Be a Historical Ninja

According to Wikipedia, "the functions of the ninja included espionage, sabotage, infiltration, assassination, and open combat in certain situations."

                                                               

According to us, "the functions of the historical ninja include searching for information, sorting evidence, sourcing documents, informational summaries, and argumentative writing in certain situations.

Where did this idea come from?

There have been a lot of changes in all of our curricula no matter what subject you teach.  Our role as teachers has changed.  There are so many ideas floating around that it can be very overwhelming.  Last year I began experimenting with many new ideas and methods.  It was great but I felt as though I was lacking basic structure for what I was attempting to do.  As a social studies teacher, I was planning all these "Historical Thinking" lessons but it seemed so disorganized and scattered. 

I felt as though my students required a two week orientation at the beginning of the course to explain and experience the goals I had for them.  Therefore, I built the "Be a Historical Ninja" website to serve as a framework for some of the skills we would be mastering throughout the year.

I guess what I am trying to say to all teachers is that there have been so many changes in all departments. Common Core and other initiatives have made it essential to give students in any subject an orientation period at the the beginning of the year.  This will help them understand that the course is more than just memorization of knowledge.  They will learn skills that can help them in any walk of life.

Be a Historical Ninja

Getting to know this site.

As stated above, this site deals with types of text, sourcing, searching, and historical writing.  To begin, students complete a simple activity that introduces different types of text all displaying information about one subject.  Second, there are four different exercises that include sourcing, contextualization, close reading, and corroboration.  Next, students are exposed to different tools for searching in Google and a searching activity is embedded, that was created by Google, to practice use of those tools.  Finally there are writing tasks and examples for students to repeatedly refer back to as they write throughout the entire year. 

This site was intended to be used for orientation but is also a tool that students can refer back to at anytime.  It took my classes about two weeks to run through everything especially since there was a lot of reflection and discussion throughout this process.

Feel free to use or adapt any parts of this site to meet the needs of your learners.  Feel free to contact us with any questions or suggestions.

The idea behind this site can be adapted to any subject area.  You simply need to decide what your goals for the students will be and introduce them at the beginning of the year with small activities like those I created.

Empowering Students in a Digital Age

We hear it at conferences:

"Instead of 1 teacher in the classroom there should be 25."

We read about it in motivational tweets:

We hear it from our peers:

"Use instructional activities that engage your students."

All thought provoking comments...but how exactly can we as educators do this?

A quote from the great modern day philosopher, Tony Horton, provides some valuable insight:

"Information is power and with power there is change and change is good."

Technology is changing and evolving every day and we must adapt.  My one goal is to try to provide some information and a few resources (from the thousands you can use) on how to structure a powerful curriculum to create a classroom of teachers...and...that is good.

 (More words from Tony)

Over a few years of experimenting with blending literacy strategies and technology, three main concepts emerged as to what we must GIVE our students to allow them to control the learning process.

1.  Give students a problem or question:

This site has some excellent ideas as to how to create a driving question.  A solid driving question will be the foundation to get your students critically thinking on their own.  The one essential question that will be used throughout this post is social studies based...but a powerful question can be created in any subject.

What was the most significant event that led to Adolf Hitler's rise to power in Germany?

2.  Give students a voice:

In order for students to take control, they must be given a chance to express themselves. 

There are hundreds of ways to give your students a digital voice in the classroom that will allow them to address a driving question:

Twitter, Voicethread, TodaysMeet, PowToon, SimpleMeet, Vocaroo (Just a few)

In order to give my students a voice, I asked them to create presentations similar to Common Craft Videos. These are explanatory videos that cover a topic in a visually engaging short amount of time.  My all time personal favorite is Zombies in Plain English.  

Each group of students had to research a specific event in Hitler's rise to power and create a video summarizing the event in a set amount of time (Around 2 minutes).

As the educator, I had to teach organization, research, and summary writing skills.  Students had to figure out what valuable information needed to be included without drawing out the presentation and losing viewers interest.  

Student Example using a FlipCam

Behind the scenes

3.  Give students a chance to connect:

Allow your students to view and comment on each others work.  This is the most important step to allow for peer collaboration and learning.  They will be gaining knowledge from each presentation, tweet, and voice or text comment.  After students have had the chance to connect with their peers, they will have acquired enough of an understanding to answer the driving question that was initially presented to them.

As for the videos, I put them into a YouTube channel that allowed the students to view and comment on the various presentations.  

So far, my students have enjoyed this type of classroom environment.  They take pride in their work and enjoy learning from their peers instead of listening to the teacher all period.  

As the educator, it is your job to model the strategies for research and show how to use this information effectively.  You will be teaching students the skills they will need throughout their lives no matter where life takes them.  By giving students a driving question, a voice, and a connection you can let them take control of the classroom.

Thanks for reading and the next time someone tells you to get your students more engaged, do as Tony Horton would do and "fly like a pterodactyl coming in for a landing."  No wait that is not it....

That's better