Amazing Instructional Strategies!

http://www.facinghistory.org/teachingstrategies

Teaching Strategies

We encourage teachers to use student-centered teaching strategies that nurture students' literacy and critical thinking skills within a respectful classroom climate. The strategies suggested here can be used with students of all ages with any academic content.

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Introducing a New BookThis pre-reading activity is an effective way to introduce students to a new book from a work of literature to a historical resource book, such as Facing History and Ourselves: Holocaust and Human Behavior. Spending some time looking at the content of a book can spark students’ interest and can provide students with context that will help them engage with the material.
3-2-1This activity helps structure students’ responses to an activity, a reading or a film.  It provides an easy way for teachers to check for understanding and to gauge students’ interest in a topic. Sharing 3-2-1 responses can also be an effective way to prompt a class discussion or to review material from the previous lesson.
Alphabet brainstormBrainstorming is an effective way to help students get ideas from head to paper. The Alphabet Brainstorm helps structure students’ brainstorming by asking them to generate an idea that begins with each letter of the alphabet. This can be done as an individual, small group, or whole class activity. It is a quick way to generate thoughts, measure prior knowledge, and evaluate learning.
Analyzing Visual Images and StereotypingIn this strategy students will: Develop awareness of historical context Develop critical thinking skills, particularly in regards to visual images Enhance their observation and interpretive skills Develop conceptual learning techniques
Anticipation GuidesAnticipation guides ask students to express an opinion about ideas before they encounter them in a text or unit of study.  Completing anticipation guides prepares students to recognize and connect to these themes as they surface in their learning.  Reviewing anticipation guides at the end of a lesson or unit is one way to help students reflect on how learning new material may have influenced their opinions, perhaps by reinforcing previously held beliefs or by causing ideas to shift.
Assigning RolesMany teachers find that assigning students’ particular roles is an effective way to structure group work. Sometimes certain students tend to assume too much responsibility for the groups’ work, while other students may be reluctant to contribute to the group’s activities. Assigning roles helps distribute responsibility among group members and ensures accountability for all students’ participation. As students practice different roles, they have the opportunity to develop a variety of skills.
Attribute Linking - Building Community by Taking Perspectives  This activity is designed to help students discuss difficult issues, while also recognizing that they likely represent different perspectives. "Attribute Linking" can help students to define, clarify, and personalize the roles of victim, perpetrator, and bystander, By having students look for attributes they share before they discuss issues on which they may differ, the exercise emphasizes commonality over differences and helps students recognize the value of negotiation. Finally, this exercise builds trust and contributes to a climate of openness in the Facing History classroom.
Barometer - Taking a Stand on Controversial IssuesThe barometer teaching strategy helps students share their opinions by lining up along a continuum to represent their point of view.  It is especially useful when trying to discuss an issue about which students have a wide range of opinions.  Engaging in a barometer activity can be an effective pre-writing exercise before an essay assignment because it gets many arguments out on the table.
Big Paper - Building a Silent ConversationThis discussion strategy uses writing and silence as tools to help students explore a topic in-depth. Having a written conversation with peers slows down students’ thinking process and gives them an opportunity to focus on the views of others. This strategy also creates a visual record of students’ thoughts and questions that can be referred to later in a course. Using the Big Paper strategy can help engage shy students who are not as likely to participate in a verbal discussion. After using this strategy several times, students’ comfort, confidence, and skill with this method increases.	Consensus building,Discussion,Perspective taking,Sharing ideas
Biopoem: Connecting Identity and Poetry“Who am I?” is a question on the minds of many adolescents. This activity helps students clarify important elements of their identity. When biopoems are shared they can help build peer relationships and foster a cohesive classroom community.  Biopoems get beyond aspects of identity that are often more obvious and familiar (such as ethnicity, gender and age), by focusing on other factors that shape our identities such as experiences, relationships, hopes and interests. Biopoems can also be a way for students to demonstrate what they know about historical or literary figures. It provides a structure for students to think more critically about an individual’s traits, experiences and character.
Bodysculpting - Using Theater to Explore the HolocaustBodysculpting is a strategy teachers use to help students debrief material (readings, videos, fieldtrips, survivor testimony, etc) that evokes strong feelings. Nonverbal forms of expression can be an effective medium for students when they are trying to process powerful emotional content that is difficult to put into words. The bodysculpting teaching strategy provides a nonverbal form of expression by requiring students to represent ideas through body-positioning.
Café ConversationsUnderstanding the past requires students to develop an awareness of different perspectives. The Café Conversation teaching strategy helps students practice perspective-taking by requiring students to represent a particular point-of-view in a small group discussion.  During a conversation with people representing other backgrounds and experiences, students become more aware of the role many factors play (i.e. social class, occupation, gender, age, etc) in terms of shaping one’s attitudes and perspectives on historical events. Café Conversations can be used as an assessment tool or can prepare students to write an essay about a specific historical event.	Assessment,Developing a thesis,Perspective taking
Character ChartsGraphic organizers, like the sample below, can be used to help students organize information about major and minor characters in a text.  Completed character charts are useful tools for writing essays and studying for tests. They are often used to record information about literacy characters, but can also be adapted to record information about historical figures.	Assessment,Discussion,Finding evidence,Graphic organizer,Literacy,Reading,Research,Writing
ChunkingAn important skill for students to practice is the ability to comprehend challenging texts.  Chunking is an example of a strategy that helps students breakdown difficult text into more manageable pieces. Dividing content into smaller parts helps students identify key words and ideas, develops students’ ability to paraphrase, and makes it easier for students to organize and synthesize information.
Community-Building: Using Our Names to Understand Each Other  This activity uses students names as a way to build connections and community within the classroom To help students get to know other people in their class To find commonalities around the history of their names
ContractingA Facing History and Ourselves classroom is a place where explicit rules and implicit norms protect everyone’s right to speak; where differing perspectives can be heard and valued; where members take responsibility for themselves, each other, and the group as a whole; and where each member has a stake and a voice in collective decisions. Facing History calls these spaces reflective classroom communities. Reflective classroom communities often do not happen by accident; rather, they are deliberatively nurtured by students and teachers who have shared expectations about how classroom members will treat each other.  One way to help classroom communities establish shared norms is by discussing them openly through a process called “contracting.” Sometimes this involves drafting and agreeing to a formal contract of behavior as well.
Deepening Literacy: Text to Self; Text to Text; Text to WorldReading comes alive when we make connections beyond the text itself. This is a skill that can be practiced and learned.In this strategy students will: Strengthen their literacy skills Make connections between the reading an themselves Make connections between the reading and other texts Make connections between the reading and the larger world
Document Analysis TemplatesAnalyzing historical documents requires students to identify the purpose, message and audience of a text. Document Analysis Forms are graphic organizers that guide students through a process of identifying important background information about a document (e.g. author/creator, date created, place, format, etc.) and using this data to determine the bias or perspective of a text.	Finding evidence,Reading
Essential Questions“To get at matters of deep and enduring understanding we need to use provocative and multilayered questions that reveal the richness and complexities of a subject” (Wiggins and McTighe). Essential Questions represent enduring questions that cannot be answered with a simple yes or no response.  By connecting material to a significant theme that resonates with the lives of adolescents, essential questions can add relevance and focus to a unit of study.  Essential Questions can be used to guide curricular decisions and can provide the backbone for assessments.
Evaluating Internet ResourcesThe Internet has a vast array of resources available to both teachers and students. The question for teachers is how to effectively use these resources with students.  It is critical for students to evaluate the accuracy and bias of all media, and this is especially true regarding resources found on the Internet – where there are no standards imposed on posted information.