Spectrum Teaching Strategy

Are you looking for a fun strategy to get your students out of their seats? This activity is especially great for kinesthetic learners.  It will also help both the teacher and the students to "see" the opinions of others. This is a strategy to be used when asking for student opinions on a topic or question. 

Below are the steps to implement the "Spectrum" activity in your classroom;

Step 1: Place a line across the whiteboard or a piece of masking tape on the floor, from wall to wall in front of the room.

STEP 2: Label one end "Strongly Agree" and the other end "Strongly Disagree".

STEP 3: Students line up according to an opinion on a topic.

* other label ideas could be "Most Important/Least Important". "Greatest Effect/Least Effect"

STEP 4: Call on specific students or volunteers to explain the reason they are standing where they are on the spectrum. 

Below are some of my teaching resources you can use this strategy with:

Political Ideologies Spectrum

8th Amendment Punishment Debate

Big Five Personality Comparison

Prayer in School Debate

Constitution Influence on Political Systems

Democrats v Republican - What are the Differences?

Causes of the American Revolution EKG Timeline

Freedom of Religion - 1st Amendent Freedom

Happy Teaching!

Social Studies Super Bundles

Are you constantly spending time searching for updated social studies materials? Or, are you always trying to find ways for students to have FUN while learning social studies content? Is there an anxious feeling while trying to differentiate for each student? Don’t worry, you are not alone! It can be so hard to find engaging content that will work for all students. Thankfully, there are Social Studies Super Bundles ready for purchase. However, these bundles are so amazing that they won’t be available forever. The Social Studies Super Bundles are only available from June 13th-June 20th. The bundles are so amazing that you are going to want to set your calendar reminder now!

Benefits of Available Bundles

Sometimes, people are hesitant to purchase bundles due to the higher upfront cost. There is often concern over the quality of all of the resources and if this justifies the cost. Thankfully, the Social Studies Super Bundles are filled with 100+ high-quality printable and digital resources. All of the activities are fun, engaging, worthwhile lessons! Even better, the bundles are only $20 during this exclusive sale! 

After purchasing, huge stress will be lifted due to spending less time planning. HOURS of your time will be saved with these ready-to-go resources! Even better, all of the resources bring in updated and innovative teaching strategies. For example, students will be playing digital games, moving to stations, using Boom Cards, and completing web searches. Therefore, you will be able to read the book on your list, catch up on TV, play with your kids, or take a much-needed nap. After purchasing these bundles, say goodbye to stressing over lesson planning! 

Video URL(embed it)- https://youtu.be/G6J5u1u0wYc  

American History Bundle

The incredible resources here will cover a variety of topics. Therefore, one $20 bundle will be spread across the entire year! Hence, teachers will never have to worry about not having an engaging lesson ready to go. More importantly, each lesson includes a component on anti-racism education, which is so important in the world today! Therefore, students are learning about history while working to create a better future. Some of the topics include The Cuban Missile Crisis, Hamilton’s Financial Plan, and The American Revolution. Each lesson includes innovative teaching strategies in order to encourage and inspire all students. Over 48 products included in this package! 

Ancient Civilization and World History Bundle

Sometimes, students have trouble understanding why the past is so important to learn about. Therefore, this $20 bundle will bring in creative ways to show students how current societies learn from ancient civilizations. To do this, students will learn about many topics, such as the Fall of Rome and different religions. As above, there is also an anti-racism focus in order to help foster supportive communities. The 34 activities all bring in creative teaching strategies to offer full engagement. 

Government Bundle

Due to the different branches and legal components, Government can be a really hard topic to understand. There is just so much to learn! Hence, this $20 bundle has 40+ activities that will break down complex topics in addition to an anti-racism focus. For instance, students will learn about presidents, the Constitution, and Supreme Court cases. Just like the above, all of the activities are high-quality and filled with current teaching methods. Over 31 products included in this package. 

When buying these bundles for only $20 each, tremendous stress will be lifted from your plate! Since multiple sellers came together to create these incredible bundles, they won’t be around for long. You can save hundreds of dollars and hours of time, but this is only offered from June 13th through June 20th at 11:59 PM. This is a one-time opportunity, so be sure not to miss out!

Happy teaching,

Exit-Slips/Ticket-Out-The-Door TEACHING STRATEGY

At the end of each lesson, do you often ask yourself if your students understood the lesson?  What ways and how often do you check for understanding? One of the most popular strategies for many teachers is Exit Slips or Tickets-Out-The-Door. This strategy is used to help students process the information and reflect on what they learned. They also incorporate writing and make quick formative assessments. 

Exit slip questions may fall into these specific categories:

1. Prompts that demonstrate knowledge of a topic. 

    *Ex. Write three things you learned from today's lesson. 

    *Ex. Explain one idea that you found the most interesting. 

2. Prompts that make students critically think about the lesson.

    *Ex. One idea I need clarified is...

    *Ex. One question I have about the topic is...

Other questions you may ask:

*What made learning easy for you today?

*What made learning difficult for you today?

*What do you still need to know before we move on?

*What did you learn today?

*What should our next step be?

How to use this strategy:

1. At the end of the lesson or a few minutes before class ends, ask students to respond to a prompt you created beforehand. 

2. Distribute small pieces of scratch paper or sticky notes, or have students complete a digital version if your classroom is paperless. Be sure they include their name. 

3. To exit the class or to be excused, students must turn in their Exit Slip. I usually stand by the door and quickly review each slip. I then place the papers in two piles; "they got it" or "they need more clarification."  If I see that many students did not understand the topic or have more questions, I spend a few minutes the next day to reteach. If students use a digital version, I give students a point from 1-5. One means they did not understand the lesson, Five means they understood the major concepts, and reteaching is unnecessary. 

If you are looking for some fun formative assessments, click HERE. 

I hope you found this post useful. Click HERE to grab over 70 teaching strategies for FREE! 

Happy Teaching, 

Teaching in Difficult Times

When a crisis happens and makes its way to our classroom, it's often difficult to know how to support our students. Below are some resources that can guide you in your classroom when news unfolds.

1. Allow your students to share their feelings. As a Psychology teacher, I know one of the worst things people can do when they have intense emotions is to hold those feelings in. After a challenging event,  give students time to simply share their feelings. You could start out with a writing prompt. For example, you may ask; 

What did you hear about what happened? 

What feelings do you have? 

What questions do you have? 

Then have students volunteer to share in small groups or hold a whole-class discussion. If you don't want to use class time to discuss the tragedy, you may want to invite them to email you personally or email their counselors. Students must be able to share their feelings with someone in some way. 

2. Reassure your students. Most likely, your students are scared and worried. Reassure your students that things will get better. And if they still have concerns, they are welcome to contact you, another teacher, administrator, or counselor. Remind them that they are safe. Here is a download from the American Red Cross that will help children of all ages deal with trauma.

3. Turn feelings into action. Often times after a crisis, students feel helpless. They may want to help, but they are unsure of the ways they can. Brainstorm with your class on ways they can support others during difficult times. Often focusing on others may help your students distract themselves from their own fear and worry. For example, after 911, my 12-year-old daughter and her friends decided to sell American flag pins and give the earnings to help support those families who lost loved ones in the tragedy. 

4. Help students become wise consumers of information. During difficult times, more than ever, our students should evaluate facts from fiction in the media. I always tell my students, "if you only learn one thing from my class, it is the ability to think critically". This Civics Education Resource Site has a variety of useful information to teach media literacy in your classroom. 

5. Consider how what is happening can relate to your course. Evaluate if the event can connect to the learning outcomes in your course of study. This can be a powerful way to integrate real-world events into your classroom. For example, you may consider comparing and contrasting the Covid-19 Pandemic of 2020 to the Spanish-Flu Pandemic of 1918. 

I would love to hear your ideas when teaching during a crisis. We can all learn from each other. 

Take care and be safe, 

DISTANCE LEARNING Teaching Strategies

Distance learning is no joke! I feel like I'm spending so much more time teaching online than I did in the classroom. Anyone else feel the same?

In this post, I wanted to share some of the distance learning strategies I currently use that might make your teacher-life a little easier.

1. Think of yourself more like a coach than a teacher. I'm sure we can all agree, online learning is much different than classroom learning. You are essentially having your student fly a plane while you are in the tower. It's up to you to help them land the plane.

2. Don't feel obligated to use Zoom or some other video conferencing app. with your students. In fact, it's much better to use video conferencing to help answer questions or clarify directions than it is to teach.

3. Consider screencast and record yourself giving direct instruction. You don't need to be live. I have also found many great videos on YouTube to replace my direct instruction. Students will also have the option to pause and rewind if necessary.

4. Have your students participate in online, class discussions. Here are a few ideas:

• In Google Classroom you can assign a "question" and select the option, "students can reply to each other"
• Create a Google "sheet". Be sure to change the share settings to "anyone can edit". Type a section for students to write their names and answer a question. This allows students to see responses from all the students in the class. 
• Use Zoom "Break-Out" rooms 
• Have students share the same Google Doc. 

5. If you use Google Classroom, instead of spending the time to open each student's assignment individually open all students' assignments at once. Simply open the assignment folder in your drive and you'll see all the assignments at once. Save a ton of time!

6. For your struggling students, you can differentiate instruction in several ways. 

• Insert sentence frames directly into only those students who need a little extra help. 
• Use Newsela.com to differentiate reading passages.
• To give a differentiated assignment to only a few students follow these directions: 
•  When creating an assignment in Google Classroom instead of selecting all students, select only those students you wish to give the assignment to. 

7. Use Google Calander to make appointments with individual students to help clarify instruction and answer specific questions.

8. Use GoFormative.com to insert questions into text. This will help assess student learning as they read instead of after they finish reading the entire passage. 

9. Use a lot of white space in online reading passages. Students learn 25%  slower than using a paper copy. Short paragraphs with a lot of white space will make it much easier for students to learn.

10. Be patient. Although most students are very familiar with technology, they may need a little extra time and patience to get used to learning from a distance!

The majority of my TpT resources are now digital. Go grab some freebies HERE to make distance learning even easier.

Happy Teaching!

Carousel Brainstorming Teaching Strategy

Carousel Brainstorming is a fun and engaging teaching strategy that will get your students moving

and talking. You can use this strategy in several ways; as an introduction, prediction, or reflection.

Students will be able to discuss in both small groups and as an entire class. 

Students begin by forming small groups and rotating with their group around the room, stopping at

each "station". They discuss the information required at the station and then post their ideas for the

next group to see. Below are the steps to implement this technique:

STEP 1: Identify a topic for which input is desired.

STEP 2: List one topic area or question per sheet of butcher paper. I often use groups of six and write a large number (1-6) on the paper as well.

STEP 3: Divide your students into groups and assign each group a number. 

STEP 4: Have those groups stand next to the poster that matched their assigned number.

STEP 5: Have students brainstorm ideas, writing them on sticky notes or the poster itself. I usually give my students 1-3 minutes. 

STEP 6: When the time is called have students rotate to the poster to their right. 

STEP 7: Students review the previous group's information while having a discussion. Then they add their ideas. This process continues until all groups have brainstormed at each poster. 

Ideas for the Social Studies Classroom:

In your U.S. History class, you could use it as a reflection at the end of a lesson to review Civil

Rights Leaders. Each station would be a specific person. Students would brainstorm their most

important contributions to the Civil Rights Movement. 

If you teach Civics/American government you could use it as an introduction to gain prior

knowledge about the Constitution. Topics could include:

Station 1. The Legislative Branch

Station 2. The Executive Branch

Station 3. The Judicial Branch

Station 4. The Bill of Rights

Station 5. The Amendments (11-27)

Station 6. The Creation of the Constitution

When teaching Psychology you could use this strategy to review for the final. Topics would include the units that were covered during the semester class. For example;

Station 1: What is Psychology?

Station 2: Consciousness

Station 3: Psychological Disorders

Station 4: Therapy

Station 5: Motivation and Emotion

Station 6: Personality 

In World History there are so many options. For example, when studying Imperialism each poster

could have a title with the different locations of imperialism and have students explain what they

learned about imperialism in each location. 

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Happy teaching!

Chalk Dust Diva

LINES OF COMMUNICATION Teaching Strategy

Lines of Communication teaching strategy is one of my favorites! It gets the students out of their seats and most importantly communicating with their classmates. Follow the easy instructions below to implement this fun activity into your classroom.

1. Have students get into two lines. Each student faces another student. You may want to consider having the students go outside since you will need a lot of space.
2. Next, have students discuss important ideas, debate a topic, or review the main ideas from a lesson.
3. Once both partners have shared, have one line move in the same direction to the next student and repeat the process. Below are some ideas I use in my classroom.

I have my Civics students debate the death penalty after they read this informational text.

Death Penalty

In my World History class, I have my students learn about the Enlightenment Philosophers and discuss the question: Which Philosopher was the most significant in the development of democracy and why?

Enlightenment Philosophers

In my U.S. History class, my students have a blast debating the question, "Who started the Cold War?" before or after they write a DBQ.

Who Started the Cold War?

And, in my Psychology class, my students discuss the different theories of Personality after completing this graphic organizer:

Theories of Personality

Check out my TpT store HERE for more fun ideas!

Happy Teaching,
Chalk Dust Diva