640viewsCollective Responsibility When our social studies department chair discussed students’ difficulty to contextualize the facts on the APUSH test, I knew this problem wasn’t just… Read More »The Most Underrated and Villianized Strategy for Teaching History: Memorizing Facts
2.9kviewsIn the past, when I would ask my classes how they studied for any of our last tests, overwhelming they’d tell me that they reread their notes.… Read More »Don’t Ask Students to “Study” Latin Word Chunks, Here’s Why.
5.3kviews Unfortunately, it probably won’t take much to imagine this scene: You’ve just returned test results, and the sad student voices begin to whine. “I knew everything… Read More »How to Download and do a Brain Dump
3.3kviews In my last post, “Why I’m Happy to Post ‘Cheat Sheets’ on my Classroom Walls,” I discussed why and how I use anchor charts, vocabulary… Read More »How Both Students and Teachers Can Use Anchor Charts
3.1kviewsAs I mentioned in my recent post about rote memorization, I want my students to grasp the “big picture” of US History: What do we… Read More »Five Steps To Memorizing the “Big Picture” of US History
1.6kviewsShort-Term Problem? When I first started teaching, my students regularly stressed about the tests, and they freaked out about the comprehensive final exams. They couldn’t… Read More »Shake the Shame: I’m Making a Case for Rote Memorization (Not Drill and Kill)
17kviewsBut I don’t teach AP US History, why is this relevant to me? After ten years, I still remember my first mentor telling me that “The… Read More »10 Classroom Exercises to Scaffold towards APUSH
12.4kviews The longer I teach, the more troubled I get by students’ forgetfulness. Yes, I am irked by the fifteen-year-old who doesn’t remember to bring a pencil… Read More »7 Strategies to Make Content Stick