Announcing... Our Class Website!

Visit our class wiki at the link below to access all online resources, instructional strategies, and books for effective social studies teaching shared during our classes, as well as former block students' social studies lesson and unit plans.

http://sites.google.com/site/muwed310/

Want to join so you can add content? Leave your Google account email in the comments. (To protect your privacy, I'll delete as soon as I invite you to join.)

Flat Stanley Project

Visit this website to learn more about how schools around the world are using the Flat Stanley series to make geography come alive!

For a homework assignment in this class, you must mail, email, or photo text the flat version of yourself :) to at least one person outside the state of MS. The person must take a photograph with "flat you" in a landmark location in their town/state and mail/email/text the photograph back to you. You are only required to obtain one photograph, but you are encouraged to get as many as you can! With the speed of email and text messaging, this project should be both easy and fun. Awards will be given on our final day of class to students with the most locations and the farthest locations.

What ideas do you have for using the Flat Stanley project in your own classroom?

Top 10 Essentials of a Culturally Responsive Classroom

In class last week, we had a wonderful discussion about the essential components of a culturally responsive 21st century classroom.  Here are a few of the students' ideas:

I love making "Top 10" lists, so here are mine:

Top 10 Essentials of a Culturally Responsive Classroom

1. A willing and passionate teacher and lifelong learner.
2. Maps, globes, games and other geography/social studies hands-on learning resources.
3. Big ideas about history and social studies reinforced across the curriculum.
4. Focus on active learning and connection of learning to students' lives and prior knowledge.
5. Frequent discussion and posting of current events and kid-friendly news sources.
6. Invitations for students and families to share of themselves.
7. Highlight important leaders of all cultural backgrounds year-round, not just during specific months.
8. Meaningful technology integration - kids as producers, not just consumers.
9. Communiction/collaboration with and about other people and places beyond the doors of the classroom/school - around the community and across the country/world.
10. Fostering a global mindset and  tolerant attitude where "weird" is replaced with "different."