a document camera as it is much brighter and clearer than the image produced by the overhead projector. Best of all, you no longer leave school covered in overhead marker!

The cost of the document camera may also make this teaching tool seem out of the reach of many teachers and districts in these lean budget years.

While document cameras range in price from $200 to $2,000, this should not preclude one from having their own document camera. You can find a used document camera on eBay or a surplus property store for under $100. I bought mine at one such surplus property store, associated with the
University of Maryland, for $25. Another option is to make a document camera yourself using a webcam and available USB port. The only drawback to this setup is you have to be able to load software on your computer attached to the video projector in your classroom. A ready-made version of this runs about $69. It is also possible to obtain grant money for document cameras from places like DonorsChoose.

Once you have your document camera installation is straightforward. Some document cameras come with a freeze image button which is a great feature to capture a page in a book or map that might be difficult to hold in place. If the document camera does not have this feature, you can hook up the document camera directly to the video projector, which often has the ability to freeze an image. If your document camera is not one that hooks up to your computer via USB, you can also set up the document camera directly to your projector. This allows you to toggle between the image on your computer screen (assuming it too is attached to your video projector) and the image from your document camera. You can also connect most document cameras to a television using an S-video cable or component video cable. It should be noted, however, that the clarity is not as crisp when using the S-video cable or component video cable compared to using a VGA or DVI connection.

The document camera has vast instructional possibilities. I have used my document camera every day in my history classroom. One of the benefits of having a document camera in a history classroom is having the ability to analyze primary sources together as a class. I am able to zoom in on important components of a photograph or text and can invite students to the document camera to annotate pictures or text without bulky markers or transparencies. I am also able to share maps in books easily with students, in color. Students are able to share work they have created immediately with the class without having to scan an image or make a transparency of the document.

This means that jigsaw activities work very efficiently, with each group able to share what they have written on nothing larger than a worksheet. Collectively, classes have created essay outlines and timelines together. The document camera allows students to share storybooks they have created, projected large enough for the class to see. From a classroom management perspective, the document camera allows me to easily show students the worksheet we are working on or the question I want them to focus on. I am also able to place my stopwatch under the camera to show students how much longer they have to complete a task. Finally, my favorite use of the document camera is allowing me to spotlight and share exemplar student work. I am able to give specific praise to a well-written essay or project.

I hope you are able to get your hands on a document camera and share your tips and tricks with others. You can find product reviews for document cameras in this article from Scholastic.