Communication Strategies
Think-Pair-Share: The Think-Pair-Share activity involves students taking the time to individually think about content before sharing their thoughts with a partner. After having time to discuss the content with a partner, students engage in a classroom discussion with the rest of their peers about the topic. This activity type forces students to engage in meaningful dialogues that help build their confidence in having academic discussions. Furthermore, it forces all students to be active, contributing participants in the classroom.
Four Corners: The Four Corners strategy involves students demonstrating their personal opinion on a specific topic by choosing a corner of the room that represents their view on a specific statement (agree, strong agree, disagree, strongly disagree). This activity forces all students to actively participate since all students must choose a corner that represents their personal viewpoint. Students can then be asked as a group why they feel the way they do about the statement. This activity is useful as a warm up activity to get students thinking about a topic or as a follow up activity to assess the gained content knowledge of students.
Organization Strategies
Graphic Organizers: Graphic organizers help students classify ideas and communicate their thoughts more effectively. They help in problem solving, decision making, studying, planning research, and brainstorming. They also help students better understand the core concepts of the content they are learning.
Timeline: Timelines are great visual organizers for studying a brief period of time (Day, year, life of an individual) or looking at a topic that occurred over a longer time scale (centuries). They appeal to a wide-variety of student learning intelligences and are great for ELL learners due to the creation of a visual time scale for the content.
Ranking: Making a list is usually a straightforward process for students that takes little thought. Having them create an ordered ranking involves students utilizing their higher-level skills of analysis and evaluation. It forces them to identify and refine criteria as they create the list. This allows students to gain a broader understanding of the content being learned.
Collaboration Strategies
Project-Based Learning: Project based learning refers to students demonstrating their gained content knowledge through the creation of projects. Students are the driving force of this instruction type - they can draw on their personal strengths to create projects that involve their own interests, native language, cultural background, and technical skills. Project based learning is especially effective for ELL students due to peer-to-peer interactions, which helps develop a student's academic vocabulary and overall language acquisition.
Collection Strategies
Webquest: A webquest is an inquiry based tool for online learning. They can take place over a single class period or can be a part of a longer unit. The goal is for students to work individually or in groups to explore a topic on the internet. Students should spend their time actively utilizing information, not looking for it. Completing a webquest provides students with an opportunity to practice their 21st century skills in the classroom.
Document Analysis: One of the most important skills for a student to learn in the history classroom is the ability to analyze documents. Being able to identify the purpose, message, and audience of a text gives the student the ability to determine whether there is bias present in the document. They can then use this knowledge to give more or less weight to what the document says.