Teaching and Learning Resources

This page is a sampling of the many resources for you and your students to use to learn more about Universal Design for Learning, the process of historical inquiry and organizing and presenting information.  Enjoy!

UDL Resources:

  • National Center on Universal Design for Learning Website:
    http://www.udlcenter.org/aboutudl
    This website supports educators in learning about and practicing Universal Design for Learning (UDL.)  UDL is a framework that can help turn the challenges posed by high standards and increasing learner diversity into opportunities to maximize learning for every student.

  • CAST UDL Guidelines:                                          
    http://www.udlcenter.org/aboutudl/udlguidelines      
    The UDL Guidelines provide you with an at-a-glance framework to consider how to make the curriculum work best for all learners. 

  • Lesson Builder in CAST UDL Exchange:     
    http://udlexchange.cast.org/home  
    This UDL Lesson Builder will help you to create, save, edit, and print your own lesson plans using the principles of UDL and its applications.   

Historical Methodology Resources:

  • Recent Research in Historical Thinking, Understanding, and Teaching: Selected References 
    http://www.indiana.edu/~oah/nl/99feb/Oahbibl.htm     
    From the Organization of American Historians, a list of key research articles on teaching historical thinking, up to the year 2000.

  • ERIC Digest:  Teaching Historical Thinking:                                              
    http://www.ericdigests.org/2003-2/historical.html      
    Over the past decade, cognitive studies researcher Samuel Wineburg has conducted empirical studies to compare the way historians think about primary and secondary sources with the thinking processes of high school students and teachers. Wineburg's research demonstrates the importance of domain-based or subject-specific thinking in the teaching and learning of history. This Digest addresses Wineburg's conception of historical thinking and its application to the teaching and learning of history in schools.

  • Exerpt from Historical Thinkining and Other Unnnatural Acts by Samuel Wineburg
    http://www.temple.edu/tempress/chapters_1400/1518_ch1.pdf

  • Promoting Historical Inquiry:  The Gather Model: 
    http://anza.uoregon.edu/TeachersWWW/Gather_model.html
    GATHER is an acronym for 6 discrete steps of historical inquiry.  This site provides a clear overview and explanations of each of the steps in the process.

  • Great Unsolved Mysteries in Canadian History-Testimony v. Evidence
    http://www.canadianmysteries.ca/en/3512.php
    Reading documents as “evidence” and not simply as “testimony” allows historians to move beyond the questions “is this statement true?” or even “was the author biased?” -- beyond the intended purpose of the document or even the concerns of those who created it -- to find material and make inferences pertaining to the larger question of interest to historians.  Tip:  explore the rest of the Canadian Mysteries site for lessons and support materials for teachers and students in using interactive digital history environments.

  • The Historian’s Sources:  An introduction to effective use of primary sources:
    http://memory.loc.gov/learn/lessons/psources/pshome.html
    This lesson introduces students to primary sources -- what they are, their great variety, and how they can be analyzed. The lesson begins with an activity that helps students understand the historical record. Students then learn techniques for analyzing primary sources. Finally, students apply these techniques to analyze documents about slavery in the United States.

  • Making Sense of Evidence:  How to make effective use of primary sources:
    http://historymatters.gmu.edu/browse/makesense/  
    This site helps students and teachers make effective use of primary sources. “Making Sense of Documents” provide strategies for analyzing online primary materials, with interactive exercises and a guide to traditional and online sources. “Scholars in Action” segments show how scholars puzzle out the meaning of different kinds of primary sources, allowing you to try to make sense of a document yourself then providing audio clips in which leading scholars interpret the document and discuss strategies for overall analysis.

Lessons and Activities:

  • Analyzing the Purpose and Meaning of Political Cartoons: 
    http://www.readwritethink.org/lessons/lesson_view.asp?id=794             
    In this ReadWriteThink lesson, high school students learn to evaluate political cartoons for their meaning, message, and persuasiveness. Students first develop critical questions about political cartoons. They then access an online activity to learn about the artistic techniques cartoonists frequently use. As a final project, students work in small groups to analyze a political cartoon and determine whether they agree or disagree with the author's message.

  • It’s no Laughing Matter:  Analyzing Political Cartoons: 
    http://lcweb2.loc.gov/learn/features/political_cartoon/index.html      
    What makes funny cartoons seriously persuasive?  Cartoonists' persuasive techniques do. All cartoonists have access to a collection of tools that help them get their point across. Some of these techniques work "behind the scenes." You might not even notice them unless you know what you are looking for. In this activity, students get to take apart real-world cartoons--and learn how to spot the methods behind the message.

  • Picturing Modern America 1880-1920:                             
    http://www.edc.org/CCT/PMA/ 
    This site engages students in the practice of doing history the way historians do, using primary documents from the Library of Congress .  Promoting critical and visual literacies in service of historical inquiry, the site includes the 'Image Detective,' 'Investigations,' and 'Exhibit Builder' activities. 

  • How To Teach With Historic Places Lesson Plans: 
    http://www.nps.gov/history/nr/twhp/wwwlps/lessnuse/howtouse2.htm#getting

Primary Source Resources:

  • See, Hear and Sing:  Multimedia Sources from the Library of Congress   
    http://www.americaslibrary.gov/cgi-bin/page.cgi/sh               
    Created for students, "America's Story from America's Library" is designed to encourage students to have fun with history while learning at the same time. This site engages students in using the digital resources of the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., the largest in the world.  

  • The Learning Page at the Library of Congress: 
    http://memory.loc.gov/learn/start/index.html
    The Learning Page is designed to help educators use the American Memory Collections to teach history and culture. It offers tips and tricks, definitions and rationale for using primary sources, activities, discussions, lesson plans and suggestions for using the collections in classroom curriculum.

  • U.S. National Archives Experience: Lesson Plans & Teaching Activities
    http://www.archives.gov/nae/education/lesson-plans.html
    The U.S. National Archives provides digital access to primary source documents, including written documents, artifacts, cartoons, maps, motion pictures, photographs, posters and sound recordings.  The Educators Lesson Plans & Teaching Activities site includes downloadable  'Analysis Worksheets' for evaluating these different types of primary sources and educator-created lessons.     

Free tools to organize information:

  • Clipmarks
    http://clipmarks.com/
    Clipmarks is a free, online tool to help collect and organize information online

  • Bubbl.us
    https://bubbl.us/
    Bubbl.us is a free, online concept mapping tool.  Supports users in organizing information and ideas visually.

 

Guides for writing:


Rubrics, Guides and Tools